Santu Desilva wrote:

>Someone replied to my question (Why are Semibreves called Whole notes?)
>with the information that there are Breves whose duration is two
>semibreves.

I think that you are trying to mix apples and oranges here.  Facetious
or not, one must remember that breves semibreves and other medieval and
renaissance rhythmic notation did not imply a specific number of pulses
as do our modern notes.

For the most part, the "time" or tactus in early music was measured by the
breve.  Whatever tempo was set it was in breves.  The semi-breve then was
half as long as the breve, the minum half as long as that, the semi-minum
half as slong as that etc.  These notes could be of a wide variety of
actual time duration depending upon the tactus.

As to the term whole note, half note etc, I believe that this came along
as we began to divide music into measures.  A whole note taking a whole
measure of common time, a half note a half measure etc.

As to breves being called whole notes, I believe that this is simple a
translation from ancient musical language into modern.

Kevin Sutton