Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SOLESMES SOLESMES 495
Under Gu^ranger and Ms successors, Solesmes
became a centre for the study and execution of
plain-song, and was visited by many students
from all parts of Europe. In 1901, however,
owing to their non-oomplianoe with the new
Law of Associations, the monks were expelled
from Solesmes, and movedin a body to Appuldurcombe,
in the Isle of Wight, where they still
are; but in 1908 they propose to settle at
Quarr Abbey, near Ryde. Their printing-press
having been confiscated by the French Government,
the publication of their works is now
carried out by the firm of Desclee et Cie, Tournai,
Belgium. Their choir in the Isle of Wight is
the practical exponent of their method, and
they hold a Summer ' School,' in July and
August, for the benefit of those who wish to
study and hear plain-song.
The work of reform began under Dom Gueranger,
who, wishing to restore Gregorian music
to its earliest known fonn,^ engaged his colleagues
Dom Pothier and Dom Jausions((Z. 1870)
to examine and compare manuscripts, laying
down as a principle that where the manuscripts
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of different periods and different countries agree
in their version of a melody, it may be afBrmed
that the true Gregorian text has been discovered.
But it was of little use to discover the trae
text unless the proper method of its performance
could also be found. At that time Gregorian
music, following the traditions of Zarlino and
others, was sung in a slow, heavy, imacceiited,
and unrhythmical style, and accompanied on
the organ by a separate chord to each note.
This style was afterwards alluded to by the
Solesmes monks as the 'hammered,' 'marteU,'
style.
Gufranger and Pothier, on studying the
theoretical works of the 9th and 10th centuries,
found that plain-song had anciently a rhythm
peculiar to itself, differing in important particulars
from that of measured music. TTie first
result of this discovery was that Dom Gueranger
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was able to give the singing at Solesmes a
rhythm that no one had yet dreamed of,'^ and
from henceforth the chief aim of the musicians
of Solesmes was to perfect the rhythmical theory
as well as the musical readings.
In 1881 the first edition appeared of ' Les
Melodies gregoriennes, d'apres la tradition,' by
Dom Pothier, treating the whole theory of
plain -song from an entirely new point of view.
This important work has formed the basis of
all subsequent studies.
The investigations now went on more earnestly
than ever. Photography was called in to aid,
monks were sent to the principal libraries of
Europe to photograph codices,
1883 saw the publication
and the year
by Dom Pothier of
the Liber Gradualis a Gregorio ' Magno olim
. . . ordinatus, cum notis musicis restitutis in
nsum Congregationis Benedictinae Galliarum."
1 For the reason why the earliest form is preferable to that of
the time of Palestrina. aee Pi«mn-Song, vol. iii. p. 761.
2 Plain-Chant and Solesmea. Cagin and Mooquereau.
This was followed in 1891 by the Liber Antiphonarius
pro Vesperis et Completorio,' '
also
by Pothier, and in 1896 by the 'Liber Usualis
Missae et Oflicii,' by Mocquereau.
But others besides the monks of Solesmes
were now in the field, endeavouring to reform
the liturgical music. Chief among them was
Frederic Pustet of Ratisbon, who obtained from
Rus IX. a decree under which he was given, by
the Congi'egation of Sacred Rites, the sole right
for thirty years of republishing the celebrated
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Medicean ' edition, authorised by Paul V. in
1614. The same authority recognised Pustet's
publication as the official version of plain-song,
and recommended it for use in the whole of the
Roman Church. The privileges thus given were
confirmed by the next Pope, Leo XIII.
This version (known £is the 'Ratisbon' edition),
which also claims to be the tnie music of
Gregory, is founded on an entirely diffi-rent
principle from that of Solesmes. It is explained
thus in the Magister Ohoralis of Haberl (Ratisbon,
1893) : Since the 13th century a
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principle
has existed of improving the melodies
by cutting down their enormous length, which
arose, partly through a bad method of execution,
and partly through the mameruji of singers. . . .
The revision undertaken by the Congregation
of Sacred Rites by order of Pius IX. put the
foundation of the Roman Cliant on the system
followed since the Council of Trent.
The Solesmes view is that at the time the
Medicean edition was authorised, plain-song had
reached, not its highest development, but its
most decadent stage : that in the time of Palestrina,
who is supposed to have had a hand in
preparing the edition, the traditions of its
proper performance had been forgotten for
centuries ; and that its real apogee was immediately
after the time of Gregory the Great, when
it was collected and wi'itten down, and its
method of performance described by the theoretical
writers.
To support the trath of these views Dom
Andr^ Mocquereau (now Prior of the Abbey),
who brought exceptional musical training to
bear on the work, commenced in 1889 a quarterly
publication, entitled PaUographie musicale,
consisting of photographic facsimiles of Gregorian,
Ambrosian, Mozarabic, and Galilean
manuscripts, together with exhaustive discussions
of the various questions involved. The
melodies obtained through the comparative
study of many manuscripts on the principle laid
down by Gueranger, when sung by the Solesmes
chou- according to the method explained in the
PaUographie, proved to be of greater artistic
and aesthetic excellence than any other form
of plain-song.
Owing to the support given to the Ratisbon
edition, the monks did not at first obtain
recognition beyond their monastery and a few
similar establishments. Their labours were.