Talk:Missa XVIII (primitiva) (Gregorian chant)

Renaming

2 Kyries (the 2nd only in the LU Missa pro defunctorem) are found with Sanctus & Agnus in the Graduale Romanum & other books under the title Missa XVIII in feriis Adventus et Quadragesimae (maybe a comma is meant after "feriis"), but the Liber cantualis labels Missa "Primitiva" an Order of Service with Kyrie XVI, Mozarabic Gloria XV, Credo I, Sanctus & Agnus XVIII, while Chants from the Roman Missal adds to these 3 versions of the Mystery of Faith and Pater noster, with other responses, labeling this "The Order of Mass". And of course I remember reading Missa simplex somewhere else again. 8-|

In choosing a page name I suggest we keep some merge candidates in mind: Sanctus XVIII (Gregorian chant), Agnus Dei XVIII (Anonymous), Missa pro defunctis (Gregorian chant). And of course Harmonized Roman Missal Chants in English (Peter Carter) too! Richard Mix (talk) 23:40, 31 March 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for the useful explanation, Richard! It sounds like these chants were only put together relatively late (> 11th century), so maybe they ought to be separate pages. I prefer a format like Agnus Dei XVIII (Anonymous) – with a line on the work page like {{Pub|2|1540 in ''Missale Romanum'', Mass XVIII|no=53}} (numbers invented). But then what do we do with other mixed-provenance masses? Perhaps a Larger work page would help?

I don't understand why "Gregorian chant" is a composer (it's properly a subgenre). If the true composers (and original dates) of these various chants are really unknown, okay I guess – but I would prefer a real chronology of each, like we do for all other music. Has someone done a history of where and when these various chants appeared? But I'd better leave this to people who understand this better. (PS. Nice emoji!) — Barry Johnston (talk) 20:07, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Ah, that's where you were going with "larger"! It's true the Solesmes numberings are relatively recent, but groupings such as I/Lux et origo, IV/Cunctipotens/De Apostolis &c. are fairly old; I think Sanctus & Agnus XVIII are always paired. The problem with a page per chant is what to do with files comprising multiple movements? I agree Missa XVII is a bit procrustian, but I don't yet see a better solution; is the Larger work supposed to have subpages Kyrie a, Kyrie b, Kyrie c, Kyrie d, Kyrie a+b … … … Kyrie c with Gloria VIII, Sanctus, Agnus XVIII with [some of the] 1970 Acclamations, &c &c &c.

Gregorian chants are attributed to Gregory, which is perhaps no worse a fiction than a singular composer "Anonymous" (I hate that capital "A"!) who is at once "medieval", "baroque", &c. A usable 'composer page' might have been a supercategory containing pages [[Title (anon. Source)]]. Since I've given up on annotating Anonymous we seem so far to be getting by with [[Title (source) (Anonymous)]]. Richard Mix (talk) 21:07, 5 April 2022 (UTC)

Not knowing very much about masses or the history of what's called "Gregorian" … yet it does appear that the individual chants have different histories, so they should be on different pages (to me). Surely someone has researched the histories of these chants; I am willing to leave this "cleanup" for the experts. There would be no difference between the current (composer) Category:Gregorian chant compositions and a future (subgenre) Category:Gregorian chants.

You are right, Anonymous is very general; so we have learned to use other groupings, such as publication (Trent codices), or arranger (Johann Sebastian Bach), or Voicing, or Language, or subgenre. And combinations of these are also used, through Multi-category search. This is one of the reasons we dropped the annotations from Anonymous. (Another reason: the complex changes required to keep annotations are not justified for a page that few people use.) — Barry Johnston (talk) 13:51, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

A different splitting example

This is becoming a broader discussion than affects Missa XVIII (not that I mind, but perhaps it will someday need to be duplicated somewhere else): Barry, how do you think we should handle Talk:Pueri Hebraeorum I & II (Gregorian chant)? Richard Mix (talk) 21:18, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

The page should be called Pueri Hebraeorum (Gregorian chant), covering both stanzas (as I see them), because the same music is used for both, apparently. The two text pages should be merged, in my opinion, with an explanation (as you have done) as to how the stanzas are handled in liturgy. When the second stanza is sung, it (always?) follows the first, right? — Barry Johnston (talk) 01:54, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

I'll have to look for something else we can agree on, it seems ;-)