"Por uma reconstruo computacional do canto

mozrabe"
Palestra de Geert Maessen, transmitida em tempo real para o
Encontro de Canto Gregoriano do Schola Cantorum de Braslia,
3/12/2016
Traduo de Dr Zoltan Paulinyi.
Vdeo 1: Hodie in Jordane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOYUtOkRvQQ
Boa tarde. Meu nome Geert Maessen. Moro em Amsterdam, Holanda. Estudei
arquitetura e filosofia; especializei-me em canto. Agradeo Zoltan Paulinyi pelo
convite. uma honra conversar com vocs em tempo real em Braslia sobre meu
assunto predileto: canto mozrabe, o ramo sudoeste do canto medieval, msica latina
litrgica da Europa. Primeiro, falarei um pouco sobre mim; depois, esboarei como eu
descobri o canto mozrabe. Por ltimo, eu lhes contarei sobre meus desafios e sobre a
publicao do ofcio de So Martinho.
Para entender meu interesse em Canto Gregoriano, importante saber que eu tenho
um defeito de viso congnito: acromatopsia (viso preto e branco, com gradaes de
cinza). Como consequncia, vejo apenas 10% do que uma pessoa normal v. Uma
placa lida por um motorista a 25 metros de distncia, eu posso enxerg-la a 2,5 metros.
Outra consequncia: sou hipersensvel luz: geralmente preciso usar culos muito
escuros durante o dia. Coincidentemente, meu trabalho dirigido a pessoas com
deficincias visuais, o que se relaciona mais com meu interesse em notao musical
do que com minha deficincia visual: eu transcrevo partituras para notao Braille a
pedido de msicos cegos.
Em minha juventude, eu escutava a msica de J. S. Bach, que me impressionava a
ponto de eu querer estudar violino. Contudo, o problema de ler partituras se agravava:
eu s podia l-las prximas a meus olhos, no sobrando espao para mexer o arco. Eu
no encontrava soluo para ler e movimentar o arco simultaneamente. O melhor era
decorar a parte para toc-la. Isto novamente inverter as coisas: a melhor maneira de
aprender a ler msica toc-la da partitura. Assim, decidi escolher outro instrumento,
um que minimizasse as complicaes de leitura e produo musical em simultneo: o
canto.
Naquela poca, eu estudava arquitetura e ficara fascinado por uma teoria do monge
Hans van der Laan. Visitei o mosteiro que ele construiu baseado em sua teoria, perto
de Aachen. Todo seu projeto neste mosteiro beneditino se alinhava com a teoria: o
tamanho dos espaos, a proporo das moblias para os espaos, as prprias moblias,

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vestbulo, cozinha e at o cemitrio no jardim onde Van der Laan est enterrado desde
1991. Mais do que pelo trabalho de Van der Laan, impressionou-me o canto dos
monges. Diariamente, eles cantam por cerca de 4 horas. A maior parte destas horas
consistia na recitao dos salmos. Semanalmente, todos os 150 salmos eram recitados
na ordem estabelecida por So Bento desde o sculo VI em sua Regra. Eu fiquei
particularmente impressionado pela recitao desses salmos. A partitura musical para
isso o mais simples que se pode imaginar: essencialmente uma nota, evidentemente
a qual no estava escrita. Algo completamente diferente da msica de Bach. Quase
todos os cantos com uma natureza mais complexa pareciam surgir dessa recitao.
Quanto mais festivo, mais complexo; porm, mais raro. Alm dos salmos, centenas de
cantos muito diferentes eram cantados em lugares especficos do calendrio;
inicialmente, somente os mais raros eram escritos.
Cantar o canto gregoriano parecia, portanto, um caminho natural para familiarizar-me
com a leitura musical. Por isso, entrei num coral gregoriano. Em virtude do entusiasmo
do diretor Wim van Gerven, continuei a cantar l enquanto o violino ficava de lado.
Naquela poca, eu estudava filosofia, onde o canto gregoriano se tornou assunto
principal. O canto, e particularmente o contexto no qual surgiu, foi-me to importante
que parecia dar-me respostas a questes no mais relevantes na cincia e filosofia;
questes do tipo "Qual o sentido da vida?" "Por que estamos neste mundo?"
A resposta do canto para estas questes foi muito prtica e efetiva: o sentido da vida
consiste em viver em harmonia com o universo. A vida de orao e trabalho, como
descrito na regra monstica, apresenta claramente tal harmonia. Todas as centenas de
cantos tinham um lugar nico em 3 ciclos principais; aqueles do dia, da semana e do
ano. Pela manh, os cantos diferiam dos da tarde ou da noite. Os cantos de domingo
eram diferentes dos feriais. Os de sexta-feira eram diferentes dos de quarta-feira.
Ademais, os dias do ano litrgico tinha cantos diversos para festas relacionadas
Pscoa (o incio da primavera no hemisfrio norte), como tambm para festas do
calendrio dos santos. Aps cantar tais cnticos semanalmente durante 3 anos, eu
reconheci o benefcio desta harmonia, na qual voc pode escutar, pelos cantos, em qual
estao voc est, qual dia da semana e qual hora do dia era. O canto constitua um lar
no universo, sendo a melhor resposta filosfica a questes aparentemente sem sentido
no mundo moderno.
Logo aps o xodo das igrejas nos anos 60, e especialmente aps a publicao do
Gradual Trplex em 1979, a prtica do canto gregoriano na Europa intensificou-se. O
estudo dos mais antigos manuscritos do sculo X revelaram que o repertrio devia soar
muito diferente do que nos se tornou familiar desde o sculo XIX. O diretor do meu
coro foi pioneiro neste campo nos Pases Baixos. Ele estudou tais manuscritos antigos,
restaurou suas melodias, e os experimentos com seu coral resultaram em uma nova
maneira de apresentao: mais parecido com tradies vocais de outras religies, tais
como hindusmo, judasmo e islamismo.
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Eu continuei esta abordagem, observando as mais antigas fontes e escutando outras

tradies. Fazendo isso, em 1996, eu desenvolvi uma nova notao para o canto: o
Fluxus. Neste formato, os cantos mais antigos foram transcritos sobre linhas. A
notao paleogrfica ilegvel para ns sem apoio dos manuscritos antigos. Com
Fluxus, a notao antiga torna-se legvel ao preservar informaes perdidas nas
notaes antigas. A notao Fluxus tornou possvel para mim e para meu grupo ser
mais fiel s indicaes das fontes antigas, de um modo bastante sugestivo. Portanto,
nosso canto soava cada vez mais prximo s tradies orientais.
Video 2: Lapidem quem reprobaverunt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGNqq2ds3Yc
Comeamos procurando por repertrio em manuscritos antigos ausentes em edies
modernas. Descobrimos que foram desaparecendo gradualmente dos manuscritos do
sculo XI as partes mais interessantes do canto: os versos do ofertrio. Alm do canto
gregoriano, descobrimos outras tradies latinas que desapareceram naquele mesmo
sculo. Canto ambrosiano de Milo, canto antigo de Roma, canto Beneventiano do sul
da Itlia, e finalmente o canto mozrabe da pennsula ibrica. O canto mozrabe est
quase totalmente preservado no mesmo tipo de notao do gregoriano antigo.
Infelizmente, o rito mozrabe no prosseguiu com sua tradio escrita. Em 1085, essa
tradio foi oficialmente abolida e substituda pelo rito romano, o qual o canto
gregoriano. Portanto, o canto mozrabe est quase completamente perdido; est
somente preservado na notao do tipo "lembrete" (voc s pode l-lo quando j
conhece as melodias).
Eu fiquei surpreso que ningum tivesse tentado restaurar as melodias perdidas com o
computador. Ao contrrio, cientistas afirmavam que as melodias estavam
irremediavelmente perdidas, at que pudssemos encontrar manuscritos nos quais
estivessem escritos, ou onde pudssemos ler a maneira de interpretar a notao antiga.
Aps muitas tentativas em recompor as melodias, eu comecei a experimentar com o
computador. No acreditava que isso falharia em nos levar a boas e cantveis melodias.
Hoje, estou certo que quase todos os cnticos perdidos podem ser reconstrudos por
processos computacionais.
A melhor maneira de realizar isso calcular e cantar. Este tambm o ttulo de meu
primeiro livro sobre o assunto: Calculemus et Cantemus. Neste livro, eu apresento 50
reconstrues computacionais de cantos mozrabes do sculo X. No afirmo que
encontrei as melodias perdidas; apenas digo que correspondem em todos os detalhes
ao nosso conhecimento sobre os cantos perdidos. O fato de que os cantamos todos
significa, evidentemente, que as peas podem ser cantadas; portanto, so um tipo de
msica. Ademais, so essencialmente independentes de minha opinio, porque so
produzidos por uma mquina segundo um protocolo estrito (um algoritmo). Embora
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estas reconstrues provavelmente sejam bem diferentes das melodias perdidas, ns

podemos cant-las sobre os mesmos textos de centenas de anos atrs, com os mesmos
contornos meldicos e densidade tonal. Ademais, o idioma meldico derivado da
mesma poca. Por isso, somos capazes de vislumbrar algo do passado.
Em que pese eu no dizer que minhas reconstrues apresentam melodias perdidas, eu
estou convicto que podemos encontrar as melodias perdidas calculando e cantando:
basta simplesmente aprimorar continuamente o processo de clculo. E as experincias
com o canto devem alimentar o mtodo. A cada nova publicao, seja udio ou
impresso, ns desejamos avanar mais um pouco. Em nosso mais recente livro com os
cantos a So Martinho, o mtodo foi aprimorado significativamente. Igualmente, a
msica tem uma qualidade mais constante.
fascinante observar que a tradio perdida mozrabe volta vida aos poucos, sob
nossos dedos. Uma tradio que, com suas centenas de cantos, deve ter sido to rica
quanto o canto gregoriano. Talvez at tenha sido base para o canto gregoriano. De todo
modo, certamente a tradio mozrabe ofereceu o contexto no qual muitas pessoas,
durante muitos sculos, puderam viver em harmonia com o universo. Infelizmente, a
ironia da histria conecta a abolio do islamismo com a supresso do rito mozrabe.
Sob o isl, os cristos mozrabes tinham liberdade para praticar seu rito por muitos
sculos; a f deles originava-se desde o tempo de Isidoro de Sevilha e da antiguidade
pr-islmica.
Para mim, um grande desafio restaurar novas e melhores melodias para os cnticos
perdidos da tradio mozrabe. Algum dia, eu espero restaurar alguns cantos
complexos dos quais eu posso dizer que certamente existiam no sculo X. Portanto,
meu mtodo necessita de melhorias contnuas. Eu tambm preciso de critrios
melhores. Em minha recente publicao, tais critrios so bastante bons. Todavia,
infelizmente, agora parecem mostrar que a maioria dos cnticos provavelmente no
tem nada a ver com os originais de centenas de anos atrs. Entretanto, "nada"
evidentemente exagerado. Como disse anteriormente, temos certeza de que o texto, a
densidade tonal e o contorno meldico so os mesmos. Alm disso, a linguagem
meldica provavelmente muito semelhante. Talvez, estes tpicos fossem muito mais
importantes para o povo religioso do que as coisas sobre as quais temos menos certeza,
como modos e mbitos. Meus critrios objetivos j mostram que algumas
reconstrues podem ter se aproximado aos do sculo X. O que mais importante:
algumas reconstrues so simplesmente lindas. Eu gostaria de concluir com um vdeo
da curta reconstruo para So Martinho, onde vocs podem acompanhar a notao
musical original.
Video 3: Confitebor tibi Domine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsyDYrJdE0

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"Towards A Computational Reconstruction of

Mozarabic Chant"
Geert Maessen's lecture broadcasted for the Braslia Schola
Cantorum Meeting, 3 December 2016.
Vdeo 1: Hodie in Jordane
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOYUtOkRvQQ
Good afternoon. My name is Geert Maessen, I live in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
I studied architecture and philosophy, and specialised in chant. I would like to thank
Zoltan Paulinyi for his invitation. It is a great honor to entertain you in Brasilia live
on my favorite subject: Mozarabic Chant: the south-westernmost branch of medieval
chant: the latin liturgical music of Europe. First I will tell you something about
myself. Then I will outline how I discovered Mozarabic Chant. Finally, I will tell you
about my challenges and the publication of Saint Martins Office.
To understand my interest in Gregorian Chant it is important to know that I have a
congenital eye disorder: called achromatopsia. I'm totally colorblind and can only see
black, white and the shades of gray in between. A consequence of this deficiency is
that I only see 10 percent of what is normal. A normal person can read the license
plate of a car from about 25 meters. I can only read it from 2.5 meters. Another
consequence is that I am oversensitive for light. During the day I usually wear
heavily darkened sunglasses. Coincidentally, my work is for people with visual
impairments, but this has more to do with my interest in music notation then with my
eye disease: At the request of blind musicians I transcribe musical scores into Braille
music notation.
As a young man I listened to the music of Bach and was so impressed that I wanted
to play violin. But when studying violin, the problem of reading musical scores
became urgent. I could only read these scores when holding them close to my eyes.
But then I no longer had enough space to handle the bow. I therefore started looking
for a way to read music while handling the bow. I did not find such a way. The best
thing to do seemed to learn the musical score by heart first and then play. But this
implies that you already can read music, independent of making music. So I first had
to learn reading music. But this again is the world upside down. The best way to
learn reading music is playing from sheetmusic. So I better choose another
instrument. An instrument where I would have the least physical complications with
reading and playing simultaneously. This seemed to be: singing.
At that time I studied architecture and was fascinated by a theory of the monk Hans
van der Laan. I visited the monastery he built based on that theory near Aachen. All
design in this Benedictine monastery was in line with his theory: The size of the

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spaces, the ratio of the furniture to those spaces; the furniture itself; the clothing; the
crockery, and even the cemetery in the garden where Van der Laan is buried since
1991. Even more than by the work of Van der Laan, I was impressed by the chant the
monks sang. Every day they sang chant for about four hours. The bulk of these hours
consisted in the recitation of Psalms. Every week all 150 psalms were recited
according to a schedule St. Benedict had already described in the sixth century in his
Rule for Monks. I was particularly impressed by the recitation of these psalms. The
"musical score" for this is the simplest you can imagine: essentially only one note,
and of course that note was not written down. Something completely different from
Bach's music. Almost all chants with a more complex nature seemed to arise from
this recitation. The more festive, the more complex, but also the more rare. Besides
the Psalms thousands of very different chants were sung on specific places of the
calendar and initially only the rarest chants were notated.
Singing Gregorian chant thus seemed a natural way to become familiar with reading
musical scores. Therefore I started singing in a Gregorian choir. Because of the
impassioned choirmaster, Wim van Gerven, I continued to sing there when the violin
disappeared into the background. At that time I studied philosophy, and Gregorian
chant began to become a subject by itself. Chant and particularly the context in which
it ever came to fruition was so important to me that it even seemed to give answers to
questions about problems no longer relevant in science and philosophy. Questions
like: What is the meaning of life? Why are we on earth?
The answer of Chant to these questions was very practical and effective: the meaning
of life consists in living in harmony with the universe. The life of prayer and work, as
described in the monastic rules provided such harmony very clearly. All thousands of
chants had a unique place in three main cycles; those of the day, of the week and of
the year. In the morning, other chants were sung than during the afternoon or
evening. On the days of the week other chants were sung than on Sunday. On Friday
again others than on Wednesday. Moreover, the days of the church year had different
chants for the different feasts related to Easter (the beginning of spring) as well as for
the feasts on the calendar of Saints. After singing chant weekly for three years I
recognized the benefaction of this harmony, in which you could hear by the chants in
what season you were, what day of the week it was, and what time of the day. Chant
provided a home in the universe, and therefore perhaps was the best possible answer
to philosophical questions that seemed to be meaningless in the modern world.
Shortly after the exodus from the churches in the sixties, and especially since the
publication of the Graduale Triplex in 1979, performance practice of Gregorian
chant in Europe was in full motion. The study of the earliest, tenth-century
manuscripts made clear that the repertoire must have sounded very different from
what has become familiar since the nineteenth century. The leader of my choir was a
pioneer in this field in the Low Countries. He made study of these early manuscripts,
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again restored the early melodies, and the experiments with his choir resulted in a
new way of performance: more like the vocal traditions of other religions; especially
of Hinduism, Judaism and Islam.
I continued this approach: Looking at the earliest sources and listening to other
traditions. In doing so, in 1996, I developed a new notation for chant: the Fluxus
notation. In this format the earliest notation of Chant was placed on lines. The early
notation itself is unreadable for us without the help of later manuscripts. In Fluxus
the early notation becomes readable while preserving the information that became
lost in later notations. Fluxus notation in a suggestive way made it possible for me
and my group to do more justice to the indications in the earliest sources. Therefore
our chant sounded even more like Eastern traditions.
Video 2: Lapidem quem reprobaverunt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGNqq2ds3Yc
We started looking for repertoire in the early manuscripts that was lacking in modern
editions. We discovered that the most interesting parts of chant gradually disappeared
from the manuscripts since the eleventh century: the offertory verses. You just
listened to an example of these. Besides Gregorian chant we discovered other latin
traditions which disappeared since the same century. Ambrosian chant from Milan;
Old Roman chant from Rome, Beneventan chant from southern Italy, and finally
Mozarabic Chant from the Iberian Peninsula. Mozarabic Chant is almost completely
preserved in the same type of notation as the earliest notations in which Gregorian
chant has been preserved. Unfortunately, the Mozarabic rite did not continue its
written tradition. In 1085 the tradition was officially abolished and replaced by the
Roman rite with its Gregorian chant. Therefore Mozarabic chant is almost
completely lost. It is only preserved in a notation that was meant as a reminder; you
can only read it when you already know the melodies.
I was surprised that nobody had ever attempted to restore the lost chant melodies
with the computer. On the contrary, scientists stated that the melodies were
irretrieveably lost, unless we would find manuscripts in which they were notated, or,
where we could read how the early notation should be interpreted. After several
attempts to recompose melodies myself, I started to experiment with the computer. I
could not believe that this would not lead to good, singable, melodies. Today I am
convinced that nearly all lost chants can be restored in a computational way.
The best way to do this is calculate and sing. That was also the title of my first book
on the subject: Calculemus et Cantemus. In this book I presented 50 computational
reconstructions of tenth-century Mozarabic chants. I do not claim I found the lost
melodies. I only claim that they correspond in all detail with our knowledge of the
lost chants. The fact that we sang them all, of course, also means that they can be
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sung, and therefore represent some kind of music. Moreover, they are, in essence,
independent of my taste, because they are produced by a machine according to a
strict protocol. Although these reconstructions probably are quite different from the
lost chants, we can sing them on the same texts as a thousand years ago, with the
same melodic contours and tone density. Moreover, the melodic idiom is derived
from the same time. Thus we are able to get some picture of the past.
Although I do not claim my reconstructions present the lost melodies, I am
convinced that we can find these lost melodies by calculation and singing. It simply
comes down to a continuous improvement of the calculation. Therefore, the
experiences from singing should be entered in the calculation. In every new
publication, in sound or in print, we intend to proceed a little further. In our recent
book with St. Martin chants, the method has improved significantly. Also, the music
has a more constant quality.
It is fascinating to see the lost Mozarabic tradition slowly come to life under your
fingers. A tradition which, with its thousands of chants, must have been at least as
rich as gregorian chant. Perhaps it even stood at the basis of Gregorian chant.
Anyway, for the Mozarabic tradition it is also true that it provided the context within
which many people in many centuries could live in harmony with the universe.
Unfortunately the irony of history connects the abolition of Islam with the supression
of the mozarabic rite. Under Islam mozarabic christians were free to practice their
rite for many centuries. Their faith went even back to the time of Isidore of Seville
and pre-Islamic times of late antiquity.
For me it is a great challenge to restore new and better melodies for lost chants of the
Mozarabic tradition. Someday I hope to restore some complex chants of which I can
say with certainty that they must have existed in the tenth century. Therefore my
method needs continuous improvement. I also need better criteria. In my recent
publication these criteria already are quite good. But unfortunately now they only
show that most chants probably have nothing to do with a thousand years ago.
However, "nothing" obviously is too much to say. As noted earlier, we know for sure
that text, tone density and melodic contours are the same. In addition, the melodic
language is probably very similar. Perhaps these issues were much more important
for the religious people than the things we are less certain about; such as modes and
ambitus. My objective criteria already show that some reconstructions might have
been close to the tenth century. And, what is more important: some reconstructions
are simply beautiful. I would like to conclude with a video of a short responsory for
St Martin in which you can follow the original notation.
Video 3: Confitebor tibi Domine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxsyDYrJdE0

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