| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
312 CURIOSITIES OF MUSIC.
singing masters to convert the Gallican chant; and the pope appointed for that purpose Theodore and Benedict, two chanters of great learning and abilities, who had been instructed by St. Gregory himself; he likewise granted to him Antiphonaria, or choral-books of that saint, which he had himself written in Koman notes."
" Our lord the King, on his return to France, sent one of the two singers granted him by the Pope, to Metz, and the other to Soissons; commanding all the singing masters of his kingdom to correct their antiphonaria, and to conform in all respects to the Eoman manner of performing the church service."
" Thus were the French antiphonaria corrected, which had before been vitiated, interpolated, and abridged at the pleasure of every choir man, and all the chanters of France learned from the Komans that chant which they now call the French chant, which is entirely as the Koman except that the French do not execute the tremu-lus and vinnulas, the bound and staccato notes (collisibiles vel secabiles voces), with facility, and give a rather rude and throaty manner of singing. The best style of singing remained in Metz, and as superior as Rome is to Metz, so superior is Metz to the rest of France, in its school of singing."*
•Monachus Engolismensis (the monk of Angouleme), an anonymous writer of this era, in his Vita Carol Magni. quoted by J. J. Rousseau, in his Dictionnaire de Musique article "Chant," also by Crowest, Mus. Anecdotes, t. 2, p. 239; Fetis, v. 4, p. 279 ; Ambros, t. 2, p. 94, etc., etc. |
||