Cantus Planus
CantusPlanus@40: Reflections I – A New Logo
It is quite remarkable to think that Cantus Planus came into existence as a study group 40 years ago next year. Even contemplating that very first meeting in 1984 behind the Iron Curtain conjures up a world that seems so much further away than the span of four decades: no internet, no e-mail, no mobile phones, no budget airlines. Those pioneering members seeking to further chant research and foster scholarly collaboration were remarkably intrepid and their energy and organisational abilities have propelled the study group and its varied ventures – conferences, concerts, publications, collaborations, friendships – forwards for many years.
Then came COVID, lockdown and isolation which have affected scholars in manifold ways. As far as Cantus Planus was concerned, it was necessary to cancel the planned biennial conferences in 2020 and 2022 which means it will ultimately be six years since members have all met together in person as a group. In addition, there were sudden personnel changes during this period. Thus when I took over as Chair, things looked a little bleak, at least from my perspective. Browsing through the many volumes of proceedings of Cantus Planus conferences, my eyes repeatedly alighted on the logo of the study group: that sprig of pitches of a pes subbipunctis.
This neume almost seemed to echo in my ears as a sorry critique of the situation Cantus Planus found itself in; an adventurous, energetic launch leading upwards but then falling, in isolated clods, back down towards a sombre finalis.
A new logo could, I thought, begin to mark out a different trajectory for the study group. Moreover, at this time I began to look more closely at chant research going on around the world. There were new studies devoted to the intricacies of musical notation or the exploration of geographies and communities previously considered peripheral in scholarship. Research into chant fragments was experiencing a glorious boom, making dramatic discoveries of new sources; contributing to new understandings of broader trends within cultural history concerning the use and re-use of parchment; and undoing the biblioclastic designs of zealous scholars in the early 20th century. Finally, the digital humanities were going strong, whether in terms of new editing projects, the collation of vast amounts of data on new searchable engines, the possibilities of neume recognition software, the development of tools for melodic analysis, or – perhaps most significantly – the collaborative work bringing these projects together, as in the inimitable Cantus Index. Two things particularly struck me on surveying all these activities: first, they were inherently dynamic and, second, many relied on joined-up collaboration across borders and languages.
These two aspects, dynamism and connection, thus sparked some initial ideas about a new logo. But it was also crucial for me to retain elements from the old. In the first instance, this would entail using some form of neume, and not just any neume. The beauty of the pes subbipunctis was, of course, that its four individual pitches corresponded to the four individual syllables of ‘can-tus pla-nus’. What was being retained, therefore, was not merely a peculiar neume but also an historiographical toolkit for examining neumes which Wulf Arlt once described in terms of ‘Anschaulichkeit’ and ‘Analysierbarkeit’. Individual neume signs in the Latin Middle Ages, according to Arlt, immediately catch the eye by representing not only the respective number of pitches, but also their general melodic movement. This was, essentially, the ‘iconic’ aspect of neumes developed by Leo Treitler and Andreas Haug has recently stressed the importance of semiotically suffusing the visual mechanics of parsing Latin neumes (‘anschaulich’) with a ‘symbolic’ approach arising from their use in space. In this way, neumes are set out not only as ‘script’ but also as ‘picture’ or ‘image’ (another long word, this time from Sybille Krämer: ‘Schriftbildlichkeit’). The significance of a cognitive and metaphoric understanding of space behind the copying of neumes has, finally, been underlined by Susan Rankin in the hope that this aspect, rather than learning the names of individual signs across modern tables of neume families, may assume more weight in chant studies.
The ironic, rather than iconic, point is that symbolic inferences can shift in their suggestiveness over time. This leads back to my original hope of finding a neume-logo that might somehow feel more dynamic. Of course, over a thousand years after Carolingian scribes were wrestling with writing neumes, Carolyn Davidson came up with the tick-like Nike ‘swoosh’. In this case, graphic space was being used to reference the sporting (although the sign itself was, apparently, meant to represent the wings of the goddess, Nike). But that bend backwards, that resupine reflex of notators’ hands was undoubtedly already present in the ninth century – as well as in the expectant vocal chords of Carolingian singers.
Thus the neume of choice ended up being a torculus resupinus. It is connected and boasts four pitches; it flies up at the end and points onwards (and some of the notators who copied it, such as the notator of Roma, Biblioteca Angelica, ms 123, really let rip). It occurs, for example, at the very beginning of Alleluia V. Iustus ut palma, performed here by Ensemble Gilles Binchois. Having found the apposite neume, it was now just a matter of fitting in the name of the study group ‘Cantus Planus’ and any other additional text. In addition, if the logo was going to be dynamic, it was probably best not to hark back to faux medieval fonts and colours, trying to imitate the scripts and feel of a medieval manuscript. Combining all this easily surpassed my paltry skills in design and production, so I decided to locate a specialist graphic designer. Since so much of the energy of Cantus Planus originally came from Hungary, I looked there first and found Péter Vasvári whose fresh, clear and smart designs I found particularly attractive.
It was, most probably, a graphic designer’s worst nightmare to be bombarded with notes from an academic, but our conversations and collaboration worked very well. Finding an appropriate font turned out to be a relatively simple task; sleek, elegant and modern. There would be no point in over-complicating the text by having a different font for ‘cantus’ and ‘planus’ as this could be solved by placing ‘planus’ in bold, thereby showing the strong grounding of the particular vocal repertory at the centre of the study group’s research. My original idea of superimposing the text over the neume was a non-starter for the obvious reason, once explained to me, that it could cause problems in monochrome versions of the logo. But what could connect the performative of the ‘cantus’ to the substance of the ‘planus’, the elegant to the grounded? Of course, it was the torculus resupinus, thus placing connection at the heart of our endeavours as a study group.
This was the background to the design of the new Cantus Planus logo. It may intrigue or even inspire, or else it might all seem a bit unsatisfying or disappointing. Of course, there would have been many other types of musical signs deployed for chant that could have been used, not least Byzantine, Slavonic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopian or even Japanese (all covered in our study group). Ultimately, therefore, the logo acts as an invitation to discuss both the materials of our work and how we come together to do it; to find those signs and symbols that can express both dynamism and connection.
Jeremy Llewellyn
3.xii.2023
Bibliography:
Wulf Arlt, ‘Anschaulichkeit und analytischer Charakter. Kriterien der Beschreibung und Analyse früher Neumenschriften’ in Musicologie médiévale. Notations et séquences: actes de la table ronde du C.N.R.S. …, 6-7 sept. 1982 (Paris: Champion, 1987), 29-55
Leo Treitler, ‘The Early History of Music Writing in the West’ in Journal of the American Musicological Society 35/2 (1982), 237-279
Andreas Haug, ‘Terminologie und Theorie des Notierens im neunten Jahrhundert. Mit acht Exkursen zur Entwicklung der Neumenzeichen’ in Rem tene, verba sequentur : die lateinische Musikterminologie des Mittelalters bis zum Ausgang des 15. Jahrhunderts : Symposiumsbericht : Symposion anlässlich des Abschlusses der Arbeit am Akademienprojekt “Lexicon musicum Latinum medii aevi”, München, 15. und 16. Dezember 2016 hrsg. von Ulrich Konrad (München: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2019), 72-99
Susan Rankin, Writing Sounds in Carolingian Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018)
Is musicology ‘broken’? A response to Daniel K. L. Chua on ‘Global Musicology’ (2022)
In a recent article published in Acta Musicologica, Daniel K. L. Chua – the current president of the IMS – noted, more in sorrow than in anger, that musicology is ‘broken’ (117). As Chair of an IMS study group, it would be unthinking simply to put on the blinkers and sonically ignore this cri de coeur from the head of our organisation; thus I offer these brief, tentative thoughts.
Chua is, of course, subtle in describing the ways in which this brokenness in musicology is perceptible at different levels. For him, it has much to do with the fragmentation of the subject with its ‘sub-fields’ and ‘sub-disciplines’. This leads, on a basic level, to competition for positions and funding. On another, however, it shows up the ‘major epistemological and ontological inadequacies behind our methods’ (117). A global musicology focusing on the ‘interconnectivity’ of musical practices, traditions and phenomena across the globe could be a way, in turn, of connecting the variegated approaches to the subject today. Crucial to this venture, according to Chua, will be a ‘hermeneutics of charity’ (123) as a global and globalized community of musicologists learns to be more indiscriminate, risks asking larger questions, and slides into greater interconnectivity by, for example, seeking to work more in groups, rather than alone.
It is an exciting and inspiring prospectus and offers, perhaps, a ‘broad future’ as an escape from the seeming claustrophobia – and, even, cultural pessimism – of the ‘broad present’ (Gumbrecht). Naturally, there are any number of points that could be made, as is always the case with a keynote lecture (or ‘keyring’, as Chua describes it). I shall focus here on only one: musicology is not alone. The tidal forces pulling at musicology are part of a larger ‘global turn’ affecting the Humanities as a whole. There is no need here, at least, for musicological exceptionalism. The intriguing question, therefore, concerning a putative ontology is how a ‘global musicology’ may differ from, for example, a ‘global history’.
Global history has strongly established itself over the past decade in dedicated monographs, handbooks and journal issues. It is, arguably, further along than its musicological counterpart, even with Reinhard Strohm’s Balzan and successor projects. And because global history is further ahead, it has perhaps already surveyed some of the problems and, yes, criticisms that arise when seeking to expand the scale of a discipline. Most importantly for Chua’s argument, history has had to grapple with the dilemma that interconnectivity is not always ubiquitous: there are moments in history where localities are not bound to each other in any way, either by natural or human means, such as barriers and borders. The most obvious border is language, both in primary and secondary literature. In other words, global history takes a lack-of-interconnectivity seriously and has sought innovative, methodological solutions. These include focusing instead on comparison: if two situations are not entangled, how might comparison shed light on the presumed uniqueness of either? This may carry the scent of ‘vergleichende Musikwissenschaft’ which Stokes has criticised. But in this case, comparison can be set up in heuristic ways, almost like a traveller moving from one to another (Speer/Wirmer). Alternatively, new scientific techniques such as palynology, photogrammetry or genomic sequencing can yield information where other sources are scarce. Indeed, historians have gently warned about dangers of privileging interconnectivity. Whittow states that attention can become focused on ‘historiographical hot spots’ where sources are in abundance and de Vries points out the figure of the UCI (‘unusually cosmopolitan individual’) who is similarly alluring. Where there does seem to be a goodly overlap between global history and global musicology – and, indeed, postcolonial studies – is that the writing of history is no longer about teleological progress.
One area of musicological research that seems ripe for global methodologies is sacred song or chant which forms the basis of the IMS study group, Cantus Planus. In particular, this concerns the relationship between the so-called Western and Eastern churches which reaches back in time through centuries and is still very much a live issue today. In many ways, this is unsurprising: research on comparative liturgy has a long and illustrious history. Indeed, regional interconnectivity across languages and cultures did not begin with the globalization of the early modern period. Moreover, much work has been done on the possible interconnections between Western and Eastern chant repertories, whether in terms of provenance and chronological priority – e.g. the adopting of Greek forms, either in Greek or translated into Latin in the West – or else with respect to the writing down of musical notation and the concept of a ‘universale Neumenkunde’ (Floros) or ‘universal guide to neumes’. Of course, one of the earliest entanglements of extant music theory in the Latin West was the use of technical terms in Greek.
Yet when seeking to imagine ways in which global musicology may differ from, for example, global history it could well be that music offers a readier means of negotiating linguistic barriers. This comes, of course, with all the usual caveats about musical misunderstanding and misappropriation. Nevertheless, the performative may provide one way in which interconnective and comparative approaches between Western and Eastern traditions could be explored. This may appear, from a historiographical perspective, a form of philological patricide, but does Chua not encourage and espouse risk-taking? Such risks, which will also include a cultural approach to the ritual performance of Greekness in the Latin West, will form part of the broader discussions at – where else? – the quinquennial meeting of the IMS this August in Athens.
Jeremy Llewellyn
14.vi.2022
Bibliography:
Constantin Floros, & Neil K. Moran, The Origins of Western Notation, Revised and Translated by Neil Moran. With a Report on ‘The Reception of the Universale Neumenkunde, 1970-2010’, (Frankfurt Am Main Wien [u.a.]: Lang, 2011)
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Our Broad Present: Time and Contemporary Culture (New York: Columbia UP, 2014)
Andreas Speer & David Wirmer, 1308: Eine Topographie Historischer Gleichzeitigkeit (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010) = Miscellanea Mediaevalia, Bd. 35
Martin Stokes, ‘Notes and Queries on “Global Music History”’ in Reinhard Strohm (ed.), Studies on a Global History of Music (London: Routledge, 2018), 3-17
Jan de Vries, ‘Playing with Scales: The Global and the Micro, the Macro and the Nano’, Past & Present 242, Supplement 14 (2019), 23-36, here, 28-29
Mark Whittow, ‘Sources of Knowledge; Cultures of Recording’, in Past & Present 238 (2018), 45-87, here, 48
Digital Research Forum, 28th July 2021 – Chair’s Address
Dear Colleagues, Dear Friends,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this first ever Research Forum for Cantus Planus and also a great privilege to address the following brief comments to you all.
The Latin term ‘transitus’ – or ‘transition’ in English – is one which researchers of Cantus Planus should not fear in any way whatsoever. It appears, after all, within early writings on music and chant dating from the ninth century. In the Alia musica, the author writes about the ‘fraterna concordia’ – or ‘fraternal concord’ – between the authentic and plagal forms of a mode. But he goes on to note that the ‘hypodorian transitions into the Dorian if it exceeds its octave.’[1] The transition in this case is music-analytical and involves going beyond a boundary or a border: thus if the lowest pitch of the plagal Dorian is A, then anything above the A an octave higher would be considered authentic. There is a sense here, too, of the voice opening up as part of an embodied experience of performing chant.
A more involved engagement with the term ‘transitus’ can be found in the writings of the Carolingian scholar, Remigius of Auxerre, who lived and worked towards the end of the ninth century in northern Francia. In his commentary on Martianus Capella, he was confronted by a particularly striking definition of the ‘transitus’ in music:
‘Transitus est alienatio vocis in alteram figuram soni’
(‘A transition is the alienation of the voice within another model of sound’)
In this case, ‘transition’ goes beyond merely exceeding a boundary to the almost migratory sense of being somewhere else, of not belonging, of being alien. There follow four ways in which a ‘transitus’ occurs musically, each of which Remigius lightly glosses. First, there can be a change in genus from the enharmonic to the chromatic to the diatonic. Second, a transition can occur within the systema or the Greek tone system, known most typically from Boethius. Third, mode can be the site for the shifting of the voice. Fourth and finally, the modulation of the melody can be transformed which means both melodic gesture and affect. In this last case, Remigius gladly reaches for descriptors to gloss Martianus’ example of a ‘cantilena virilis’ – or ‘masculine melody’ – changing into a feminine one; the masculine is described as ‘robust and martial’, the feminine ‘graceful’.
To sum up: researchers of cantus planus have multiple ways of engaging with ‘transitus’. It could be a matter of historically-informed music analysis combined with an investigation of medieval chant manuscripts, such as tonaries. This could embrace reconstructions in performance. Or else, the materials and methods of philology could come to the fore in discerning moments of cultural exchange, for example with Greek traditions or those further afield. Questions concerning the construction of identity within music comprise another approach. And finally, music theory, possibly incorporating digital tools of corpus analysis, provides another framework. These approaches – global, digital, performative – adumbrate the work of the study group, cantus planus. Moreover, when seeking to gloss ‘transitus’ Remigius reaches, notably, for the word ‘commutatio’: sound is commuted to sound. Mutability and mutuality go hand-in-hand.
For we are clearly living in an age of ‘transitus’, of transition. The global pandemic has meant very different ways of working for researchers, and for society in general. It comes on the back of tectonic shifts in society concerning racial and gender justice. This inaugural Research Forum is, therefore, one way in which our study group, cantus planus, is responding imaginatively to the changing situation, exploring innovative ways of presenting new research and communicating with each other which form the basis of study groups of the International Musicological Society to which we have been affiliated for over thirty years.
Such innovations require initiative and I should particularly like to thank Dr Hana Vlhovà-Wörner of the Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, for her indefatigable efforts for this Research Forum and for the planned cantus planus meeting in Telc in 2020, which sadly had to be cancelled. Thank you, Hana, and your team, especially Jan Hajič. In the spirit of mutuality in our study group, I should also like to express my gratitude to the cantus planus Advisory Board members and Past Chairs with whom I have had the opportunity to speak about transitions and much else besides in the past few weeks. We have taken stock of the current situation, assessed possibilities and identified priorities for the short- and medium-term future of cantus planus. These include refreshing our website, updating our statutes and mission statements, re-establishing a newsletter with details of new publications, projects and job openings; and setting up a collège of senior experts in the field for support in research and mentoring younger colleagues. In addition, I can announce that a round table session for cantus planus as a study group has been secured at the IMS meeting in Athens in August 2022 and I heartily encourage members on top of this to submit individual proposals before 31st July, i.e. this coming Saturday. We are also aiming for social events at the IMS Athens and a General Business Meeting of the membership – the first in person for several years.
This is the work of transition that is currently going on – but we need your help with ideas. First and foremost, please keep us up-to-date with your e-mail addresses and contact details: simply send me a message and I shall add the details to our secure database. Second, do let us know your views about the possibility of a publication bringing together research from the Dublin and Växjo meetings or, indeed, from shorter Free Papers which may have arisen from research during lockdown. Finally, feel free today to send me keywords or key priorities in the chat function which you feel are important for cantus planus and I shall incorporate them into our discussions.
Finally, I should like to extend a heartfelt vote of thanks to our previous Chair, Prof. James Borders, for all he did for our study group; as you know he has had to step down for personal reasons and we wish him well for the future. I remember as a young, green scholar setting out on doctoral studies reading Jim’s own dissertation and it is fitting, with his Italophilic interests, that his last great service was the production of the Venice proceedings. We have all greatly benefited from his intellectual, institutional, and personal generosity and loyalty.
It is now with great pleasure that we can transition into the main material of our Research Forum today: the work of our members. I kindly reiterate that papers should not go over five minutes so that we can make the most of all of us being present today.
Thank you.
[1] ‘Nam hypodorius in dorium transit si suam diapason excesserit’ from https://chmtl.indiana.edu/tml/9th-11th/ALIAMU.
Jeremy Llewellyn (University of Vienna)