Credo #7

[Catholic777]

Anyone have a copy of Credo VII?? I know it's rare, but I saw a Graduale once that had it in the back.

Also, my Graduale has a supplement with a Credo "more Abrosiano" or something like that. What does that mean?

[PeteC]

Anyone have a copy of Credo VII?? I know it's rare, but I saw a Graduale once that had it in the back.

Also, my Graduale has a supplement with a Credo "more Abrosiano" or something like that. What does that mean?

more Ambrosiano- the Ambrosian tone. IIRC, they might have done in it in the Ambrosian Mass which is on Youtube- though if I remember correctly, Et incarnatus est was sung polyphonically.

[PeteC]

I found a recording of the Ambrosian Credo.

[MagisterMusicae]

Here is a jpeg of Credo VII.

It's not terribly interesting except for a nasty tritone at the very end.

[Catholic777]

Thanks! I've printed that off and can now feel that my Graduale is now sufficiently supplemented, in a certain sense.

I though tritones werent allowed in church music, especially chant.

Also, is there only ONE Ambrosian Credo?

Also, after the settings of the Ordinary, there are settings "Ad Libitum"...what are these? When are they used? And the Gloria "ad libitum" #4...also says "More Ambrosiano" under it, though it is not a supplement, but rather right in the text. Was this imported, as it were?

Also, when were the various Credos used. The different Mass settings are used for different types of feast and different times of year...but was the Credo setting purely up to the choice of the choir?

[MagisterMusicae]

Tritones aren't prohibited in sacred music ... in fact in the correct context as a consonance (not a disonance).

If you happen to have a keyboard around you can see this by playing the following notes in ascending order: D-F#-Bb, then E-Gb-C#. In each case the tritone stacked on a minor third or diminished fourth creates an interesting tension that can easily be resolved.

Since chant's system, however, is modal in nature and these intervals above are tonal, rarely was a tritone used in chant or organum, since it created a horribly out-of-tune sound. The whole reason for the introduction of a diminished "ti" in the hexachordal system of Guido d'Arezzo was to provide a way to avoid using the Fa-Ti jump by substituting Fa-Te.

As far as I know the Ambrosian chants do not have the variety that the Gallican (and now Roman) had.

The ad libitum chants are provided for use at the discression of the choir, there are no set rules for when these are acceptable. Since most people do not know these, however, it is often difficult to justify their usage.

In the Graduale it should be indicated that Credo I is the authentic tone. The others were all at one point variations and came into greater usage. Unlike the Kyriale, there is no set season prescribed for these tones. I tend to insist on varying the tones from time to time. Credo I, III and IV are the most well known. In a few weeks we are planning on singing Credo VI. Credo VI is simply a more ornamented version of Credo V.

[Catholic777]

The whole reason for the introduction of a diminished "ti" in the hexachordal system of Guido d'Arezzo was to provide a way to avoid using the Fa-Ti jump by substituting Fa-Te.

This is the B-flat, yes? The only accidental in chant?

[AgnusDei1989]

The ad libitum chants are provided for use at the discression of the choir, there are no set rules for when these are acceptable. Since most people do not know these, however, it is often difficult to justify their usage.

In the Graduale it should be indicated that Credo I is the authentic tone. The others were all at one point variations and came into greater usage. Unlike the Kyriale, there is no set season prescribed for these tones. I tend to insist on varying the tones from time to time. Credo I, III and IV are the most well known. In a few weeks we are planning on singing Credo VI. Credo VI is simply a more ornamented version of Credo V.

I love Credo Six, though we've never sung Five. One, Three, Four and Six are our regulars, as well as the more Ambrosiano for some feasts; Two is rarely used, though we have sung it.

As for the ad libitums, I guess you can use them so the choir doesn't get bored! I admit we don't use them (though I would love to, myself, as well as all the beautiful unusual Masses like Thirteen and Fourteen and Three.

Catholic777, yes, that's the B flat.

[MagisterMusicae]

The whole reason for the introduction of a diminished "ti" in the hexachordal system of Guido d'Arezzo was to provide a way to avoid using the Fa-Ti jump by substituting Fa-Te.

This is the B-flat, yes? The only accidental in chant?

If you consider C as "Do" then yes, "Te" is B-flat and "Ti" is B.

Fa-Ti is the Tritone.

An easy way to remember the various Intervals:

Minor 2nd: "Jaws"
Major 2nd: "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer"
Minor 3rd: "Greensleves"
Major 3rd: "Oh When the Saints Go Marching In"
Perfect 4th: "Here Comes the Bride"
Diminished 5th/Augmented 4th/Tritone: "Maria"
Perfect 5th: "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"
Minor 6th: "The Entertainer"
Major 6th: "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean"
Minor 7th: Theme from the orginal "Star Trek"
Major 7th: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (skip "where")
Octave: "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

[Catholic777]

An easy way to remember the various Intervals:

Yes, that's somewhat helpful, though my problem with this is more with identifying the interval between two notes on sight, especially when it requires a certain "calculation" given the half-steps that are thrown into the Western scale.

And especially when the position of the whole scale in chant can be shifted by the clef indicating a different "Do" (or, sometimes, "Fa") line. I can't do that automatically, it requires too much thinking for me. Friends who are into music have tried to explain to me how the current notation is "just as easy"...but, honestly, writing it just as a chromatic 12 tone all-half-step scale with no accidentals would make a lot more sense for me and be lot easier to my mind for sight reading. Or even just (at least with monophony) a list of "pre-calculated" intervals, like, "M4, m3, P4" or whatever.

I know there are..."things," for lack of a better word...that can be demonstrated or figured out musically using the major scale as the basis for notation, but I think for the common man...it's rather mystifying and arbitrary and inconsistent seeming. And people who are "in music" dont seem to understand that. To me, it is very intuitively confusing (no matter how much I know the theory behind it), that from a space to a line can be a whole step in one place but a half-step in another. That the same interval visually can represent different intervals audibly.

Of course, chant is a little bit different because it only has one accidental, so the "do-re-mi" scale is a bit easier to use without having to think too much about it...but...the fact that it can shift up and down on the lines somewhat cancels out the ease of that.