Georges Louis Houdard

Georges Louis Houdard (Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1860 – Paris, 1913) was a French scholar devoted to the study of Gregorian chant and its notation. He is significant within the group of so-called mensuralists, who at the beginning of the twentieth century sought to reconstruct the original rhythm of this music from the earliest neumatic manuscripts.

Houdard trained in composition with Massenet at the Paris Conservatoire, although his attention soon turned towards medieval music. He devoted himself above all to the early theorists and to Gregorian notation. His work Le rythme du chant dit grégorien, published in 1898, gave him a prominent place among the early mensuralists. According to his proposal, known as the "neume-temps", each neumatic group corresponded to one beat of a modern crotchet: the punctum and the virga were worth one crotchet, the two-note neumes, the podatus and clivis, two quavers, and the climacus a triplet. He worked chiefly with the St Gall manuscripts.

His theses soon clashed with the Solesmes school, and the so-called "houdardiste rhythm" was harshly criticised by Adrien Vigourel. Houdard also published an extensive history of the castle of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, in two volumes.

His legacy is above all that of a debate: his rhythmic ideas stimulated discussion about the performance of Gregorian chant, although they did not prevail against the positions of Solesmes.