>        Does anyone know (or can anyone perceive from the recording)
>whether Peres's drones reflect the change in tetrachords strictly, or does
>he apply them willy-nilly? Is he using an established practice
>(Byzantine isons), or is he creating something entirely new, or is he
>adapting early rules on organum? For example, on the 'Old Roman Chant'
>recording, the start of the Introit (sorry can't remember the title) is
>with a prolonged oscillation between a note and the semitone above, which
>is quite striking in its contextual ambiguity (Are we on the final of the
>mode? What mode is this? etc.). Then the drone comes in a fifth below
>this, rationising the whole thing into a disappointingly 'mundane' dorian
>sonority. The fact that the drone is a fifth (or a minor sixth if you
>count the upper semitone) away makes me wonder how it reflects the
>tetrachord anyway...

In general, it seems so me that Peres is using a conservative version of
the received tradition of Byzantine ison-singing.  The tetrachords in
question refer to the finals of the modes ("baseis ton echon"), which
repeat conjunctly or disjunctly every time you ascend or descend four
pitches (the totally disjunct version of the Byzantine tonal system
("trochos" or "wheel") is essentially the system described by the
Enchiriadis treatises).  The drone remains on the final of the mode of the
phrase one is singing, even if the melody goes up to a minor sixth
(occasionally a brief minor seventh or octave).  If a musical phrase
clearly happens to shift to another mode (i.e. starts and ends one of the
other scale degrees) or a transposition at the upper fifth or fourth of the
original mode, the ison shifts.  The way to understand all this is to
ignore the modern staff (which is still rarely used for Byz. chant) and
octave scales, focussing instead on the sort of repeating sets of modal
finals described by the Enchiriadis treatises.

>[cut]
>        And speaking of Notre Dame organa, why does Peres insist on
>doubling the tenor line (like the drones in the Roman Chant) an octave
>beneath? Because it makes his great basso profundo singer sound
>Russian orthodox (with all the 'mystique' that conjurs up)???!

Why be so cynical and rigid?  As I said before, I think that post-Romantic
ideas of fidelity to the score just don't apply to these sorts of
repertories.  The living traditions of Eastern Christian chant, for
example, show great flexibility about octave doubling.  In Byz. chant, if
you have boys singing the melody or ison, they do it in their own octave.
Similarly, if you have low basses, they double the ison at the lower
octave.  Moreover, in Syrian chant, people will regularly double a chant
melody at the fifth as well.  None of these doublings will be notated.


Alexander Lingas




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