Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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SOL-FA SOLFEGGIO 497
notation, as nearly as its rhythm can be expressed,
free rhytlim not admitting the exact
relation implied by crotchets and q^uavers.
The following is a list of the more important
works connected with plain-song published by
the monks of Solesmcs. The dates are those
of the latest editions.
1881. Les Mfilodies grifgoriemies d'aprds la TradiMon. Pothier.
1883. Liber OradUHlis. Pothier.
1S89. The Paldographie luusicale waA comiaenced by Doin Mocquereau,
who hae acted as editor and chief coutributor. Tip to the
preseut it has published ;
Vol. I. Aiitiphonale miasarum Sancti Oregorii. 10th ceutury.
St. Gall Library, Codex 339.
Vol. II. and III. The Gradual 'Justus ut palina,' reproduced
from over 200 MSS.
Vol. IV. Antiphouale miaaarum Saucti Gregorii. lOth-llth
century. Library of Binsiedelu, Codex 121.
Vol. V. and VI. The earliest known Ambrosian Antiphooary.
12th century. British Museum, Codex Add. ItiSS. 34, 209.
Vol. VII. and VIII. Antiphonarimu Tonale Missarum. 11th
century. Library of the School of Medicine, Moutpellier, Codex
H. lo9. This MS.bas alphabetical notation above the neumea.
Vol. IX. Monastic Antiphonary. 12th century. Capitular
Library of Lucca, Codex 601, (In progress.)
In addition to the above, there is a second series of the Pal^ographie
musicale, not published at definite intervals. The only
volume that has appeared ns yet contains the Monastic Antiphonary
of Hartker. 10th century.
1889. Origine et d6veloppement de la Notation neumatique.
Mocquereau.
1893. Questions Gr^goriennes. Mocquereau.
1897. Liber AntiphoDariuspro Vespcris etCompletoiio, Pothier,
Libri Antiphouarli pro diumis horifi. Pothier.
1900. Chants des Offices. Mocquereau.
1902. Manual de la Mease. French and Latin. Mocquereau.
1903. Liber Usuajia Missae et Officiis. Mocquereau.
1906. Liber Usualis Missae et Officiis. Mocquereau,
1907. Kyriale, sen Ordinarimn missae cum cantu gregoriaoo, ad
exemplar editionis Vaticanae, concinnatum et rhythmicis slgnia
a Solsmensibue monachis diligenter omatum,
19,y7. In the Press. M6thode complete de Chant gr^orien.
Mociiuerean. C F A W
SOL-FA. 'To sol-fa' is to sing a passage
or a piece of vocal music, giving to the notes,
not the words, but the syllables, Do (C), Re
(D), Mi (E), Fa (F), Sol (G), La (A), Si (B),
Do (C). AVhy the two syllables Sol and Fa
should have been chosen to designate this
process in preference to Do Re, or Re Mi, does
not appear. For the Tonic Sol-fa system, see
Tonic Sol-fa.
In a hymn written by An-igo Boito and
composed by Mancinelli, for the opening of the
monument of Guido d'Arezzo at Rome, the
seven syllables (see Sol) are thus employed :
Util di Guido regola supema
JWisuratrice facile de' suoni
Sotenne or tu Zaude a te stes.sa intuoni,
StUaba eterna.
The roll or stick with which the conductors
of church choirs in Italy beat the time is called
the Solfa. G.
SOLFEGGIO, E G0R6HEGGI0. Solfeggio
is a musical exercise for the voice upon the
syllables XJt (or Do), Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La,
forming the Guidonian Hexachord, to which
was added later the syllable Si upon the seventh
or leading-note, the whole corresponding to the
notes 0, D, E, F, G, A, B of the modern Diatonic
scale. These names may be considered the
result of an accident ingeniously turned to
account, the first six being the first syllables
of half lines in the first verse of a, hymn for
the festival of St. John Baptist, occurring upon
the successive notes of the rising scale, ivith a
seventh syllable perhaps formed of the initial
VOL. IV
letters of Sancte Johannes. [See Sol, Solmisa-
TION.]
The first use of these syllables is ascribed to
Guido d'Arezzo as an artificial aid to pupils ' of
slow comprehension in learning to read music,'
and not as possessing any special virtue in the
matter of voice-cultivation ; but it is by no
means clear that he was the first to use them.
At any rate they came into use somewhere
about his time. It is probable that even in
Guide's day (if voice-cultivation was carried to
any grade of perfection—^which is hardly likely
in an age when nearly aU the music was choral,
and the capacities of the voice for individual
expression were scarcely recognised), as soon as
the notes had been learned, the use of syllables
was, as it has been later, superseded by vocalisation,
or singing upon a vowel. The syllables
may be considered, therefore, only in their
capacity as names of notes. Dr. Crotch, in
his treatise on Harmony, uses them for this
pm-pose in the major key, on the basis of the
movable Do, underlining them thus, Do, etc,
for the notes of the relative minor scales, and
gives them as alternative with the theoretical
names—Tonic, or Do ; Mediant, or Mi ; Dominant,
or Sol, etc. The continued use of the
syllables, if the Do were fixed, would accustom
the student to a certain vowel on a certain
note only, and would not tend to facilitate
pronunciation throughout the scale. If the Do
were movable, though different vowels would
be used on different parts of the voice, there
would still be the mechanical succession through
the transposed scale ; and true reading—whicli
Hullah aptly calls ' seeing with the ear and
hearing with the eye,' that is to say, the mental
identification of a certain sound with a certain
sign—would not be taught thereby. Those
who possess a natural musical disposition do
not require the help of the syllables ; and as
pronunciation would not be eflectually taught
by them, especially after one of the most
difiicult and unsatisfactory vowels had been
removed, by the change of Ut to Do, and as
they do not contain all the consonants, and as,
moreover, voice-cultivation is much more readily
carried out by perfecting vowels before using
consonants at all, — it was but natural that
vocalisation should have been adopted as the
best means of removing inequalities in the voice
and difficulties in its management. Crescentin i,
one of the Isist male soprani, and a singingmaster
of great celebrity, says, in the preface
to his vocal exercises, 'Gli esercizj sono stati
da me imaginati per 1' uso del vocalizzo, cosa la
pill necessaria per perfezionarsi nel canto dopo
lo studio fatto de' solfeggi, o sia, nomenclatura
delle note
—
' I have intended these exercises
for vocalisation, which is the most necessary
exercise for attaining perfection in singing,
after going through the study of the sol-fa, or
nomenclature of the notes.' Sometimes a kind
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