THE RITUAL CHANT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
In reading the words of the Catholic liturgy from the Missal we must
remember that they were written to be sung, and in a certain limited
degree acted, and that we cannot receive their real force except when
musically rendered and in connection with the ceremonies appropriated to
them. For the Catholic liturgy is in conception and history a musical
liturgy; word and tone are inseparably bound together. The immediate
action of music upon the emotion supplements and reinforces the action of
the text and the dogmatic teaching upon the understanding, and the
ceremony at the altar makes the impression still more direct by means of
visible representation. All the faculties are therefore held in the grasp
of this composite agency of language, music, and bodily motion; neither
is at any point independent of the others, for they are all alike
constituent parts of the poetic whole, in which action becomes prayer and
prayer becomes action.
The music of the Catholic Church as it exists to-day is the result of a
long process of evolution. Although this process has been continuous, it
has three times culminated in special forms, all of them coincident with
three comprehensive ideas of musical expression which have succeeded each
other chronologically, and which divide the whole history of modern music
into clearly marked epochs. These epochs are those (1) of the unison
chant, (2) of unaccompanied chorus music, and (3) of mixed solo and
chorus with instrumental accompaniment.
(1) The period in which the unison chant was the only form of church
music extends from the founding of the congregation of Rome to about the
year 1100, and coincides with the centuries of missionary labor among the
Northern and Western nations, when the Roman liturgy was triumphantly
asserting its authority over the various local uses.
(2) The period of the unaccompanied contrapuntal chorus, based on the
mediaeval key and melodic systems, covers the era of the European
sovereignty of the Catholic Church, including also the period of the
Counter-Reformation of the sixteenth century. This phase of art,
culminating in the works of Palestrina in Rome, Orlandus Lassus in
Munich, and the Gabrielis in Venice, suffered no decline, and gave way at
last to a style in sharp contrast with it only when it had gained an
impregnable historic position.
(3) The style now dominant in the choir music of the Catholic Church,
_viz._, mixed solo and chorus music with free instrumental accompaniment,
based on the modern transposing scales, arose in the seventeenth century
as an outcome of the Renaissance secularization of art. It was taken up
by the Catholic, Lutheran, and Anglican Churches, and was moulded into
its present types under the influence of new demands upon musical
expression which had already brought forth the dramatic and concert
styles.
The unison chant, although confined in the vast majority of congregations
to the portions of the liturgy that are sung by the priest, is still the
one officially recognized form of liturgic music. Although in the
historic development of musical art representatives of the later phases
of music have been admitted into the Church, they exist there only, we
might say, by sufferance,--the chant still remains the legal basis of the
whole scheme of worship music. The chant melodies are no mere musical
accompaniment; they are the very life breath of the words. The text is so
exalted in diction and import, partaking of the sanctity of the
sacrificial function to which it ministers, that it must be uttered in
tones especially consecrated to it. So intimate is this reciprocal
relation of tone and language that in process of time these two elements
have become amalgamated into a union so complete that no dissolution is
possible even in thought. There is no question that the chant melodies as
they exist to-day are only modifications, in most cases but slight
modifications, of those that were originally associated with the several
portions of the liturgy. At the moment when any form of words was given a
place in the Missal or Breviary, its proper melody was then and there
wedded to it. This fact makes the Catholic liturgic chant a distinctive
church song in a special and peculiar sense. It is not, like most other
church music, the artistic creation of individuals, enriching the service
with contributions from without, and imparting to them a quality drawn
from the composer's personal feeling and artistic methods. It is rather a
sort of religious folk-song, proceeding from the inner shrine of
religion. It is abstract, impersonal; its style is strictly
ecclesiastical, both in its inherent solemnity and its ancient
association, and it bears, like the ritual itself, the sanction of
unimpeachable authority. The reverence paid by the Church to the liturgic
chant as a peculiarly sacred form of utterance is plainly indicated by
the fact that while there is no restraint upon the license of choice on
the part of the choir, no other form of song has ever been heard, or can
ever be permitted to be heard, from the priest in the performance of his
ministrations at the altar.
If we enter a Catholic church during High Mass or Vespers we notice that
the words of the priest are delivered in musical tones. This song at once
strikes us as different in many respects from any other form of music
with which we are acquainted. At first it seems monotonous, strange,
almost barbaric, but when we have become accustomed to it the effect is
very solemn and impressive. Many who are not instructed in the matter
imagine that the priest extemporizes these cadences, but nothing could be
further from the truth. Certain portions of this chant are very plain,
long series of words being recited on a single note, introduced and ended
with very simple melodic inflections; other portions are florid, of wider
compass than the simple chant, often with many notes to a syllable.
Sometimes the priest sings alone, without response or accompaniment;
sometimes his utterances are answered by a choir of boys in the chancel
or a mixed choir in the gallery; in certain portions of the service the
organ supports the chant with harmonies which seem to be based on a
different principle of key and scale from that which ordinarily obtains
in modern chord progression. In its freedom of rhythm it bears some
resemblance to dramatic recitative, yet it is far less dramatic or
characteristic in color and expression, and at the same time both more
severe and more flexible. To one who understands the whole conception and
spirit of the Catholic worship there is a singular appropriateness in the
employment of this manner of utterance, and when properly rendered it
blends most efficiently with the architectural splendors of altar and
sanctuary, with incense, lights, vestments, ceremonial action, and all
the embellishments that lend distinction and solemnity to the Catholic
ritual. This is the celebrated liturgic chant, also called Gregorian
chant, Plain Song, or Choral, and is the special and peculiar form of
song in which the Catholic Church has clothed its liturgy for certainly
fifteen hundred years.
This peculiar and solemn form of song is the musical speech in which the
entire ritual of the Catholic Church was originally rendered, and to
which a large portion of the ritual is confined at the present day. It is
always sung in unison, with or without instrumental accompaniment. It is
unmetrical though not unrhythmical; it follows the phrasing, the
emphasis, and the natural inflections of the voice in reciting the text,
at the same time that it idealizes them. It is a sort of heightened form
of speech, a musical declamation, having for its object the intensifying
of the emotional powers of ordinary spoken language. It stands to true
song or tune in much the same relation as prose to verse, less
impassioned, more reflective, yet capable of moving the heart like
eloquence.
The chant appears to be the natural and fundamental form of music
employed in all liturgical systems the world over, ancient and modern.
The sacrificial song of the Egyptians, the Hebrews, and the Greeks was a
chant, and this is the form of music adopted by the Eastern Church, the
Anglican, and every system in which worship is offered in common and
prescribed forms. The chant form is chosen because it does not make an
independent artistic impression, but can be held in strict subordination
to the sacred words; its sole function is to carry the text over with
greater force upon the attention and the emotions. It is in this
relationship of text and tone that the chant differs from true melody.
The latter obeys musical laws of structure and rhythm; the music is
paramount and the text accessory, and in order that the musical flow may
not be hampered, the words are often extended or repeated, and may be
compared to a flexible framework on which the tonal decoration is
displayed. In the chant, on the other hand, this relation of text and
tone is reversed; there is no repetition of words, the laws of structure
and rhythm are rhetorical laws, and the music never asserts itself to the
concealment or subjugation of the meaning of the text. The "jubilations"
or "melismas," which are frequent in the choral portions of the Plain
Song system, particularly in the richer melodies of thee Mass, would seem
at first thought to contradict this principle; in these florid melodic
phrases the singer would appear to abandon himself to a sort of inspired
rapture, giving vent to the emotions aroused in him by the sacred words.
Here musical utterance seems for the moment to be set free from
dependence upon word and symbol and to assert its own special
prerogatives of expression, adopting the conception that underlies modern
figurate music. These occasional ebullitions of feeling permitted in the
chant are, however, only momentary; they relieve what would otherwise be
an unvaried austerity not contemplated in the spirit of Catholic art;
they do not violate the general principle of universality and
objectiveness as opposed to individual subjective
expression,--subordination to word and rite rather than purely musical
self-assertion,--which is the theoretic basis of the liturgic chant
system.
Chant is speech-song, probably the earliest form of vocal music; it
proceeds from the modulations of impassioned speech; it results from the
need of regulating and perpetuating these modulations when certain
exigencies require a common and impressive form of utterance, as in
religious rites, public rejoicing or mourning, etc. The necessity of
filling large spaces almost inevitably involves the use of balanced
cadences. Poetic recitation among ancient and primitive peoples is never
recited in the ordinary level pitch of voice in speech, but always in
musical inflections, controlled by some principle of order. Under the
authority of a permanent corporate institution these inflections are
reduced to a system, and are imposed upon all whose office it is to
administer the public ceremonies of worship. This is the origin of the
liturgic chant of ancient peoples, and also, by historic continuation, of
the Gregorian melody. The Catholic chant is a projection into modern art
of the altar song of Greece, Judaea, and Egypt, and through these nations
reaches back to that epoch of unknown remoteness when mankind first began
to conceive of invisible powers to be invoked or appeased. A large
measure of the impressiveness of the liturgic chant, therefore, is due to
its historic religious associations. It forms a connecting link between
ancient religion and the Christian, and perpetuates to our own day an
ideal of sacred music which is as old as religious music itself. It is a
striking fact that only within the last six hundred or seven hundred
years, and only within the bounds of Christendom, has an artificial form
of worship music arisen in which musical forms have become emancipated
from subjection to the rhetorical laws of speech, and been built up under
the shaping force of inherent musical laws, gaining a more or less free
play for the creative impulses of an independent art. The conception
which is realized in the Gregorian chant, and which exclusively prevailed
until the rise of the modern polyphonic system, is that of music in
subjection to rite and liturgy, its own charms merged and, so far as
conscious intention goes, lost in the paramount significance of text and
action. It is for this reason, together with the historic relation of
chant and liturgy, that the rulers of the Catholic Church have always
labored so strenuously for uniformity in the liturgic chant as well as
for its perpetuity. There are even churchmen at the present time who urge
the abandonment of all the modern forms of harmonized music and the
restoration of the unison chant to every detail of the service. A notion
so ascetic and monastic can never prevail, but one who has fully entered
into the spirit of the Plain Song melodies can at least sympathize with
the reverence which such a reactionary attitude implies. There is a
solemn unearthly sweetness in these tones which appeals irresistibly to
those who have become habituated to them. They have maintained for
centuries the inevitable comparison with every other form of melody,
religious and secular, and there is reason to believe that they will
continue to sustain all possible rivalry, until they at last outlive
every other form of music now existing.
No one can obtain any proper conception of this magnificent Plain Song
system from the examples which one ordinarily hears in Catholic churches,
for only a minute part of it is commonly employed at the present day.
Only in certain convents and a few churches where monastic ideas prevail,
and where priests and choristers are enthusiastic students of the ancient
liturgic song, can we hear musical performances which afford us a
revelation of the true affluence of this mediaeval treasure. What we
customarily hear is only the simpler intonings of the priest at his
ministrations, and the eight "psalm tones" sung alternately by priest and
choir. These "psalm tones" or "Gregorian tones" are plain melodic
formulas, with variable endings, and are appointed to be sung to the
Latin psalms and canticles. When properly delivered, and supported by an
organist who knows the secret of accompanying them, they are exceedingly
beautiful. They are but a hint, however, of the rich store of melodies,
some of them very elaborate and highly organized, which the chantbooks
contain, and which are known only to special students. To this great
compendium belong the chants anciently assigned to those portions of the
liturgy which are now usually sung in modern settings,--the Kyrie,
Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and the variable portions
of the Mass, such as the Introits, Graduals, Prefaces, Offertories,
Sequences, etc., besides the hymns sung at Vespers and the other
canonical hours. Few have ever explored the bulky volumes which contain
this unique bequest of the Middle Age; but one who has even made a
beginning of such study, or who has heard the florid chants worthily
performed in the traditional style, can easily understand the enthusiasm
which these strains arouse in the minds of those who love to penetrate to
the innermost shrines of Catholic devotional expression.
The theory and practice of the liturgic chant is a science of large
dimensions and much difficulty. In the course of centuries a vast store
of chant melodies has been accumulated, and in the nature of the case
many variants of the older melodies--those composed before the
development of a precise system of notation--have arisen, so that the
verification of texts, comparison of authorities, and the application of
methods of rendering to the needs of the complex ceremonial make this
subject a very important branch of liturgical science.
The Plain Song may be divided into the simple and the ornate chants. In
the first class the melodies are to a large extent syllabic (one note to
a syllable), rarely with more than two notes to a syllable. The simplest
of all are the tones employed in the delivery of certain prayers, the
Epistle, Prophecy, and Gospel, technically known as "accents," which vary
but little from monotone. The most important of the more melodious simple
chants are the "Gregorian tones" already mentioned. The inflections sung
to the versicles and responses are also included among the simple chants.
The ornate chants differ greatly in length, compass, and degree of
elaboration. Some of these melodies are exceedingly florid and many are
of great beauty. They constitute the original settings for all the
portions of the Mass not enumerated among the simple chants, _viz._, the
Kyrie, Gloria, Introit, Prefaces, Communion, etc., besides the Sequences
and hymns. Certain of these chants are so elaborate that they may almost
be said to belong to a separate class. Examination of many of these
extended melodies will often disclose a decided approach to regularity of
form through the recurrence of certain definite melodic figures. "In the
Middle Age," says P. Wagner, "nothing was known of an accompaniment;
there was not the slightest need of one. The substance of the musical
content, which we to-day commit to interpretation through harmony, the
old musicians laid upon melody. The latter accomplished in itself the
complete utterance of the artistically aroused fantasy. In this
particular the melismas, which carry the extensions of the tones of the
melody, are a necessary means of presentation in mediaeval art; they
proceed logically out of the principle of the unison melody." "Text
repetition is virtually unknown in the unison music of the Middle Age.
While modern singers repeat an especially emphatic thought or word, the
old melodists repeat a melody or phrase which expresses the ground mood
of the text in a striking manner. And they not only repeat it, but they
make it unfold, and draw out of it new tones of melody. This method is
certainly not less artistic than the later text repetition; it comes
nearer, also, to the natural expression of the devotionally inspired
heart."[54]
The ritual chant has its special laws of execution which involve long
study on the part of one who wishes to master it. Large attention is
given in the best seminaries to the purest manner of delivering the
chant, and countless treatises have been written upon the subject. The
first desideratum is an accurate pronunciation of the Latin, and a facile
and distinct articulation. The notes have no fixed and measurable value,
and are not intended to give the duration of the tones, but only to guide
the modulation of the voice. The length of each tone is determined only
by the proper length of the syllable. In this principle lies the very
essence of Gregorian chant, and it is the point at which it stands in
exact contradiction to the theory of modern measured music. The divisions
of the chant are given solely by the text. The rhythm, therefore, is that
of speech, of the prose text to which the chant tones are set. The rhythm
is a natural rhythm, a succession of syllables combined into expressive
groups by means of accent, varied pitch, and prolongations of tone. The
fundamental rule for chanting is: "Sing the words with notes as you would
speak them without notes." This does not imply that the utterance is
stiff and mechanical as in ordinary conversation; there is a heightening
of the natural inflection and a grouping of notes, as in impassioned
speech or the most refined declamation. Like the notes and divisions, the
pauses also are unequal and immeasurable, and are determined only by the
sense of the words and the necessity of taking breath.
In the long florid passages often occurring on a single vowel analogous
rules are involved. The text and the laws of natural recitation must
predominate over melody. The jubilations are not to be conceived simply
as musical embellishments, but, on the contrary, their beauty depends
upon the melodic accents to which they are joined in a subordinate
position. These florid passages are never introduced thoughtlessly or
without meaning, but they are strictly for emphasizing the thought with
which they are connected; "they make the soul in singing fathom the
deeper sense of the words, and to taste of the mysteries hidden within
them."[55] The particular figures must be kept apart and distinguished
from each other, and brought into union with each other, like the words,
clauses, and sentences of an oration. Even these florid passages are
dependent upon the influence of the words and their character of prayer.
The principles above cited concern the rhythm of the chant. Other
elements of expression must also be taken into account, such as
prolonging and shortening tones, crescendos and diminuendos, subtle
changes of quality of voice or tone color to suit different sentiments.
The manner of singing is also affected by the conditions of time and
place, such as the degree of the solemnity of the occasion, and the
dimensions and acoustic properties of the edifice in which the ceremony
is held.
In the singing of the mediaeval hymn melodies, many beautiful examples of
which abound in the Catholic office books, the above rules of rhythm and
expression are modified as befits the more regular metrical character
which the melodies derive from the verse. They are not so rigid, however,
as would be indicated by the bar lines of modern notation, and follow the
same laws of rhythm that would obtain in spoken recitation.
The liturgic chant of the Catholic Church has already been alluded to
under its more popular title of "Gregorian." Throughout the Middle Age
and down to our own day nothing in history has been more generally
received as beyond question than that the Catholic chant is entitled to
this appellation from the work performed in its behalf by Pope Gregory
I., called the Great. This eminent man, who reigned from 590 to 604, was
the ablest of the succession of early pontiffs who formulated the line of
policy which converted the barbarians of the North and West, brought
about the spiritual and political autonomy of the Roman See, and
confirmed its supremacy over all the churches of the West.
In addition to these genuine services historians have generally concurred
in ascribing to him a final shaping influence upon the liturgic chant,
with which, however, he probably had very little to do. His supposed work
in this department has been divided into the following four details:
(1) He freed the church song from the fetters of Greek prosody.
(2) He collected the chants previously existing, added others, provided
them with a system of notation, and wrote them down in a book which was
afterwards called the Antiphonary of St. Gregory, which he fastened to
the altar of St. Peter's Church, in order that it might serve as an
authoritative standard in all cases of doubt in regard to the true form
of chant.
(3) He established a singing school in which he gave instruction.
(4) He added four new scales to the four previously existing, thus
completing the tonal system of the Church.
The prime authority for these statements is the biography of Gregory I.,
written by John the Deacon about 872. Detached allusions to this pope as
the founder of the liturgic chant appear before John's day, the earliest
being in a manuscript addressed by Pope Hadrian I. to Charlemagne in the
latter part of the eighth century, nearly two hundred years after
Gregory's death. The evidences which tend to show that Gregory I. could
not have had anything to do with this important work of sifting,
arranging, and noting the liturgic melodies become strong as soon as they
are impartially examined. In Gregory's very voluminous correspondence,
which covers every known phase of his restless activity, there is no
allusion to any such work in respect to the music of the Church, as there
almost certainly would have been if he had undertaken to bring about
uniformity in the musical practice of all the churches under his
administration. The assertions of John the Deacon are not confirmed by
any anterior document. No epitaph of Gregory, no contemporary records, no
ancient panegyrics of the pope, touch upon the question. Isidor of
Seville, a contemporary of Gregory, and the Venerable Bede in the next
century, were especially interested in the liturgic chant and wrote upon
it, yet they make no mention of Gregory in connection with it. The
documents upon which John bases his assertion, the so-called Gregorian
Antiphonary, do not agree with the ecclesiastical calendar of the actual
time of Gregory I.
In reply to these objections and others that might be given there is no
answer but legend, which John the Deacon incorporated in his work, and
which was generally accepted toward the close of the eleventh century.
That this legend should have arisen is not strange. It is no uncommon
thing in an uncritical age for the achievement of many minds in a whole
epoch to be attributed to the most commanding personality in that epoch,
and such a personality in the sixth and seventh centuries was Gregory the
Great.
What, then, is the origin of the so-called Gregorian chant? There is
hardly a more interesting question in the whole history of music, for
this chant is the basis of the whole magnificent structure of mediaeval
church song, and in a certain sense of all modern music, and it can be
traced back unbroken to the earliest years of the Christian Church, the
most persistent and fruitful form of art that the modern world has known.
The most exhaustive study that has been devoted to this obscure subject
has been undertaken by Gevaert, director of the Brussels Conservatory of
Music, who has brought forward strong representation to show that the
musical system of the early Church of Rome was largely derived from the
secular forms of music practised in the private and social life of the
Romans in the time of the empire, and which were brought to Rome from
Greece after the conquest of that country B.C. 146. "No one to-day
doubts," says Gevaert, "that the modes and melodies of the Catholic
liturgy are a precious remains of antique art." "The Christian chant took
its modal scales to the number of four, and its melodic themes, from the
musical practice of the Roman empire, and particularly from the song
given to the accompaniment of the kithara, the special style of music
cultivated in private life. The most ancient monuments of the liturgic
chant go back to the boundary of the fourth and fifth centuries, when the
forms of worship began to be arrested in their present shape. Like the
Latin language, the Greco-Roman music entered in like manner into the
Catholic Church. Vocabulary and syntax are the same with the pagan
Symmachus and his contemporary St. Ambrose; modes and rules of musical
composition are identical in the hymns which Mesomedes addresses to the
divinities of paganism and in the cantilenas of the Christian singers."
"The compilation and composition of the liturgic songs, which was
traditionally ascribed to St. Gregory I., is in truth a work of the
Hellenic popes at the end of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth
centuries. The Antiphonarium Missarum received its definitive form
between 682 and 715; the Antiphonarium Officii was already fixed under
Pope Agathon (678-681)." In the fourth century, according to Gevaert,
antiphons were already known in the East. St. Ambrose is said to have
transplanted them into the West. Pope Celestine I. (422-472) has been
called the founder of the antiphonal song in the Roman Church. Leo the
Great (440-461) gave the song permanence by the establishment of a
singing school in the neighborhood of St. Peter's. Thus from the fifth
century to the latter part of the seventh grew the treasure of melody,
together with the unfolding of the liturgy. The four authentic modes were
adaptations of four modes employed by the Greeks. The oldest chants are
the simplest, and of those now in existence the antiphons of the Divine
Office can be traced farthest back to the transition point from the
Greco-Roman practice to that of the Christian Church. The florid chants
were of later introduction, and were probably the contribution of the
Greek and Syrian Churches.[56]
The Christian chants were, however, no mere reproductions of profane
melodies. The groundwork of the chant is allied to the Greek melody; the
Christian song is of a much richer melodic movement, bearing in all its
forms the evidence of the exuberant spiritual life of which it is the
chosen expression. The pagan melody was sung to an instrument; the
Christian was unaccompanied, and was therefore free to develop a special
rhythmical and melodic character unconditioned by any laws except those
involved in pure vocal expression. The fact also that the Christian
melodies were set to unmetrical texts, while the Greek melody was wholly
confined to verse, marked the emancipation of the liturgic song from the
bondage of strict prosody, and gave a wider field to melodic and rhythmic
development.
It would be too much to say that Gevaert has completely made out his
case. The impossibility of verifying the exact primitive form of the
oldest chants, and the almost complete disappearance of the Greco-Roman
melodies which are supposed to be the antecedent or the suggestion of the
early Christian tone formulas, make a positive demonstration in such a
case out of the question. Gevaert seems to rely mainly upon the identity
of modes or keys which exists between the most ancient church melodies
and those most in use in the kithara song. Other explanations, more or
less plausible, have been advanced, and it is not impossible that the
simpler melodies may have arisen in an idealization of the natural speech
accent, with a view to procuring measured and agreeable cadences. Both
methods--actual adaptations of older tunes and the spontaneous
enunciation of more obvious melodic formulas--may have been allied in the
production of the earlier liturgic chants. The laws that have been found
valid in the development of all art would make the derivation of the
ecclesiastical melodies from elements existing in the environment of the
early Church a logical and reasonable supposition, even in the absence of
documentary evidence.
There is no proof of the existence of a definite system of notation
before the seventh century. The chanters, priests, deacons, and monks, in
applying melodies to the text of the office, composed by aid of their
memories, and their melodies were transmitted by memory, although
probably with the help of arbitrary mnemonic signs. The possibility of
this will readily be granted when we consider that special orders of
monks made it their sole business to preserve, sing, and teach these
melodies. In the confusion and misery following the downfall of the
kingdom of the Goths in the middle of the sixth century the Church became
a sanctuary of refuge from the evils of the time. With the revival of
religious zeal and the accession of strength the Church flourished,
basilicas and convents were multiplied, solemnities increased in number
and splendor, and with other liturgic elements the chant expanded. A
number of popes in the seventh century were enthusiastic lovers of Church
music, and gave it the full benefit of their authority. Among these were
Gregory II. and Gregory III., one of whom may have inadvertently given
his name to the chant.
The system of tonality upon which the music of the Middle Age was based
was the modal or diatonic. The modern system of transposing scales, each
major or minor scale containing the same succession of steps and half
steps as each of its fellows, dates no further back than the first half
of the seventeenth century. The mediaeval system comprises theoretically
fourteen, in actual use twelve, distinct modes or keys, known as the
ecclesiastical modes or Gregorian modes. These modes are divided into two
classes--the "authentic" and "plagal." The compass of each of the
authentic modes lies between the keynote, called the "final," and the
octave above, and includes the notes represented by the white keys of the
pianoforte, excluding sharps and flats. The first authentic mode begins
on D, the second on E, and so on. Every authentic mode is connected with
a mode known as its plagal, which consists of the last four notes of the
authentic mode transposed an octave below, and followed by the first five
notes of the authentic, the "final" being the same in the two modes. The
modes are sometimes transposed a fifth lower or a fourth higher by means
of flatting the B. During the epoch of the foundation of the liturgic
chant only the first eight modes (four authentic and four plagal) were in
use. The first four authentic modes were popularly attributed to St.
Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the fourth century, and the first four plagal
to St. Gregory, but there is no historic basis for this tradition. The
last two modes are a later addition to the system. The Greek names are
those by which the modes are popularly known, and indicate a hypothetical
connection with the ancient Greek scale system.
Authentic Modes Plagal Modes
Authentic Modes Plagal Modes
To suppose that the chant in this period was sung exactly as it appears
in the office books of the present day would be to ignore a very
characteristic and universal usage in the Middle Age. No privilege was
more freely accorded to the mediaeval chanter than that of adding to the
melody whatever embellishment he might choose freely to invent on the
impulse of the moment. The right claimed by Italian opera singers down to
a very recent date to decorate the phrases with trills, cadenzas, etc.,
even to the extent of altering the written notes themselves, is only the
perpetuation of a practice generally prevalent in the mediaeval Church,
and which may have come down, for anything we know to the contrary, from
remote antiquity. In fact, the requirement of singing the notes exactly
as they are written is a modern idea; no such rule was recognized as
invariably binding until well into the nineteenth century. It was no
uncommon thing in Haendel's time and after to introduce free
embellishments even into "I know that my Redeemer liveth" in the
"Messiah." In the Middle Age the singers in church and convent took great
merit to themselves for the inventive ability and vocal adroitness by
which they were able to sprinkle the plain notes of the chant with
improvised embellishments. "Moreover, there existed in the liturgic text
a certain number of words upon which the singers had the liberty of
dilating according to their fancy. According to an ancient Christian
tradition, certain chants were followed by a number of notes sung upon
meaningless vowels; these notes, called neumes or _jubili_, rendered, in
accordance with a poetic thought, the faith and adoration of the
worshipers who appeared to be unable to find words that could express
their sentiments. These vocalizations or embroideries were sometimes
longer than the chants themselves, and many authors complained of the
importance given to these vocal fantasies."[57] Among the mnemonic signs
which, before the invention of the staff and notation system, indicated
the changes of pitch to be observed by the singer, there were many that
unmistakably point to the traditional flourishes which had become an
integral element in the Plain Song system. Many of these survived and
were carried over into secular music after the method of chanting became
more simple and severe. Similar license was also practised in the later
period of part singing, and not only in the rude early counterpoint of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, but even in the highly developed
and specialized chorus music of the sixteenth century, the embellishments
which were reduced to a system and handed down by tradition, gave to this
art a style and effect the nature of which has now fallen from the
knowledge of men.
Such was the nature of the song which resounded about the altars of Roman
basilicas and through convent cloisters in the seventh and eighth
centuries, and which has remained the sanctioned official speech of the
Catholic Church in her ritual functions to the present day. Nowhere did
it suffer any material change or addition until it became the basis of a
new harmonic art in Northern Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries. The chant according to the Roman use began to extend itself
over Europe in connection with the missionary efforts which emanated from
Rome from the time of Gregory the Great. Augustine, the emissary of
Gregory, who went to England in 597 to convert the Saxons, carried with
him the Roman chant. "The band of monks," says Green, "entered Canterbury
bearing before them a silver cross with a picture of Christ, and singing
in concert the strains of the litany of their church."[58] And although
the broad-minded Gregory instructed Augustine not to insist upon
supplanting with the Roman use the liturgy already employed in the older
British churches if such an attempt would create hostility, yet the Roman
chant was adopted both at Canterbury and York.
The Roman chant was accepted eventually throughout the dominions of the
Church as an essential element of the Roman liturgy. Both shared the same
struggles and the same triumphs. Familiarity with the church song became
an indispensable part of the equipment of every clergyman, monastic and
secular. No missionary might go forth from Rome who was not adept in it.
Monks made dangerous journeys to Rome from the remotest districts in
order to learn it. Every monastery founded in the savage forests of
Germany, Gaul, or Britain became at once a singing school, and day and
night the holy strains went up in unison with the melodies of the far
distant sacred city. The Anglo-Saxon monk Winfrid, afterward known as
Boniface, the famous missionary to the Germans, planted the Roman liturgy
in Thuringia and Hesse, and devoted untiring efforts to teaching the
Gregorian song to his barbarous proselytes. In Spain, Ildefonso, about
600, is enrolled among the zealous promoters of sacred song according to
the use of Rome. Most eminent and most successful of all who labored for
the exclusive authority of the Roman chant as against the Milanese,
Gallican, and other rival forms was Charlemagne, king of the Franks from
768 to 814, whose persistent efforts to implant the Gregorian song in
every church and school in his wide dominions was an important detail of
his labor in the interest of liturgic uniformity according to the Roman
model.
Among the convent schools which performed such priceless service for
civilization in the gloomy period of the early Middle Age, the monastery
of St. Gall in Switzerland holds an especially distinguished place. This
convent was established in the seventh century by the Irish monk from
whom it took its name, rapidly increased in repute as a centre of piety
and learning, and during the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries numbered
some of the foremost scholars of the time among its brotherhood. About
790 two monks, versed in all the lore of the liturgic chant, were sent
from Rome into the empire of Charlemagne at the monarch's request. One of
them, Romanus, was received and entertained by the monks of St. Gall, and
was persuaded to remain with them as teacher of church song according to
the Antiphonary which he had brought with him from Rome. St. Gall soon
became famous as a place where the purest traditions of the Roman chant
were taught and practised. Schubiger, in his extremely interesting work,
_Die Saengerschule St. Gallens vom VIII.-XII. Jahrhundert_, has given an
extended account of the methods of devotional song in use at St. Gall,
which may serve as an illustration of the general practice among the
pious monks of the Middle Age:
"In the reign of Charlemagne (803) the Council of Aachen enjoined upon
all monasteries the use of the Roman song, and a later capitulary
required that the monks should perform this song completely and in proper
order at the divine office, in the daytime as well as at night. According
to other rescripts during the reign of Louis the Pious (about 820) the
monks of St. Gall were required daily to celebrate Mass, and also to
perform the service of all the canonical hours. The solemn melodies of
the ancient psalmody resounded daily in manifold and precisely ordered
responses; at the midnight hour the sound of the Invitatorium, Venite
exultamus Domino, opened the service of the nocturnal vigils; the
prolonged, almost mournful tones of the responses alternated with the
intoned recitation of the lessons; in the spaces of the temple on Sundays
and festal days, at the close of the nightly worship, there reechoed the
exalted strains of the Ambrosian hymn of praise (Te Deum laudamus); at
the first dawn of day began the morning adoration, with psalms and
antiphons, hymns and prayers; to these succeeded in due order the
remaining offices of the diurnal hours. The people were daily invited by
the Introit to participate in the holy mysteries; they heard in solemn
stillness the tones of the Kyrie imploring mercy; on festal days they
were inspired by the song once sung by the host of angels; after the
Gradual they heard the melodies of the Sequence which glorified the
object of the festival in jubilant choral strains, and afterward the
simple recitative tones of the Creed; at the Sanctus they were summoned
to join in the praise of the Thrice Holy, and to implore the mercy of the
Lamb who taketh away the sins of the world. These were the songs which,
about the middle of the ninth century, arose on festal or ferial days in
the cloister church of St. Gall. How much store the fathers of this
convent set upon beauty and edification in song appears from the old
regulations in which distinct pronunciation of words and uniformity of
rendering are enjoined, and hastening or dragging the time sharply
rebuked."
Schubiger goes on to say that three styles of performing the chant were
employed; _viz._, a very solemn one for the highest festivals, one less
solemn for Sundays and saints' days, and an ordinary one for ferial days.
An appropriate character was given to the different chants,--_e. g._, a
profound and mournful expression in the office for the dead; an
expression of tenderness and sweetness to the hymns, the Kyrie, Sanctus,
and Agnus Dei; and a dignified character (cantus gravis) to the
antiphons, responses, and alleluia. Anything that could disturb the
strict and euphonious rendering of the song was strictly forbidden.
Harsh, unmusical voices were not permitted to take part. Distinctness,
precise conformity of all the singers in respect to time, and purity of
intonation were inflexibly demanded.
Special services, with processions and appropriate hymns, were instituted
on the occasion of the visit to the monastery of the emperor or other
high dignitary. All public observances, the founding of a building, the
reception of holy relics, the consecration of a bell or altar,--even many
of the prescribed routine duties of conventual life, such as drawing
water, lighting lamps, or kindling fires,--each had its special form of
song. It was not enthusiasm, but sober truth, that led Ekkehard V. to say
that the rulers of this convent, "through their songs and melodies, as
also through their teachings, filled the Church of God, not only in
Germany, but in all lands from one sea to the other, with splendor and
joy."
At the convent of St. Gall originated the class of liturgical hymns
called Sequences, which includes some of the finest examples of mediaeval
hymnody. At a very early period it became the custom to sing the Alleluia
of the Gradual to a florid chant, the final vowel being extended into an
exceedingly elaborate flourish of notes. Notker Balbulus, a notable
member of the St. Gall brotherhood in the ninth century, conceived the
notion, under the suggestion of a visiting monk, of making a practical
use of the long-winded final cadence of the Alleluia. He extended and
modified these melodious passages and set words to them, thus
constructing a brief form of prose hymn. His next step was to invent both
notes and text, giving his chants a certain crude form by the occasional
repetition of a melodic strain. He preserved a loose connection with the
Alleluia by retaining the mode and the first few tones. These experiments
found great favor in the eyes of the brethren of St. Gall; others
followed Notker's example, and the Sequence melodies were given honored
places in the ritual on festal days and various solemn occasions. The
custom spread; Pope Nicholas I. in 860 permitted the adoption of the new
style of hymn into the liturgy. The early Sequences were in rhythmic
prose, but in the hands of the ecclesiastical poets of the few centuries
following they were written in rhymed verse. The Sequence was therefore
distinguished from other Latin hymns only by its adoption into the office
of the Mass as a regular member of the liturgy on certain festal days.
The number increased to such large proportions that a sifting process was
deemed necessary, and upon the occasion of the reform of the Missal
through Pius V. after the Council of Trent only five were retained,
_viz._, Victimae paschali, sung on Easter Sunday; Veni Sancte Spiritus,
appointed for Whit-Sunday; Lauda Sion, for Corpus Christi; Stabat Mater
dolorosa, for Friday of Passion Week; and Dies Irae, which forms a
portion of the Mass for the Dead.
Many beautiful and touching stories have come down to us, illustrating
the passionate love of the monks for their songs, and the devout, even
superstitious, reverence with which they regarded them. Among these are
the tales of the Armorican monk Herve, in the sixth century, who, blind
from his birth, became the inspirer and teacher of his brethren by means
of his improvised songs, and the patron of mendicant singers, who still
chant his legend in Breton verse. His mother, so one story goes, went one
day to visit him in the cloister, and, as she was approaching, said: "I
see a procession of monks advancing, and I hear the voice of my son. God
be with you, my son! When, with the help of God, I get to heaven, you
shall be warned of it, you shall hear the angels sing." The same evening
she died, and her son, while at prayer in his cell, heard the singing of
the angels as they welcomed her soul in heaven.[59] According to another
legend, told by Gregory of Tours, a mother had taken her only son to a
monastery near Lake Geneva, where he became a monk, and especially
skilful in chanting the liturgic service. "He fell sick and died; his
mother in despair came to bury him, and returned every night to weep and
lament over his tomb. One night she saw St. Maurice in a dream attempting
to console her, but she answered him, 'No, no; as long as I live I shall
always weep for my son, my only child!' 'But,' answered the saint, 'he
must not be wept for as if he were dead; he is with us, he rejoices in
eternal life, and tomorrow, at Matins, in the monastery, thou shalt hear
his voice among the choir of the monks; and not to-morrow only, but every
day as long as thou livest.' The mother immediately arose, and waited
with impatience the first sound of the bell for Matins, to hasten to the
church of the monks. The precentor having intoned the response, when the
monks in full choir took up the antiphon, the mother immediately
recognized the voice of her child. She gave thanks to God; and every day
for the rest of her life, the moment she approached the choir she heard
the voice of her well-beloved son mingle in the sweet and holy melody of
the liturgic chant."[60]
As centuries went on, and these ancient melodies, gathering such stores
of holy memory, were handed down in their integrity from generation to
generation of praying monks, it is no wonder that the feeling grew that
they too were inspired by the Holy Spirit. The legend long prevailed in
the Middle Age that Gregory the Great one night had a vision in which the
Church appeared to him in the form of an angel, magnificently attired,
upon whose mantle was written the whole art of music, with all the forms
of its melodies and notes. The pope prayed God to give him the power of
recollecting all that he saw; and after he awoke a dove appeared, who
dictated to him the chants which are ascribed to him.[61] Ambros quotes a
mediaeval Latin chronicler, Aurelian Reomensis, who relates that a blind
man named Victor, sitting one day before an altar in the Pantheon at
Rome, by direct divine inspiration composed the response Gaude Maria, and
by a second miracle immediately received his sight. Another story from
the same source tells how a monk of the convent of St. Victor, while upon
a neighboring mountain, heard angels singing the response Cives
Apostolorum, and after his return to Rome he taught the song to his
brethren as he had heard it.[62]
In order to explain the feeling toward the liturgic chant which is
indicated by these legends and the rapturous eulogies of mediaeval and
modern writers, we have only to remember that the melody was never
separated in thought from the words, that these words were prayer and
praise, made especially acceptable to God because wafted to him by means
of his own gift of music. To the mediaeval monks prayer was the highest
exercise in which man can engage, the most efficacious of all actions,
the chief human agency in the salvation of the world. Prayer was the
divinely appointed business to which they were set apart. Hence arose the
multiplicity of religious services in the convents, the observance of the
seven daily hours of prayer, in some monasteries in France, as earlier in
Syria and Egypt, extending to the so-called _laus perennis_, in which
companies of brethren, relieving each other at stated watches,
maintained, like the sacred fire of Vesta, an unbroken office of song by
night and day.
Such was the liturgic chant in the ages of faith, before the invention of
counterpoint and the first steps in modern musical science suggested new
conceptions and methods in worship music. It constitutes to-day a unique
and precious heritage from an era which, in its very ignorance,
superstition, barbarism of manners, and ruthlessness of political
ambition, furnishes strongest evidence of the divine origin of a faith
which could triumph over such antagonisms. To the devout Catholic the
chant has a sanctity which transcends even its aesthetic and historic
value, but non-Catholic as well as Catholic may reverence it as a direct
creation and a token of a mode of thought which, as at no epoch since,
conceived prayer and praise as a Christian's most urgent duty, and as an
infallible means of gaining the favor of God.
The Catholic liturgic chant, like all other monumental forms of art, has
often suffered through the vicissitudes of taste which have beguiled even
those whose official responsibilities would seem to constitute them the
special custodians of this sacred treasure. Even to-day there are many
clergymen and church musicians who have but a faint conception of the
affluence of lovely melody and profound religious expression contained in
this vast body of mediaeval music. Where purely aesthetic considerations
have for a time prevailed, as they often will even in a Church in which
tradition and symbolism exert so strong an influence as they do in the
Catholic, this archaic form of melody has been neglected. Like all the
older types (the sixteenth century _a capella_ chorus and the German
rhythmic choral, for example) its austere speech has not been able to
prevail against the fascinations of the modern brilliant and emotional
style of church music which has emanated from instrumental art and the
Italian aria. Under this latter influence, and the survival of the
seventeenth-century contempt for everything mediaeval and "Gothic," the
chant was long looked upon with disdain as the offspring of a barbarous
age, and only maintained at all out of unwilling deference to
ecclesiastical authority. In the last few decades, however, probably as a
detail of the reawakening in all departments of a study of the great
works of older art, there has appeared a reaction in favor of a renewed
culture of the Gregorian chant. The tendency toward sensationalism in
church music has now begun to subside. The true ideal is seen to be in
the past. Together with the new appreciation of Palestrina, Bach, and the
older Anglican Church composers, the Catholic chant is coming to its
rights, and an enlightened modern taste is beginning to realize the
melodious beauty, the liturgic appropriateness, and the edifying power
that lie in the ancient unison song. This movement is even now only in
its inception; in the majority of church centres there is still apathy,
and in consequence corruption of the old forms, crudity and coldness in
execution. Much has, however, been already achieved, and in the patient
and acute scholarship applied in the field of textual criticism by the
monks of Solesmes and the church musicians of Paris, Brussels, and
Regensburg, in the enthusiastic zeal shown in many churches and
seminaries of Europe and America for the attainment of a pure and
expressive style of delivery, and in the restoration of the Plain Song to
portions of the ritual from which it has long been banished, we see
evidences of a movement which promises to be fruitful, not only in this
special sphere, but also, as a direct consequence, in other domains of
church music which have been too long neglected.
The historic status of the Gregorian chant as the basis of the
magnificent structure of Catholic church music down to 1600, of the
Anglican chant, and to a large extent of the German people's hymn-tune or
choral, has always been known to scholars. The revived study of it has
come from an awakened perception of its liturgic significance and its
inherent beauty. The influence drawn from its peculiarly solemn and
elevated quality has begun to penetrate the chorus work of the best
Catholic composers of the recent time. Protestant church musicians are
also beginning to find advantage in the study of the melody, the rhythm,
the expression, and even the tonality of the Gregorian song. And every
lover of church music will find a new pleasure and uplift in listening to
its noble strains. He must, however, listen sympathetically, expelling
from his mind all comparison with the modern styles to which he is
accustomed, holding in clear view its historic relations and liturgic
function. To one who so attunes his mind to its peculiar spirit and
purport, the Gregorian Plain Song will seem worthy of the exalted place
it holds in the veneration of the most august ecclesiastical institution
in history.