DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 1

DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIE OF RHYTHM

AND ROMANTIC MUSICAL AESTHETICS

Daniel K. S. Walden*

(Harvard University)

The revival of interest in Gregorian chant in nineteenth-century France

following the establishment of Solesmes led to heated debates about the nature
of Gregorian rhythm, eventually revealing fundamental differences between the
opinions of two of the leading experts of the day: Dom Joseph Pothier and his
former pupil Dom André Mocquereau. Together, these two scholars represented,
in Katherine Bergeron’s words, “two monks, two media, two very different
messages about the Gregorian past.”1 By her account, the historical orientations
of these two theorists revealed clashing allegiances, Pothier’s to Romanticism
and Mocquereau’s to Modernism. Pothier’s imagination of the “broken past”2
led him to prioritize the “interior sensibility” of the performer, positing chant as
a “subjective phenomenon” arising from an “unseen impulse” that constituted
“essentially a Romantic theory of rhythm.”3 Mocquereau’s “ultramodern
positivistic bias,”4 by contrast, aimed to use scientific evidence to support a

* Email: danielkswalden@gmail.com. I wish to thank Dom Patrick Hala, Thomas Forrest

Kelly, and Susan Rankin for their valuable contributions and advice.
1
Katherine BERGERON, Decadent Enchantments: The Revival of Gregorian Chant at Solesmes,
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, p. xiii.
2
Ibid.
3
Ibid., 111.
4
Ibid., 113.
2 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

vision of chant practice fundamentally opposed to Pothier’s evocation of

Romantic vocal pedagogy.5 Such a methodology threatened, in Bergeron’s
analogy, that under the “heat of scientific scrutiny,” chant would “evaporate into
countless Gregorian molecules, an image that recalls the unsettling condition
Marx identified with modernity itself: all that was solid melted into air.”6 Their
arguments represented a full-out “intellectual war”7 between historical and
futuristic worldviews, a clash between visions of “Gregorian art” and “Gregorian
science,”8 as “nostalgia for a lost Gregorian past came face to face with futuristic
science; [as] art crossed paths with technology.”9

This article challenges the reading that Mocquereau rejected Romanticism

in favor of a modernist scientism, suggesting instead that it is productive to
consider the ways in which Mocquereau’s theory of rhythm was in fact closely
related to the Romantic imagination. Indeed, Mocquereau discovered that many
aspects of Romantic aesthetics were compatible not only with key principles
of Catholic theology, but also with his ideal vision for Gregorian rhythm. In
what follows, I will show how Mocquereau portrays Gregorian rhythm as
quintessentially expressive of the same values celebrated by Romantic
composers in France at the end of the nineteenth century. In the first section, I
will consider Mocquereau’s personal relationship to some of the leading figures
of music composition and theory during the French Romantic era, especially
including Vincent d’Indy, who similarly espoused the virtues of a rhythm free
from the strictures of classical meter. In the second, I will show how, far from
turning away from Romanticism, Mocquereau cast Gregorian rhythm as an
organically unified reflection of the human soul and interior experience in terms
highly compatible with Romantic ideology. I will also observe that although
Mocquereau’s method can be viewed as both archaeological and positivistic
– two methods that ostensibly prize scientific objectivity over subjective

5
Ibid., 102.
6
Ibid., 100.
7
Ibid., 87.
8
Ibid., 92.
9
Ibid., 103. See also Jann PASLER, “Review: Decadent Enchantments: The Revival of
Gregorian Chant at Solesmes,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 52:2 (Summer,
1999), pp. 370-383.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 3

expression – his values accord with a Romantic vision of a new performance

practice firmly rooted in the soul of Gregorian tradition, thereby translating
the timeless virtues of “free rhythm” for a new modern era that he believed was
in danger of forgetting them.

“L’Ennemi, C’est La Mesure”: Free Rhythm in Gregorian Chant

and Classical Music
Mocquereau’s theory of “free rhythm” proposed that the patterns governing
local rhythmic subdivisions and stresses should be divorced from their
dependency on larger metrical structures of organization.10 Meter in the modern
sense of the term – what Mocquereau calls “isochronous modern” meter – does
not belong in Gregorian chant. Rhythmic patterns in chant are determined
instead by the poetic feet of the liturgical text, and are comprised of a
combination of two different elements: the arsis (élan), or strong impulse, and
thesis (repos), its lighter response. These two elements combined, he argued,
constitute “la forme, l’âme du rythme; il est le rythme lui-même.”11 Mocquereau
regarded modern music as nothing other than a disorganized jumble of rhythmic
elements marred by “les éléments de trouble, d’agitation, de surexcitation” and

10
Dom André Mocquereau, “L’art grégorien, son but, ses procédés, ses caractères,” Revue
du chant grégorien 5:1 (15 August 1896), pp. 8-10; 5:2 (15 September 1896), pp. 26-29; 5:3
(15 October 1896), pp. 36-40; 5:5 (15 December 1896), pp. 71-74; 5:7 (15 February 1897),
pp. 110-112; 5:10 (15 May 1897), pp. 157-163.
11
Dom André Mocquereau, Le nombre musical grégorien, 2 vols, vol. i., Rome/Tournai:
Desclée & Cie., 1908, p. 52 §78. Mocquereau notes here that he borrowed these terms from Hugo
Riemann, but that Riemann preferred his own interpretation: “M.H. Riemann à propos de ces
expression nous dit: “Dom Mocquereau… hat meine Termini ‘schwer’ und ‘leicht’ mit ‘lourd’
und ‘léger’ wörtlich übersetzt, dafür aber im Verlauf seiner eigenen Darstellung die zweifellos
viel besseren, élan (für Auftakt) und repos (für Schwerpunkt) substituiert (S. 172), auf die ihn die
antiken Temini Arsis et Thesis (Hebung und Senkung [Aufsetzen] des Fusses) gebracht haben.
Elan und repos sind noch viel universeller und philosophisch tiefgründiger, da sie zugleich die
Zusammengehörigkeit der beiden Elemente in dieser Folge: élan-repos selbstverständlich machen
und die gegenteilige Bezeichnung direkt naturwidrig erscheinen lassen.” Riemann’s theories are
also cited at multiple points in Bénédictins de Solesmes, Antiphonarium Tonale Missarum
XIe Siècle Codex H. 159 de la bibliothèque de l’École de Médecine de Montpellier (PM vii),
Tournai: Desclée & Cie., 1901 (Facsimile Reprint: Berne: Herbert Lang, 1972), including at
pp. 162, 165-6, and 172. I am grateful to Dom Hala for pointing out that the archives of the Abbey
of Solesmes hold twenty-one letters sent between Mocquereau and Riemann revealing the nature
of their direct intellectual exchanges.
4 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

unsuitable for liturgical function.12 Free rhythm enjoys a greater lightness,

flexibility, and suppleness that instills in the listener a sense of “le calme et la
paix,” creating the ideal state for worship and prayer.13
Mocquereau was not alone in seeking freedom from isochronous meter.
Since the early nineteenth century, many French musicians had lamented that
regular metrical divisions limited musical creativity, and that contemporary
rhythmic theory lacked the rigor and complexity of studies of harmony
and counterpoint. In 1837, Hector Berlioz complained that rhythm is “an
element[…] with which composers concern themselves no more than do
performers[…] its resources have been deemed rather limited and its forms felt
not capable of much variation, lest one fall into barbarism and chaos.”14 These
statements echoed musicologist François-Joseph Fétis’s complaint that “le
rythme est la partie la moins avancée de la musique; c’est là qu’un vaste
champ reste au génie […] De grandes choses restent à découvrir sous ce rapport
dans l’art.”15 Fétis and Berlioz both proposed that by freeing composition
from metrical constraints, musicians might discover novel types of beauty that

12
MOCQUEREAU, “L’art grégorien,” 111.
13
MOCQUEREAU, Le nombre musical, 100 §168: “La force métrique est trop souvent brutale;
en tout cas, elle est le représentant de l’animalité et de la mécanique; il en faut, puisque nous
sommes corps et âme, mais le moins possible. Prenons garde: la force, en rythmique, nous
rapproche toujours de la matière, du coup de marteau sur l’enclume, ou du piston de la locomotive.
Son emploi dans le rythme grégorien si éthéré, si virginal, doit être sans cesse tempéré par la
puissance immatérielle qui lui donne le jour.”
14
Hector Berlioz, “Berlioz on the Future of Rhythm,” in Jacques BARZUN, Berlioz and the
Romantic Century, 3rd edition, 2 vols, vol. ii, New York: Columbia University Press, 1969, p. 336-
339, at p. 336. Reprinted from the Feuilleton du Journal des Débats (10 November 1837).
15
François-Joseph FÉTIS, “Comparaison de l’état actuel de la musique avec celui des époques
précédentes,” Revue musicale 14 (1834), pp. 9-12 at p. 10 col. 2; cited in Mary I. ARLIN, “Metric
Mutation and Modulation: The Nineteenth-Century Speculations of F.-J. Fétis,” Journal of Music
Theory 44:2 (Autumn 2000), pp. 261-332, at p. 261 and 304 ft. 1. Fétis was also the author of
one of the earliest monographs on neumatic notation, accepted as a benefit with significant
reservations by Dom Prosper Guéranger: “[Je regarde sa publication] comme un avantage, parce
que M. Fétis est l’homme au monde qui ait le plus étudié le chant grégorien dans les sources, et
que son travail quel qu’il soit a nécessairement une très grande autorité. C’est le fait de l’éditeur
d’un classique qui choisit sa leçon dans les variantes; plus il a vu de textes, s’il est homme de
goût, plus son édition est grave; mais elle ne peut rassurer entièrement.” Letter to M. Guignard
(27 August 1846), quoted in Dom Pierre COMBE, Histoire de la restauration du chant grégorien,
Solesmes: Abbaye de Solesmes, 1969, p. 19.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 5

would allow rhythm to attain an expressive quality comparable to that of

harmony.16
Mocquereau had trained in classical cello under the celebrated teacher
Charles Dancla and placed Berlioz alongside Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven as
one of “les grands noms des créateurs de la symphonie classique”;17 whether or
not he had encountered Berlioz and Fétis’s articles directly, he certainly agreed
with them about the nature of rhythm.18 His dual training in classical and litur-
gical music allowed him to uncover shared values between the monks of
Solesmes who sought to revive historical chant practices and the classical
composers who wished to expand their repertoire of rhythmic techniques. Many
contemporary critics recognized the connections between Mocquereau’s theory
of rhythm and the experimental rhythmic approaches of late nineteenth-century
French composition. One article noted that the dissemination of studies of
Gregorian rhythm had demonstrated “how greatly sacred music can profit by
keeping in touch with secular music, and vice versa […] Thenceforward Saint-
Saëns, Debussy, Fauré, d’Indy, Ravel, all took a notion (according to Félix
Raugel’s expression) ‘to seek in Gregorian art the enchanted secret of rhythmic
flexibility.’”19 Another drew an even closer connection between the ways

16
François-Joseph FÉTIS, “Aux compositeurs dramatiques,” Revue et gazette musicale de
Paris 21 (1834), pp. 9-12, at p. 10 col. 2, cited in ARLIN, “Metric Mutation,” 303. See also ibid.,
269. Fétis claimed that there were four different types of rhythmic orders – unirythmique,
transirythmique, plurirythmique, and omnirythmique – just as there were four orders of tonality:
unitonique, transitonique, pluritonique, and omnitonique. While music had developed from the
ordre unitonique to the ordre omnitonique order through the increasing use of chromaticism and
the discovery of transitional chords such as the dominant seventh, composition was generally still
constrained to the ordre unirythmique, making use of a single type of meter, divided in binary
and ternary rhythms. Cf. D’Indy’s division of music history into (1) époque rythmo-monodique,
(2) époque polyphonique, and (3) époque métrique, analyzed in PM vii, 162.
17
MOCQUEREAU, ‘‘L’art grégorien,’’ 26.
18
MOCQUEREAU, Le nombre musical, 97 §161 acknowledges that “de nos jours on a voulu
contester la réalité du mouvement rythmique dans la musique.” For elaboration on this point, he
refers the reader to philosophical speculations on contemporary musical culture in Lionel
DAURIAC, Essai sur l’Esprit musical, Paris: Alcan, 1904.
19
André CŒUROY, “Present Tendencies of Sacred Music in France,” trans. Theodore Baker,
The Musical Quarterly 13:21 (Oct. 1927), pp. 582-604, at p. 603. Félix Raugel was a musicologist
and conductor at the beginning of the twentieth century. Prominent music theorist Louis Laloy
also frequently referred to chant when explaining the harmonic innovations of Claude Debussy.
See Louis LALOY, La musique retrouvée, Paris: Librarie Plon, 1928, p. 118: “Il lui [i.e. Debussy]
a suffi de faire un retour sur soi-même: avec l’âme des ancêtres, le souvenir de leurs chants s’est
6 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

in which Mocquereau and the classical composer Vincent d’Indy avoided

isochronous metrical accents:
He [Mocquereau] is the authoritative interpreter of his own discoveries
of rhythmic principles, which break away from some of the rules which
musicians of the last few centuries have held as axiomatic, but from whose
shackles modern musicians are gradually freeing themselves. Like Vincent
d’Indy and other composers of our day, Dom Mocquereau denies the
dominance of the first beat of the measure as being of necessity a stressed
beat; the stressed beat for the first measure he considers suitable only to the
most obvious types of music.20
This connection was well observed. D’Indy frequently indicated in his
scores that the performer should avoid stressing the first beat, often placing an
accent on the second even though it is conventionally weaker according to the
traditional metrical laws of classical music.21 In his writings, D’Indy similarly
complained that since the seventeenth century, changes to the treatment of
rhythm composers astray from true musical expression:
Cette identification du rythme avec la mesure a eu pour la musique
des conséquences déplorables; c’est même une des plus fâcheuses innova-
tions que nous ait léguées le XVIIe siècle, si fertile en fausses théories.
Sous prétexte de reconstituer l’ancienne Métrique, à l’aide de quelques

réveillé. C’est peut-être pour cela que cette musique, si émouvante pour nous, qui n’avons pas
renié notre ancienne liturgie, a quelque peine à se frayer un chemin dans un esprit touché par la
Réforme et instruit par le choral luthérien.” PM vii, pp. 156-161 was devoted to glowing praise
for Laloy for having independently arrived at an approach to Gregorian chant “comme on la
rythme à Solesmes,” inspiring the remark at p. 159: “N’y a-t-il pas, dans cette rencontre, la preuve
qu’un sentiment artistique universel invite les musiciens, dociles à son unique impulsion, à
s’affranchir de la tyrannie de la mesure et de son temps fort pour revenir à la liberté du rythme
pur?”
20
‘‘Liturgical Music, Pius X Institute of,’’ in The Catholic Encyclopedia : An International
Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church,
ed. Edward A Pace et al., New York : The Encyclopedia Press, 1922, pp. 464-466, at p. 464. See
also Vincent d’Indy with Auguste SÉRIEYX, Cours de composition musicale, vol. 1, Paris: Durand,
1912, p. 27: “La coïncidence du rythme et de la mesure est un cas tout à fait particulier, qu’on a
malencontreusement voulu généraliser, en propageant cette erreur que ‘le premier temps de la
mesure est toujours fort.’” The footnote appended to this sentence continues: “On pourrait même
avancer que, le plus souvent, le premier temps de la mesure est rythmiquement un temps faible;
l’adoption de ce principe éviterait bien des erreurs et bien des fautes d’interprétation.”
21
The opening measures of d’Indy’s Piano Sonata, Op. 63 (1907), for example, begin with a
non-accented downbeat that energetically rushes forward to a powerfully accented second beat.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 7

vieux documents plus ou moins bien interprétés, on a complètement perdu

de vue, à cette époque, les lois plus larges et pourtant tout aussi anciennes
de la Rythmique, seules compatibles avec l’art véritable.22

D’Indy proposed that in order to avoid the constraints of isochronous meter,

composers ought to study Gregorian chant for inspiration, celebrating “le
caractère éminemment expressif du chant grégorien, chant admirable entre tous,
par son émotion naïve, sincère, et si profondément humaine.”23 A return to its
techniques could echo “l’évolution du génie humain, laquelle repasse d’ordi-
naire, après des périodes plus ou moins longues, par un point voisin de son point
d’origine, mais jamais par ce point lui-même: telles les orbites planétaires dans
leurs révolutions successives à travers l’espace.”24 D’Indy provided a scheme
whereby composers might be to apply rhythmic principles of Gregorian chant
to their music, rendering explicit the possible applications of Gregorian rhythmic
principles to classical musical practice that were only implicit in Le nombre
musical.
D’Indy was in fact a prominent proponent of Gregorian chant, and played
a key role in its Parisian revival. He was an early committee member of the
Société des Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais, assisting the director Charles Bordes

22
D’INDY, Cours, 27; quoted in Paléographie musicale vii, 163. D’Indy blamed the rhythmic
changes that occurred in the eighteenth century on the influence of the Protestant reformation,
explaining in written correspondence with Mocquereau (26 December 1900): “Une seule vérité
est patente c’est qu’au XVè et au XVIè siècle, par exemple, la Musique était absolument basée sur
le Rythme et sur le Rythme seul, car, à ce moment les lois tonales, quoique observées virtuelle-
ment, n’étaient point encore posées comme lois. Le mouvement protestant de la Renaissance
(mouvement qui n’eut son contrecoup en Musique qu’au XVIIè siècle) en intronisant le règne de
la personnalité en Art (libre examen) à la place de la Collectivité, amena par cela même le Solo,
la Basse continue, conséquemment aussi la Mesure, qui fut la mort (momentanée, espérons-le),
du Rythme. En sorte que la Musique moderne a abondé en découvertes harmoniques et a laissé
de côté le Rythme depuis 300 ans, c’est ce qui fait que nous avons tant de mal à le retrouver, nous,
et à dérouiller les gonds de cette porte fermée depuis 3 siècles.”
23
Ibid., Cours, 74
24
Ibid. For a modified expansion of this metaphor, see also Vincent d’Indy, ‘‘Une école d’art
répondant aux besoins modernes,’’ La tribune de Saint-Gervais 6:11 (November, 1900), pp. 303-
314, at p. 305: “L’art, dans sa marche à travers les âges, peut être ramené à la théorie du
microcosme. Comme le monde, comme les peuples, comme les civilisations, comme l’homme
lui-même, il traverse de successives périodes de jeunesse, de maturité, de vieillesse, mais il ne
meurt jamais et se renouvelle perpétuellement. Ce n’est pas un cercle fermé, mais une spirale
qui monte toujours et toujours progresse.”
8 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

especially during the performance of Gregorian and sixteenth-century repertoire

during the concerts of Holy Week at the Église Saint-Gervais. He was also,
alongside Bordes and Félix Alexandre Guilmant, a founding member of the
private Schola Cantorum, created in 1894 and opened on 15 October 1896,
where Gregorian chant served as an integral part of the curriculum.25 In a
November 1900 article for the Tribune de Saint-Gervais, the monthly review
of the Schola Cantorum, d’Indy outlined his pedagogical curriculum in detail,
including instruction in Gregorian chant at both the first and second degrees of
instruction for singers, as well as at the first degree for composers, where it
served as a focal point alongside studies of harmony, counterpoint, and choral
practice.26 These courses involved instruction in the detailed analysis of
Gregorian rhythm, as well reflections on larger melodic forms and structures of
chant.27 He explained the greater purpose behind the primary role of Gregorian
chant in the curriculum:
On remarquera de plus que tous, chanteurs et instrumentistes aussi
bien que compositeurs, seront tenus d’étudier de façon plus ou moins
approfondie et au moins de connaître le chant grégorien, les mélodies
liturgiques médiévales et les œuvres religieuses de l’époque de la poly-
phonie vocale, c’est que j’estime que nul artiste n’a le droit d’ignorer le
mode de formation de son art, et comme il est absolument avéré que le
principe de tout art, aussi bien de la peinture et de l’architecture que de la
musique, est d’ordre religieux, les élèves n’auront rien à perdre et tout à
gagner dans la fréquentation des belle œuvres de ces époques de croyance,

25
For more biographical information on d’Indy, his relationship to Gregorian chant, and his
broader reputation, see especially Andrew THOMSON, Vincent d’Indy and his World, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996; Annegret FAUSER “Archéologue malgré lui: Vincent d’Indy et les usages
de l’histoire,” in Vincent d’Indy et son temps, ed. Manuela Schwartz, Liège: Mardaga, 2006; Jann
PASLER, “Deconstructing d’Indy, or the Problem of a Composer’s Reputation,” 19th-Century Music
30:3 (Spring 2007), pp. 230-256.
26
D’INDY, “Une école d’art.”
27
Cf. D’INDY, Cours, 65-81. Gregorian rhythm plays a significant role in the chapter on
rhythmic structures in general; ibid., 23-28. One of his sources here is Riemann, whose rhythmic
terminology translated into French (temps léger, temps lourd) stand as substitutes for
Mocquereau’s preferred terms arsis and thesis. As he explained in a letter to Mocquereau
(30 January 1901), the purpose of this change was simply to avoid confusing students with ancient
terminology: “uniquement pour ne pas créer de confusion dans la cervelle des élèves qui pourraient
se perdre dans les trop nombreuses controverses établies sur les termes grecs. Mais, au fond,
c’est la même chose.” This passage from their correspondence was later quoted in PM vii, 162.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 9

dont l’ensemble sera pour leur esprit comme la souche primitive sur
laquelle viendront plus tard se greffer les rameaux de l’art social moderne.28
D’Indy’s ultimate goal was to provide for more than just the technical
training necessary for contemporary composers; he aimed to ensure that his
curriculum was “non seulement une instruction artistique, mais encore une
véritable éducation spirituelle.”29
D’Indy’s plans for the curriculum of the Schola Cantorum found welcome
support from Mocquereau, who recognized in him a strong intellectual and
religious affinity. On 9 December 1900, Mocquereau wrote to d’Indy to express
his support and wishes, “avant tout vous féliciter, vous applaudir de tout mon
cœur, vous dire combien je suis avec vous.”30 The main goal of Mocquereau’s
letter, however, was to consult d’Indy for his expertise on rhythm and Gregorian
chant in order to assist him in formulating the rhythmic theories that would
eventually comprise Le nombre musical. In a response dated 26 December,
d’Indy promised to send Mocquereau the chapter on rhythm from the manuscript
of Cours de composition currently in preparation, with the caveat that it did not
discuss all of his opinions on the topic in detail, and with the recommendation
that they meet in person at his apartment in Paris in order to collaborate on the
topic further.31 Mocquereau immediately responded to d’Indy’s letter by
expressing his pleasure at finding a kindred spirit who agreed with him about
the superior virtues of free rhythm: ‘‘je me réjouis de me trouver d’accord avec
vous, car pour moi, l’ennemi, c’est la mesure, et le rythme est tout, et c’est
surtout dans le chant grégorien que cela est vrai.’’32 Over the following months,
Mocquereau continued to consult d’Indy through written correspondence, as
well as in person at a meeting in d’Indy’s apartment on 22 March 1901, for

28
D’INDY, “Une école d’art, 309-10.
29
Ibid., 305
30
Letter from Mocquereau to d’Indy (9 Dec. 1900). Dom Hala generously shared with me
his transcription of the correspondence between these two musicians.
31
Letter from d’Indy to Mocquereau (26 Dec. 1900). “Hélas! mon cher Père, le Rythme, le
vrai Rythme est chose bien méconnue – et bien difficile à connaître d’une façon sûre. J’ai pu,
dans mon cours de composition, dire peut-être quelques choses utiles, mais, à coup sûr, ce n’est
pas la moitié de ce que je voudrais dire et de ce que je n’ai pu encore énoncer d’une façon précise,
faute de matériaux donnant la certitude.’’
32
Letter from Mocquereau to d’Indy (21 Jan. 1901).
10 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

examples of ‘‘bonne musique’’ from the Classical repertoire in which the strong
accent did not coincide with the first beat of the meter.33 Mocquereau expressed
his ultimate interest in citing these examples for proof of rhythmic arguments
that were soon to appear in the seventh volume of Paléographie Musicale. The
two also debated whether it would be possible to articulate a general theory of
harmonic accompaniment for Gregorian melodies, specifying methods that
could avoid defacement of the free rhythmic content, a project d’Indy was finally
reluctant to attempt.34 D’Indy ultimately instructs Mocquereau to avoid the
influence of German music theory and accept as axiomatic that the first beat of
the mesure should never be emphasized: ‘‘je vous en supplie, ne vous laissez
point influencer par les théoriciens allemands et croyez, comme je le crois moi-
même depuis que j’étudie le rythme expressif des phrases de musique moderne
que ‘Le 1er temps de chaque mesure n’est presque jamais un temps fort’ cela

33
Emphasis in the original. Letter from d’Indy to Mocquereau (31 Mar. 1901), in response
to Mocquereau’s earlier written requests proposing as examples the opening measures of both the
finale to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 31 no. 3 in E-flat Major and the Scherzo of Piano Sonata
Op. 31 no. 2 (“The Tempest”). D’Indy agrees with the first example but not the second, explaining
that “les sfz, marqués par l’auteur semblent signifier une déviation voulue du rythme naturel.”
He points instead to the entrance of the second theme in m. 50 of the same movement, where “les
valeurs brèves sont ici indéniablement appuyées et portent accent,” as well as the opening of the
Scherzo of Beethoven’s Cello Sonata in A Major, Op. 69.
34
Letter from d’Indy to Mocquereau (31 Mar. 1901). ‘‘Il me vient aussi des scrupules. Faut-
il vraiment établir une théorie d’accompagnement ne varietur, chercher un système qui ne sera
forcément qu’une adaptation de notre pensée harmonique moderne aux rythmes libres anciens.
N’est-ce pas contribuer à une déformation?... et en ce cas ce serait une besogne anti artistique…
Et, que si il faut accompagner harmoniquement, est-ce que la musique ne devrait pas l’emporter
dans cet accompagnement sur des règles que nous aurions, en somme, établies nous-mêmes?’’
Mocquereau expressed his understanding of d’Indy’s reservations in his response of 6 April 1901:
‘‘Je comprends très bien vos scrupules artistiques au sujet de l’accompagnement des mélodies
grégoriennes, et il est très possible que ce soit là une besogne anti-artistique, du moins tout ce
qu’on a fait jusqu’à présent sur ce terrain, aboutit à une déformation, à un alourdissement de la
svelte et gracieuse mélodie antique.’’ They do not discuss the matter further. The earliest
discussion of the relationship between harmony and rhythm occurs in an undated letter from early
February, where Mocquereau asks d’Indy to explain ‘‘comment ‘l’accord que nous rencontrons
chez les modernes entre l’accent latin et le temps fort de la mesure moderne vient d’une nécessité
harmonique moderne.’’’ D’Indy responds to his question on 10 February 1901, proposing that
the accents necessitated by the rules of harmonic counterpoint can be understood as a syncopated
counterpoint to the rhythm of the Latin text: ‘‘Néanmoins, admise l’hypothèse de l’obligation de
cet accompagnement, il me semble que la seule règle doit être de renforcer l’accent, (le temps
accentué, qu’il soit léger ou lourd) par l’harmonie; je ne vois que cela de possible. Dans le
cas où l’accent est placé sur un temps léger, l’appui harmonique devient syncopal (si on peut
s’exprimer ainsi).’’
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 11

me parait un axiome indiscutable pour qui a un peu réfléchi sur le rythme.’’35

Mocquereau ends his final letter to the composer with a powerful expression of
gratitude and admiration: ‘‘vous voyez bien que j’ai raison de vous regarder
comme mon maître.’’36
Shortly after their exchange, the seventh volume of Paléographie Musicale
appeared with a lengthy first book in which Mocquereau provided his most
extensive attempt yet to formulate and articulate an approach to Gregorian
rhythm. He cites d’Indy repeatedly throughout the text, referring to their
exchange and often quoting entire passages from their letters verbatim; d’Indy’s
axiom about the first beat of the measure appeared in Paléographie precisely
the same wording, albeit with the denigrating aside about German music theory
removed.37 He considers how classical composers have treated rhythm in a large
number of examples taken from the canonical repertoire, including the same
two Beethoven examples they discussed in their exchange alongside Romantic
works by Mendelssohn, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Rheinberger, Saint-Saëns, and
others.38 Mocquereau attributes to D’Indy the independent discovery of the very
same rhythmic principles that he had developed in daily practice at the Abbey
of Solesmes, but credits him with disseminating their virtues to a much larger
audience: “En outre, ces mêmes principes ont déjà été enseignés publiquement

35
Letter from d’Indy to Mocquereau (10 February 1901). This is particularly ironic, since
d’Indy’s relied on Riemann extensively in formulating his theories of harmony and rhythm. He
was even criticized for this from his peers. One example is the polemical essay by Camille SAINT-
SAËNS, Les idées de M. Vincent d’Indy, Paris: Éditions Lafitte, 1919, p. 11: “bien souvent, de son
propre aveu, ces idées ne sont pas les siennes, mais celles de l’Allemand Hugo Riemann. Nous
trouvons ici un exemple de l’habitude qu’on avait si souvent avant la guerre – et pas seulement
en musique, – d’aller chercher la vérité de l’autre côté du Rhin.”
36
Letter from Mocquereau to d’Indy (6 April 1901).
37
PM vii, 31-2. See also fn. 27 for another reference to where Mocquereau quotes their
epistolary exchange in this same text.
38
He is especially enamored of Saint-Saëns and his Oratorio de Noël, Op. 12 (1858), although
Saint-Saëns and d’Indy did not always get along until they reconciled in 1919: cf Léon Vallas,
“Lettres Inédites de Saint-Saëns et de Vincent d’Indy,” La revue musicale 205 (1947), pp. 79-87.
Saint-Saëns’ merits are discussed in PM vii, pp. 32-37. At p. 34: “il conserve à chaque syllabe
l’intensité qui lui est propre, à chaque mot le mouvement, le rythme qui lui est naturel, il soumet
la mesure au rythme des mots; dans ce chant, il n’y a pas trace de la lutte annoncée, tout est dans
l’ordre le plus parfait. Et remarquons-le bien: il n’y a là ni syncope, ni contretemps, ni aucun de
ces procédés que l’art emploie pour briser la régularité quasi mécanique de la mesure moderne.
Le cours naturel du rythme n’est nullement troublé par l’arrivée inattendue de ces notes à surprise
qui engendrent, avec les accents pathétiques, l’expression passionnée.’’
12 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

dans l’une des grandes écoles musicales de Paris par M. Vincent d’Indy dont
tout le monde connaît la haute valeur artistique, la science musicale, les idées
larges & élevées.’’39 He explains that his theories are entirely in accordance
with what is presented in Cours de composition musicale, for “les idées
nouvelles et justes y abondent et confirment entièrement l’enseignement
de Solesmes,”40 and alerts his readers that he will soon elaborate on his work
at even greater length in an upcoming publication: this, of course, was
Mocquereau’s Le nombre musical.41 It is clear that Mocquereau saw his theories
as utterly in accordance with d’Indy’s, and made every effort to cast himself as
a sort of bridge between the monastic community and the aesthetic debates that
were electrifying the compositional community of turn-of-the-century France.
It is all the more surprising, then, that after Le nombre musical was
published, a scathing review appeared in the Tribune de Saint-Gervais.42 The
authors of the review, Maurice Emmanuel and Amédée Gastoué, were close
associates of d’Indy, but they hold no criticisms back: they lambaste the
organization of the treatise,43 the presence of terminological inconsistencies,44
what they perceive as misunderstanding of ancient Greek metrical terms,45 and
more generally, Mocquereau’s method of transcription46 and tendency towards
conceptual abstraction.47 They express their disappointment with what they
believe to be the subjective nature of Mocquereau’s findings: “C’est dire

39
Ibid., 23. Under d’Indy’s guidance, “la jeune École Française, dont il est le chef incontesté,
reconnait la fausseté de la théorie moderne, sur la mesure intensive, et professe l’entière liberté
rythmique de l’accent, dans la mélodie et dans la parole” (ibid., 161). See also ibid., 164:
“Personne ne pourra récuser le témoignage éclairé d’un maître aussi éminent; ou du moins, l’étude,
la réflexion et la prudence sont de mise en pareil cas pour ceux qui ne seraient pas de son avis.’’
40
Ibid., 161.
41
Ibid., 23.
42
Maurice EMMANUEL and Amédée GASTOUÉ, “Bibliographie: Le nombre musical grégorien
de Dom Mocquereau,” La tribune de Saint-Gervais 14:11 (November 1908), pp. 258-264.
43
Ibid., 259.
44
Ibid.
45
Ibid., 262.
46
Ibid., 260.
47
Ibid., 261: “On pouvait espérer en effet que le R.P. Dom Mocquereau, qui a depuis de
longues années proclamé la sûreté de ses principes rythmiques, en démontrerait la valeur. Or il
nous présente moins des faits que des théories; et si générales, si abstraites, si confuses que leur
application au plain-chant ne peut être réalisée que par l’auteur, sans qu’il soit possible au lecteur
de tirer lui-même les déductions.”
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 13

combien, depuis dix à douze ans, l’école néo-solesmienne, tout au contraire de

ses désirs, tend à devenir de plus en plus subjective et aprioristique; ce caractère
éclate plus encore peut-être dans la partie de l’ouvrage consacrée à la ryth-
mique.”48 Most of all, however, they criticize Mocquereau for promoting his
own chant editions above all others: “en vérité, ce livre est un plaidoyer.”49 They
accuse him of striving “par un abus singulier […] d’imposer ‘au monde entier’
son interprétation personnelle des rythmes médiévaux,” arguing that “[i]l est
temps de protester contre cette prétention, peu justifiée.”50 After proposing such
a strong affinity with the philosophy of the Schola Cantorum, Mocquereau must
have felt, at the very least, disappointed to have his theoretical magnum opus
rejected by its affiliates so emphatically.
Emmanuel and Gastoué make sure to insist that “en dépit d’affirmations
trop répétées, le Directeur des Études de la Schola, le maître Vincent d’Indy, est
absolument opposé aux theories néo-solesmiennes.”51 There does not seem to
have been any further correspondence between Mocquereau and d’Indy, and
when the two took part alongside Gastoué himself in the proceedings of the
1922 Congress of Church Music held in Paris and led by Cardinal Louis-Ernest
Dubois, d’Indy’s lecture reportedly “defended the purportedly authentic Vatican
edition of the plainchant against other modern editions which obscured the
melodic lines with a profusion of additional symbols and supplementary
indications.”52 Their disagreements after the publication of Le nombre musical,
however, are not as pertinent as their initial sympathies. Many of D’Indy’s
colleagues and disciples were well known, in fact, for their brutal polemical
attacks against former musicological allies they believed had deviated from the
essential mission of the Schola Cantorum by expressing alternative views.53 It
is more significant to recognize that Mocquereau had sought a kindred spirit for
his theory of Gregorian rhythm amongst the larger community of contemporary

48
Ibid., 260.
49
Ibid, 263.
50
Ibid., 264.
51
Ibid., 258.
52
THOMSON, Vincent d’Indy, 205.
53
See LALOY, La musique retrouvée, 165. Laloy recounts how his relationship with the Schola
Cantorum became rocky after he showed support for the music of Maurice Ravel, thereby
expressing the condemnable views of a “hérétique,” although he acknowledges that d’Indy
continued to treat him “avec bonté.”
14 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

classical music, thereby situating his theories in a larger academic discourse that
recognized the necessity for music to be liberated from the oppression of regular
metrical divisions in order to achieve its full potential for Romantic expression.

“Vers la Synthèse, Vers l’Unité”: Romantic Interiority and Organicism

Mocquereau believed that free rhythm was closer to the natural rhythms
of the human body, whose functions could be grouped into binary or ternary
rhythms like chant:
En effet, nous possédons en nous-mêmes le Rythme à l’état vivant.
La vie qui est en nous et s’écoule dans le Temps, se manifeste par une suite
de mouvements ordonnés avec une admirable régularité. Le battement
du pouls, les pulsations du cœur, la respiration à trois temps, la marche
binaire de l’homme sont autant de faits physiologiques qui révèlent en nous
l’existence constante d’un rythme spontané et vivant.
Mais notre intelligence elle-même n’est-elle pas rythmée, pour ainsi
dire, par les lois harmonieuses de la logique et du raisonnement?54

Free rhythm is not only equivalent to interior rhythm, but it is also the
rhythm of perception itself, as the ear, guided by the intellect and the soul,
necessarily groups all external sounds into free rhythms:
Ce rythme intérieur, à la fois physique et spirituel, est si puissant,
qu’il peut soumettre à ses lois tout ce qui frappe nos sens. Nous rythmons
en nous-mêmes les sons, les bruits qui parviennent à notre oreille dépouillés
de tout rythme; par exemple, le tic-tac d’un moulin, le bruit d’un balancier,
les oscillations du métronome, etc…
Dans tous ces cas, les sons tombent dans notre oreille un à un,
divisés, sans cohésion d’aucune sorte; nous ne percevons qu’une suite
indéfinie d’unités. Mais grâce à cette puissance rythmique qui vit en nous,
nous avons la faculté de grouper ces sons, comme nous le voulons, par
deux, par trois unités; nous leur supposons ce qui leur manque objective-
ment: la durée, la force, l’élan et le repos, tout ce qui fait le mouvement
rythmique.55

54
MOCQUEREAu Le nombre musical, 42-3 §54. Italics are his.
55
Ibid, 43 §55.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 15

A truer approach to rhythm, therefore, would be one in which exterior

manifestations of sound corresponded to the patterns of interior free rhythm,
acknowledging that exterior rhythm “ne font que substituer à notre rythme
intime, à moins qu’ils n’en soient la simple continuation.”56 Such passages
emphasize that Mocquereau does not envision his version of chant in terms of
a shift from “inside to outside,” a movement from “the interior of the body” to
the externality of chironomic gesture,57 as Bergeron suggests, so much as it tries
to articulate a more nuanced central claim: that the free rhythm of Gregorian
chant gives performers the ability to transcend such simple internal/external
distinctions by allowing for direct, unmediated expression. He writes:
La voix en effet ne se meut ni au hasard, ni d’une façon machinale;
ses élans et ses chutes sont d’une nature plus spirituelle que matérielle, mue
qu’elle est par une puissance vitale et spontanée, libre et intelligente, qui
lui transmet quelque chose de son immatérialité.
L’artiste en chantant livre son âme, extériorise sa pensée, ses senti-
ments et peut en traduire les moindres nuances. Maître de sa voix, il en
dirige toutes les qualités de durée, de force, de mélodie, d’expression avec
la plus entière liberté. Il élargit, comme il le veut, la durée des élans et des
repos, il étale à sa guise, comme le peintre sur les lignes de son dessin,
les couleurs, les nuances infinies de l’intensité des sons; il déploie en
mille méandres les contours de sa mélodie, tout cela conformément aux
exigences d’ordre, de juste proportion qui constituent l’une de ses facultés
les plus délicates, le goût, le sens esthétique.58
By voicing the interior rhythms of the human soul, the singer of Gregorian
chant will become more outwardly expressive while at the same time remaining
true to his or her innermost nature.
Niklaus Largier demonstrates that even though a large number of medieval
Christian texts posit that “a clear distinction should be made between the
‘interior’ and ‘spiritual’ on the one hand, and the ‘exterior,’ ‘material,’ and
‘sensual’ on the other hand,” a great number of texts also present vocal prayer
and worship as actions that collapse the distinction between interior and exterior:
prayer involves the conjunction of the exterior “body with the interior […] of

56
Ibid.
57
BERGERON, Decadent Enchantments, pp. 112 and 119.
58
MOCQUEREAU, Le nombre musical, 100 §167.
16 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

the heart,” as it is “founded on the union of the body and soul in human nature.”59
He explains that:
[…] practices of prayer formulate a dynamic relationship where
‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ turn into aspects of a process of communication,
conversion, and transformation. In this process, ‘inner’ feelings and sen-
sations are not only induced through ‘outer’ means. Instead the ‘inner’
turns into a form of meditation of the ‘outer’ and the ‘outer’ into a form of
meditation on the ‘inner,’ making both part of the production of experiential
events in spiritual practice.60
For Mocquereau, the best art is capable of a similar form of mediation, in
that it comes from deep within the interior of the artist’s soul but is still
translatable to the exterior world.61 Gregorian chant, at the nexus between
artistic expression and prayer, presents a unique opportunity for bringing
together exterior and interior forms of expression, uniting the spiritual with the
material and sensual in a single, dynamic practice.
Interiority was also a key element of Romantic aesthetics. For Hegel in
particular, music represented the sounds of human subjectivity itself, “the very
way in which the innermost self is moved within itself in its subjectivity and
ideal soul.”62 Not only can music give voice to interior human experience, it

59
Niklaus LARGIER, ‘‘The Art of Prayer : Conversions of Interiority and Exteriority in
Medieval Contemplative Practice,’’ in Rethinking Emotion: Interiority and Exteriority in
Premodern, Modern, and Contemporary Thought, ed. Rüdiger Campe and Julia Weber, Berlin :
Walter de Gruyter, 2014, pp. 58-71 at p. 58. Similar sentiments are echoed in the Catechism of
the Catholic Church, 2nd edition, promulgated by Pope John Paul II, New York: Doubleday, 1995.
Interiority is placed at the top of the “hierarchy of values” necessary for the “fulfillment of the
human vocation” (§1886); true convictions of faith are presented as internal rather than external
(e.g. §153, §2715); religious conscience and ethics are equated with “interior law” (§1784);
penance is characterized as “conversion of the heart, interior conversion” (§1430). Also: “Vocal
prayer, founded on the union of body and soul in human nature, associates the body with the
interior prayer of the heart” (§2722).
60
LARGIER, “The Art of Prayer,” 58.
61
MOCQUEREAU, ‘‘L’art grégorien,’’ 112: “Le caractère le plus saillant du chant grégorien est
la simplicité. Et en cela même il est vraiment artistique […] L’artiste véritable est celui qui traduit
le mieux dans le monde extérieur, c’est-à-dire de la manière la plus simple, l’idéal qu’il porte
dans la simplicité de son intelligence.”
62
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich HEGEL, Werke, 21 vols, vol. xv, ed. Eva Moldenhauer and
Karol Markus Michel, Frankfurt: Surkhamp, 1969-79, p. 135; cited and translated in Helmut
SCHNÄDELBACH, ‘‘Hegel,’’ Music in German Philosophy: An Introduction, ed. Stegan Lorenz
Sorgner and Oliver Fürbeth, trans. Susan H. Gillespie, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,
2013, pp. 69-94, at p. 75.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 17

also speaks directly to the soul of its listener: “The same holds true of the effect
of music. It lays claim to ultimate subjective interiority as such; it is the art of
the feeling heart [Gemüt], which addresses itself immediately to the feeling
heart.” Music therefore represented, “the ultimate romantic form of art, for the
principle of the latter is ‘absolute interiority.’”63 Hegelian aesthetics played an
important role in discourse around d’Indy’s intellectual and compositional circle,
and d’Indy sought to demonstrate how they converged with Catholic theology
and interiority in the composer he viewed as the greatest musical genius,
Beethoven.64 He portrays Beethoven’s final period as a bridge to Romanticism,
the product of “une vie purement intérieure, d’une vie presque monacale, con-
templative, intense et féconde.”65 D’Indy suggested that the monumental
compositions of this period, such as the Grosse Fuge, were dialectical treatment
of contrasting themes;66 the Missa Solemnis – “although liturgically inappro-
priate” – also indicated that Beethoven “remain[ed] a good Catholic to the
end.”67 Mocquereau claims to recognize the very same confluence of factors in
the free rhythm of Gregorian chant, thus associating his art with the most
celebrated monuments of nineteenth-century music.
Mocquereau’s goal was not only to give free expression to the interior of
the human soul, but also to uncover the principles that account for its coherence
and perfection. He explains in Le nombre musical that the primary goal of music
analysis was to uncover the unifying structures of Gregorian theory:
La première opération qui conduit à la connaissance du rythme a été
une opération d’analyse – production des temps simples isolés; – celles qui

63
SCHNÄDELBACH, ‘‘Hegel,’’ 75.
64
Vincent D’INDY, Beethoven, Paris: Librairie Renouard, 1911. D’Indy also claims in the
Cours, p. 68, that the techniques of variation that occur in the Gregorian Alleluia and Jubila
anticipate Beethoven: “cette vocalise grégorienne pourrait donc être regardée comme l’état primitif
de la grande variation amplificatrice, que nous retrouverons plus tard, plus particulièrement chez
Beethoven.” As Thomson 1998, 85 notes, the music of d’Indy’s rythmo-monodique era was also
quintessentially “characterized above all by art intérieur, manifest in the mysterious simplicity
of Romanesque architecture and music.”
65
D’INDY, Beethoven, 109, also cited in Steven HUEBNER, “D’Indy’s Beethoven,” in French
Music, Culture, and National Identity, ed. Barbara L. Kelly, Rochester: University of Rochester
Press, 2008, pp. 95-111 at p. 102.
66
Cf. Lewis LOCKWOOD, Beethoven: The Music and the Life, New York, W.W. Norton, 2003,
p. 465.
67
HUEBNER, “D’Indy’s Beethoven,” 102.
18 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

restent à faire, au contraire, se résument en un mot: unité; efforts constants,

par tous les moyens propres à la musique, vers la synthèse, vers l’unité.68
In pursuit of this aim, Mocquereau attempts to connect every aspect of his
theory to this concept of organic unity. In discussing the two pulses of the arsis
and thesis, he proposes that they are in reality inseparable:
Il n’y a là que deux phases d’un mouvement un et indivisible, qui,
s’il n’est pas tel, devient incomplet et avorté. Il faut donc, en théorie
comme en pratique, veiller toujours à la continuité du mouvement
rythmique qui fait son unité.69
The unified poetic foot thus functions like “un organisme complet, parfait,
en possession de membres harmonieusement disposés, un être doué d’une vie
propre et indépendante, et auquel il ne manque rien.”70 Unity also links the
poetic feet into larger organic structures, and even governs the relationship
between the various arts: music, poetry, and dance are all three “soumis aux lois
d’une même Rythmique [….] En un mot, il n’y avait qu’un Rythme qui pouvait
simultanément informer trois matières, le son musical, la parole et l’orches-
tique.’’71 The arts achieve internal coherence through the embodiment of organic
rhythmic structures.
The importance of unity, as of interiority, for Mocquereau can be traced to
both theology and contemporary aesthetics. A fundamental aspect of Catholic
theology is that the Church unites in worship and celebration of the triune
God, or Holy Trinity;72 Mocquereau explains that music, like other forms of
Catholic artistic expression, should be designed to reflect this “unité du monde
spirituel.”73 Chant recitation was also considered emblematic of the degree to
which the Catholic Church has historically ensured unification and consistency

68
MOCQUEREAU, Le nombre musical 41 §49. Italics are his.
69
Ibid., 53 §81.
70
Ibid., 118-9 §209.
71
Ibid., 26 §5.
72
See also Catechism §820: “‘Christ bestowed unity on his Church from the beginning. This
unity, we believe, subsists in the Catholic Church as something she can never lose, and we hope
that it will continue to increase until the end of time.’ Christ always gives his Church the gift of
unity, but the Church must always pray and work to maintain, reinforce, and perfect the unity that
Christ wills for her.”
73
MOCQUEREAU, ‘‘L’art grégorien,’’ 112.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 19

of religious practices. Mocquereau noted in the first volume of Paléographie

Musicale that the Gregorian manuscripts across Europe testify to “une unifor-
mité étonnante,” indicating that a powerful a medieval cultural tradition “seule
a pu accomplir une pareille unité.”74 One contemporary author even proposed
that because chant served as a way to attract people to attend church, as
d’Indy had at the Église Saint-Gervais – chant could assume a primary role in
reestablishing “cette union et cette solidarité des classes qui est la première
condition de la paix sociale.”75 In other words, chant did more than simply
reflect theological unity: it was an essential agent in actually creating it, by
attracting new audiences to Mass and by ensuring the uniformity of religious
practices around the Catholic world.76
Although Mocquereau was of course concerned primarily with Gregorian
chant in its relation to Catholic theology, his discussions cannot help but also
recall d’Indy’s language shaped by Hegel and broader trends in nineteenth-
century Romantic aesthetics. Organic unity was valued by composers and
theorists across Europe as the “primary criterion for excellence in works of art”
due to the conviction that “a work of art should possess unity in the same way,
and to the same extent, that a living organism does.”77 A unified artwork was
elevated to a “status transcendent of the physical,” to that of an organism
that “as an ideal substance […] expresses the world in a wider sense,” for the

74
Bénédictins de Solesmes, Le Codex 339 de la bibliothèque de Saint-Gall (Xe Siècle)
Antiphonale Missarum Sancti Gregorii (PM vol. i), Solesmes: Saint-Pierre, 1889 (Facsimile
Reprint: Berne: Herbert Lang, 1974), at p. 160.
75
Arthur Loth, ‘‘Le chant grégorien jugé par l’Univers,’’ Revue du chant grégorien
(15 October 1892), pp. 34-36, at p. 34: “On pourrait faire beaucoup par le chant pour attirer les
populations dans le temple, et par là-même pour les ramener à la religion, pour rétablir cette union
et cette solidarité des classes qui est la première condition de la paix sociale. Le moyen-âge a
connu, autant que le comporte la condition humaine, ces temps de justice, de concorde et de
fraternité chrétienne, si merveilleusement symbolisés par ces grandes cathédrales où le peuple de
la cité tout entier, uni dans le culte divin, priait et chantait d’un même cœur, d’une même voix.”
Also cited in Jann PASLER, Composing the Citizen: Music as Public Utility in Third Republic
France, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2009, p. 615.
76
As PASLER, Composing the Citizen, pp. 82-93 explains in detail, the politicians of the Third
Republic believed music could fulfill a similar role by helping to instill a sense of public virtue,
building a cooperative spirit across a heterogeneous population, negotiating conflict disputes and
issues of identity, and encouraging broader public consensus.
77
Ruth A. SOLIE, ‘‘The Living Work: Organicism and Musical Analysis,’’ 19th-Century Music
4:2 (Autumn 1980), pp. 147-56, at p. 148.
20 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

“ideal quality of living organisms was the element of soul.”78 Mocquereau’s

description of Gregorian chant as organically unified defined music in aesthetic
terms that appealed to his contemporaries and conferred on it qualities celebrated
in the greatest works of Romantic genius.
Mocquereau also drew an analogy between his own analysis of rhythm and
the dissection of an organism: “Cette analyse tient compte uniquement des plus
petits éléments du rythme, elle les dissèque, pour ainsi dire, afin d’en étudier et
d’en constater la construction anatomique.”79 Dissection of a musical work was
a first step toward acquiring knowledge of its inner workings; the performer
should then reassemble its pieces into an organically unified whole, for
ultimately, “l’unité, voilà le but.”80 He explains that his approach is like that of
the artist who studies anatomy to learn the musculature of the human body:
Connaître l’analyse élémentaire d’une mélodie et la place de tous les
ictus rythmiques est sans contredit d’un grand secours pour l’exécution et
d’une nécessité absolue pour l’harmonisation; mais se servir pratiquement
de cette connaissance pour détailler, déchiqueter un à un les rythmes
simples et réduire la mélodie en miettes serait faux, inepte, inesthétique.
La connaissance anatomique du squelette humain est nécessaire au
peintre, au sculpteur, mais elle n’est que le point de départ pour la réalisa-
tion de son idéal. Ainsi cette distinction os par os, rythme par rythme, de
la mélopée jusqu’en ses derniers éléments doit-elle demeurer surtout dans
le domaine de l’analyse théorique.81

Analysis and performance, as inseparable as arsis and thesis, are linked

in the appreciation of Gregorian chant, and should not be considered to have
separate goals. Together they comprise a single unified project: the revival of a
form of Gregorian chant that is worthy of its illustrious legacy and that can speak
to a contemporary audience with as much immediacy as in ancient times.

78
Ibid., 149-150
79
MOCQUEREAU, Le nombre musical, 57 §92.
80
Ibid., 42 §51: “Sans doute, il faudra distinguer les phrases, les membres de phrase, les
incises, établir entre ces divisions une harmonieuse proportion; mais l’artiste qui se bornerait à
ces distinctions, si bien proportionnées soient-elles, n’atteindrait pas le but. Il faut aller au-delà:
il faut, tout en maintenant les distinctions, tendre à les unir, à les relier, et à faire de toutes une
grande, une seule entité rythmique. L’unité, voilà le but.” Italics in the original.
81
Ibid., 57-8 §93.
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 21

As Rev. Robert A Skeris has observed, Dom Eugène Cardine believed that
“it is only scientifically conducted research which will allow the establishment
of an objective execution of this chant. Otherwise, the interpretation will be the
performance of a ‘romanticism’ which will inevitably be guided by a rhythm
and by nuances borrowed from modern music.”82 Cardine’s semiological
approach to Gregorian chant differed significantly from both Mocquereau’s and
Pothier’s, and a large number of scholars and musicians have favored his
findings. Yet it is important to remember that Mocquereau believed that he was
able to confirm his own particular vision of Gregorian chant through what he
saw as “scientifically conducted research” that allowed him to collect objective
evidence presented by archaeological and positivistic methods of inquiry.
Observing how nineteenth-century archaeology was transformed by the
invention of photography, Mocquereau believed that new technologies could
similarly revolutionize the study of Gregorian chant, by allowing for the easy
replication of handwritten manuscripts for comparative analysis and helping the
theorist to reconstruct original melodic structures – treating archives, in other
words, like archaeological sites.83 Following the methods of positivism, he
sought to supplement his work with references to scientific research such as
studies in the journal Harvard Psychological Studies suggesting that listeners
group even the most complex rhythmic patterns into subdivisions of twos and

82
Rev. Robert A. SKERIS, “Introduction” to Dom Pierre Combe, The Restoration of Gregorian
Chant: Solesmes and the Vatican Edition, trans. by Theodore N. Marier and William Skinner,
Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 2013, pp. xi-xxii, at p. xv.
83
Cf. PM vol. 1, 3-7. The first chapter of the “Introduction Générale,” headed under the title
“Influence des nouveaux procédés de reproduction sur le progrès des études archéologiques,”
quotes Léopold Delisle at length on the merits of photography for paleographic studies. It also
cites an axiom of archiviste-paléographe Leon Gautier from his Quelques mots sur l’étude de la
paléographie, 2nd edition, Paris: Palmé, 1859, p. 15 in setting out the guiding principle for the
project of the series: “L’influence exercée par l’étude des sources sur les progrès des sciences
historiques & archéologiques n’est plus à démontrer. Aussi n’est-il plus aujourd’hui un seul érudit
qui ne fasse sienne la loi que l’École des chartes imposait, dès l’ouverture de ses cours, aux jeunes
paléographes: ‘Les sources, toujours les sources, & ne jamais se contenter d’ouvrages de seconde
main’.” See BERGEROn, Decadent Enchantments, 85: “Like an archeologist, he believed that the
Gregorian tradition could be recovered from fragments turned up in metaphorical digging and
that it would echo from the bottom of a metaphorical space hollowed out by science itself.” Zrinka
STAHULJAK, Pornographic Archaeology: Medecine, Medievalism, and the Invention of the French
Nation, Philadephia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), pp. 141-7 paints a broader picture
of a nineteenth-century French “Romantic archaeology” focused particularly on “local and
culturally specific” French medieval traditions overlooked by previous generations who focused
exclusively on Greco-Roman remains.
22 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN

threes.84 He makes frequently references physiology and musical psychology,

which were bourgeoning fields of musical scholarship at the time. Archaeology
and positivism offered techniques for the collection and systematic analysis of
data that Mocquereau believed would lend his approach scientific authority.
Yet, like many of his contemporaries, Mocquereau saw no contradiction
between the collection of objective evidence and his own ideals, which might
be described as Romantic.85 Rather, he sought a new method of confirming
Catholic and late nineteenth-century musical values by employing the very latest
means of historical and scientific inquiry. The integration of historical and
contemporary studies on rhythm served as proof of Gregorian chant’s eternal
appeal and relevance, much as an integration of subjective and objective criteria
confirmed that Gregorian chant was a fully organic form of expression emerging
from human nature. Mocquereau’s scholarly methods may have been more
analytical, systematic, and modern than Dom Pothier’s freer approach, as
Bergeron points out, but their two visions of the Gregorian past are not
fundamentally antithetical. The success of Mocquereau’s work results at least
in part from his ability to integrate monastic and classical music traditions as
well as Romantic aesthetics with contemporary techniques for gathering
evidence. His scholarship is a testament to an encyclopedic curiosity and an
ability to skillfully synthesize various source materials, and was neither simply
modernist, nor, for that matter, simply Romantic. It is better understood as a
complex and intricate appreciation of what Gregorian chant once was and could
again become.

Cf. BERGERON, Decadent Enchantments, 112-113.

84

Recent studies have examined how the developing methods of nineteenth-century science
85

and technology were often tied to the interests of Romantic aesthetics. John TRESCH, The
Romantic Machine: Utopian Science and Technology after Napoleon, Chicago, University of
Chicago Press, 2014, demonstrates how scientific advances and technological inventions were
closely linked to the Romantic movement in musical composition, poetry, visual arts, and so forth.
Mary PICKERING’s Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography, 3 vols, vol. ii, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009, p. 397, notes that late nineteenth-century positivism “reflect[s]
the romantic impulses of the age, which insisted on the arts’ ability to shape ideas and opinions
and to express sentiments.” See also Alfred I. TAUBER, Henry David Thoreau and the Moral
Agency of Knowing, Berkeley, University of California Press, 2001, p. 108, which similarly argues
that positivists “explicitly attempted to integrate a Romantic sense of imagination and beauty as
important factors in the appreciation of the scientific worldview,” finding “no inconsistency in
gleaning objective facts by a radical separation of subject and object, and then synthesizing and
interpreting those data with the required human sensibility.”
 DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 23

Letter of Vincent d'Indy to dom André Mocquereau Paris, 31 March 1901

24 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN
DOM MOCQUEREAU’S THEORIES OF RHYTHM 25
26 DANIEL K. S. WALDEN