[smufl-discuss] Re: New glyph proposal: Gothic g clef

[Grzegorz Rolek]

Hello,

You forgot to mention your name.

For your proposal, the problem with clefs in chant notation is that back in the 11th century, when the staff notation started to appear, there weren’t any ‘standard’ clefs marking the pitches. Quoting D. Hiley, Western Plainchant, p. 389:

> Practice with clefs also varied. Some sources diligently place a letter against every line. F and c are by far the most common, sometimes high g is found. Much rarer is a gamma-clef for the lowest G. English manuscripts use D and b flat clefs more frequently then their continental neighbours, and even b natural is used as a clef.

Pitches of F and c were being marked by Guido of Arezzo himself, probably because of their utility. Still after Hiley:

> Stave-lines were scratched onto the parchment with a dry stylus, the F-line was coloured red and the c-line yellow. Guido’s choice of F and c as the principle pitches to be identified is understandable, for these mark the upper note of a semitone step.

So, theoretically, we should have all the pitch-letters available for this purpose; the question is where do we draw the line.

In the time of incunabula, that is, second half of the 15th century, the F and c clefs where de facto standard ones, with a single, apparent exception: a printer named Ratdolt who worked in Augsburg used the clef g along with the Hufnagel, or Gothic, notation (I give it after Kathi Meyer-Baer’s Liturgical Music Incunabula). It’s a typical ‘gothic’ letter g, just as one would expect, and not much different than the one you’ve showed us.

That said, I’ll leave to Daniel the decision what to do with the proposal.

By the way, this reminds me that the section that currently holds the plainchant notation should probably be renamed, or at least contain an indication, that this is the ‘Roman square notation’ or something along these lines, as opposed to Gothic or other lesser known local styles, or even chironomic neumes. In fact, the so-called Roman forms were originally northern French, or Parisian — not strictly ‘square’ and not strictly ‘Roman’. But at the time when those things were decided and stabilised, it was Paris that had the greatest influence on musical matters, so it’s local style spread across Europe. Moreover, what we now see in modern editions of liturgical books was prepared by monks of Solesmes, north France, who reached for their own local style while restoring the medieval plainchant notation in the 19th century. ‘Roman’ is a pretty standard term in a general scheme of things, though, and should be good enough.

Regards,
Grzegorz Rolek


On 23 Jul 2015, at 12:57, SirPL <[hidden email]> wrote:

> I had access to Roman Missal in german language. Publisher of this publication used notation that I've seen for the first time. It's two-lined gregorian chant with square notes and odd /g/ clef.



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