On 1 Dec 98, at 14:36, Peter Wilton wrote:
> This could be quite a complicated question I think. Some chants have a
> plethora of "fast" signs, e.g. the Holy Week Tracts. The voice presumably
> moves quite fast. But it might be best seen as a highly ornamented
> text-declamation. So the question then is: what is being considered to
> move quickly or slowly, the "notes" or the text? So it may not be
> appropriate to consider it a "fast" piece in Holy Week. But equally it
> might make the chant on the whole a "fast" piece, rather than just "some
> neumes".
The term used with respect to a chant as a whole is "morositas"
(9th/10th c.). We had this some mails before: there is no difference
between notes and text (Treitler called the neumes an extension of
the text) or, respectively, fast singing or fast speaking. To make
(coming back to celeriter) things worse: does "celeriter" mean 'sing
fast' or does it mean 'considered that at this point usually the
mistake occurs that the chant is slowed down instead of singing
equal "notes" you must be aware to sing in the correct tempo'? In
other wors: is it sufficent to simply translate the litterae
significativae or should we ask for their special meaning in a given
context? This aside, we really cannot know what 'fast' and 'slow'
was. (But, admittedly, that's another question.)
Michael Walter
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