Chant

CHANT. - I. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS. - Chant in the Church originally had the purpose of making public prayer more solemn: it is therefore eminently liturgical, since the liturgy was born with chant. Just as the liturgies are various, so the forms of chant are different, and each has its own special characteristics. Within the group of chants of the Western liturgies there are at least four forms of chant, namely: the Ambrosian, the Gallican, the Visigothic, the Gregorian (for the Ambrosian, Gallican and Visigothic, Byzantine, Armenian chants, etc., v. the corresponding entries). The Gregorian can decidedly be called Roman, because it is of Roman origin and because, at least from the age of St. Gregory, it takes on a character of its own, distinct in the text and in the style of the chant from the other Western liturgies. It must also be called Roman because of its immediate sources, which are evidently Roman. Roman because of the Latin text, which presents melodic and rhythmic characteristics that we would call local, and these to such a degree as to constitute the melodic and rhythmic basis of chant: that is, the tonicity of the accent, which forms an infinite variety of cadences and even of entire melodies; the indivisibility of the first time, or rhythmic unit, which gives it a solemn rhythm well suited to prayer; rhythmic freedom, that is, a succession not fixed in advance, as in Latin prose or discourse, and freed from the metric concerns of the classical age; harmonious cadence in the phrases, especially in the recitatives, which correspond to the oratorical cursus of rhythmic prose (v. CURSUS). Besides these genuinely Roman characteristics, Gregorian chant accepts, as the basis of its modulation, diatonicism and modal freedom which the West, and Rome in particular, had inherited from the ancients. Gregorian chant must also be called Roman because in its style or general expression sobriety and discretion have great prominence, characteristics that are eminently Roman and that shone forth in the personality of St. Gregory the Great, to whom its paternity is attributed.

II. ORIGIN

The work of this Pope (590-604) presupposes an entire era of formation, to which contributed the repeated and varied prayer aloud (and therefore modulated) of the Pontiff; his dialogues and those of the sacred ministers with the people; the participation of the latter in the singing of the psalms; the part reserved for soloists in the melodic passages that intercalated the readings and the rest of the prayers; the Supplicationes or Litanies that gradually became popular and with which prayer is offered for all the needs of the Church; the progressively greater solemnity that, after the persecutions and through the work of the popes preceding St. Gregory, was given to the liturgy; the Stationes, which contributed in a particular way to defining the feasts and solemnities of the Lord and of the saints. For all this, and because the accent is undoubtedly Latin and Roman, and also because the various melodic sources are either indigenous, that is, Western, or assimilated by the Latin genius, this chant is truly Roman. To these various sources are joined traditions imported from the Church of Jerusalem, or that formed the artistic baggage of the new converts and of the local chants, more or less vulgarized in different churches of the West. Some of these churches, such as that of Milan, present themselves with an indisputable authority; but among them all there reign notable divergences of style.

III. WORK OF ST. GREGORY

Today criticism no longer disputes this Pontiff's authorship of the Roman chant. By his scientific and artistic formation, by his personal gifts, by his monastic life, by his contact with great Latin and non-Latin minds, by his functions as archdeacon, upon whom devolved the care and direction of the subdeacons, cubicularii, lectors and cantors, besides his personal service as head of the chant, he was more than sufficiently prepared for the ordering of the Roman rite, which he himself directed. This ordering of the solemn liturgy, universally attributed to him, inseparably involved the chant, because at that time, and given the purpose of the former, the one could not be achieved without the other. His work, which legend too would adorn with wondrous episodes, was confirmed barely forty years after his death in the epitaph of Pope Honorius (d. 638), in which it is proclaimed that, as in the divina carmina, « Gregorii tanti vestigia iusti dum sequeris capiens meritumque geris ». St. Gregory carries out his work principally by means of the Schola cantorum, a true school of professionals, which, once it had accomplished the « renovavit, compilavit et auxit » (reform, centonization and new compositions, in which is summed up the work directed by St. Gregory), performs it, teaches it, and propagates it in Rome and throughout all Europe. There is no other way to explain the twofold fact, both of the homogeneity of style and procedures discovered throughout the whole ancient Gregorian repertory, and of the identical, constant dissemination by means of notations or scripts even differing from one another, in so many different countries, before the 8th century. If the musical manuscripts go back no further than this age, and are no more abundant than from the 9th and 10th centuries onward, nevertheless the testimony of their existence through tradition and through palimpsests is certain even in more remote times, as in the 6th century. From the 8th century, in the Carolingian era, the work of St. Gregory imposed itself in absolute form, which, out of prudence and owing to special circumstances, had not been introduced everywhere. There remain outside the Gregorian reform Milan, which has preserved its melodies down to the present day, and Spain, which only in the 10th century officially abandons the Visigothic liturgy and adopts the Roman liturgy. Two 12th-century manuscripts extant in Rome show us, rather than a primitive chant anterior to St. Gregory, the work of someone who wishes to compose a new liturgical repertory, in a style much less felicitous than the Ambrosian and the Gregorian.

IV. MUSICAL NOTATION

Gregorian manuscripts present a twofold general aspect: a) the natural evolution of the signs in themselves; b) the different scripts adopted in the various countries of Europe. The evolution of musical signs depends on the fact that, at a remote beginning, the signs of tonic accentuation proper to oratory and grammar were adapted, as such, to express sounds of different pitch: high sounds (the acute accent, musically called virga), and low sounds (the grave accent, called punctum). In this period the whole sign, as in grammar, represented the tonic value. Such is the notation called oratorical or in campo aperto, because the individual sounds have in the writing no fixed place or height relative to one another; so much so that certain pages of the manuscripts offer the case that, once the page is finished, the neumes climb over the margins. To specify the tonal value there were memory, practice, and, in many manuscripts, melodic signs and letters, such as s (sursum), a (altus), i (iusum), d (deprimatur), sometimes accompanied by v (valde), m (mediocriter). Around the 10th and 11th centuries the neumes began to follow a graduated disposition, obeying a line, at first imaginary or ideal, then one of those already traced in dry point on the parchment for the text, and finally several lines, up to four. But the neume

(courtesy of Fr. Gregorio Sadol)

of the ancient form, placed on the line, was imprecise because of the length of the accent; then it gradually grew shorter, and thickened at the ends (strokes or points): these were situated in a fixed place on the line or space of the four-line staff. Thus from accentuation one passed to notation. In the neumes or figures of two or three accents, the tonic elements separated, and the stroke that unites them no longer preserves the character of virga, but that of a simple union. The neumes, in the period of oratorical notation in campo aperto or scriptoria, are distinguished by the characteristics of different nations. Today they have been classified into at least fifteen notations. Such are: 1) Primitive, northern Italy; 2) Nonantola; 3) Novalesa; 4) Milan; 5) central Italy (Arezzo, Lucca, etc.); 6) southern Italy (Benevento, Montecassino, Bari); 7) England; 8) St. Gall; 9) German or Gothic; 10) Metz; 11) primitive and Norman France; 12) Chartres; 13) Aquitanian; 14) the Visigothic, in Spain; 15) the Catalan, formed when the Roman liturgy was adopted in that region.

Almost all these notations, especially St. Gall, Metz, Chartres, Nonantola, employ, to specify the value of the neumes, signs and letters called rhythmic. The signs are of two classes: the modification of the neume (made broader) or the addition of strokes and of letters, such as c (celeriter, ordinary tempo), nl (naturaliter), t (tenete), a (augete), increasing the value, or also x (expecta), accompanied, the letters of delay, by v (valde) or m (mediocriter). There are also other letters, such as p (pressionem), pl (pulchre), f (fortiter), which make us think of how accurate was not only the execution, but also the expression, anticipating by so many centuries (in the 10th) the modern signs of expression. Nor are the delicacies of pronunciation forgotten, such as the notes called liquescent or semivocales for diphthongs, liquid letters, doubled letters, etc. Many manuscripts of the Beneventan, Aquitanian, and Novalesa notations are also rhythmic; and traces of melodic and rhythmic signs and letters are found in English manuscripts. For the pedagogical part, various alphabetical notations were devised: such as those of St. Odo, Hermannus Contractus, Hucbald (or Dasian), of Montpellier, etc. For the convenience of singers, Gregorian chant can be translated into modern notation, always however preserving the grouping of the notes forming the neumes and the appropriate rests; the single note by convention takes the figure of the eighth note that best responds to the recitative and rhythmic character, and to the phrased course of the Gregorian melody.

V. THE DECLINE

The carelessness of the singers, the negligence and unskillfulness of the copyists, the new tastes that in the 13th and 14th centuries produced the Ars nova with Discantus, the Organum (combination of several voices), the proportional value given by the neumes for the greater concord of simultaneous voices, the Renaissance with its passion for the revision of ancient texts, polyphonic art itself, the carelessness and ignorance of liturgical piety, which came to give preference to acts of private and subjective piety, the use of musical instruments, etc., all favored the progressive ruin of Gregorian chant. Its manuscripts were relegated (if they could be saved from destruction) to libraries, until the reflowering of the liturgical spirit and of the study of the monuments. It was through the work and impulse of Fr. L. P. Guéranger, restorer of the Roman liturgy in France and of monastic life, that many scholars began to concern themselves with reviving those manuscripts and with seeking their interpretation. Meanwhile various practical editions of the corrupt chant were made in different countries, and one, that of the publisher Pustet, prepared by Haberl, had the good fortune to pass as the supposed work of the great Palestrina, and to obtain a quasi-official status. By 1901 studies had already advanced, on the part of the monks of Solesmes and of other scholars, to such a point that, once the thirty years of privilege for the Ratisbon edition had passed, the Pope proclaimed absolute freedom of investigation.

VI. THE RESTORATION

From the election of Pius X (1903) it was immediately expected that, after the change begun by Leo XIII with the Nos quidem (May 17, 1901), the reform ad codicum fidem would be officially imposed. The volumes of the Paléographie musicale, published by the monastery of Solesmes (from 1889 to 1901 there were already seven in folio), containing the reproduction of a great number of manuscripts and studies, no less than several practical editions (Liber Gradualis, Antiphonarium) which present a substantially authentic version of Gregorian chant; the edition of the Liber Umalis published by A. Mocquereau with not a few critical adjustments and with the addition of the rhythmic signs that popularized that edition, had prepared Pius X's motu proprio on sacred music. In this document there is already talk of restored chant. But, in order not to fall into editorial exclusivism, it was decided, by motu proprio of April 25

		grammatical accents	musical accents	numi poli	square relation	golic relation
VINGA	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
PUNCTUM	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
PES	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
PES-FLEXUS	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
CLIVIS	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
CLIVIS-RESUPINA	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
SCANDICUS	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
SALICUS	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
CLIMACUS	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
APOSTROPHA	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
ORISCUS	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
QUILISMA	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓

(courtesy of Fr. Gregorio Suñal)
CANTO - Gregorian accents and neumes.

1904, that a typical edition be published by the Holy See, for the preparation of which an international commission was established. Practical difficulties prevented its work from leading to a truly critical form; therefore the editing was entrusted to J. Pothier alone, who published the Kyriale and the Graduale in 1908, and the Antiphonarium in 1912. Later the Vatican Commission was dissolved, and it was the Sacred Congregation of Rites that directly oversaw the publication of the other books: Officium Maioris hebdomadae, In Nativitate Domini, etc., the editing of which was entrusted to the monks of the monastery of Solesmes.

VII. THE "APPARATUS CRITICUS" FOR THE STUDY OF THE MANUSCRIPTS

These monks, initiated with a sure method through the work and genius of A. Mocquereau, after the new research and the photographs of the musical manuscripts of all nations, diligently studied, selected, and compared, arrived, with the help of the critical tables, at a provably authentic version, and at discovering the treasures, many unsuspected, of Gregorian chant. If it is impossible to publish the total apparatus, the particular studies published in the Paléographie musicale, in the Monographies grégoriennes, have to a great extent recovered the Roman chant.

VIII. THE RHYTHM OF THE GREGORIAN CHANT

Nothing could be established on this point before interpreting the manuscripts, studying the whole complex of the ancient repertoire, examining the development of musical art, establishing the relationship between text and melody, and also taking into account the ancient treatises. This patient work, lasting more than fifty years, with the supervision of a true School and with the observations of scientists carefully taken into due account, has made it possible, almost after another fifty years of daily practice in choir, to establish the solid principles of Gregorian rhythm, which are especially outlined in vol. VII of the Paléographie musicale and in the two volumes Le nombre musical grégorien by A. Mocquereau. Gregorian rhythm, which also finds its antecedents in the results of studies on Greek rhythmics, has as its basis the indivisible beat; therefore it has a free rhythm that follows tranquilly in binary and ternary beats.

This rhythm is accompanied by a great number of nuances of expression, specified by many very ancient manuscripts from different countries. The Church today, with its critical version, has also recovered its own manner of praying, singing according to the tradition of centuries of faith, in a way that satisfies collective piety and gives to its liturgical functions a musical interest such as no other chant can give. Its rhythm unites and gathers the immense crowds of people and can present to science a testimony of its tradition of more than a millennium.

IX. THE GREGORIAN MODALITY

The medieval treatise writers handed down to one another the theory of the octoechos, which has come down to us. Eight modes are distinguished: four authentic and four plagal, grouped two by two by identity of tonic, each individually having its own different dominant or modal center. The ascending scale or gamut, from lower sol to upper la, follows the diatonic genus, that is, the succession by natural intervals, unlike the chromatic genus, which subdivides every interval of a whole tone into two semitones. Gregorian chant does not know the modern leading tone, that is, the semitone below the tonic. Relatively recent studies began to establish how the supposed rigidity of the dominants was rather theoretical, arising from the fact that fixed dominants had been chosen for the chants of the psalms. The observation was made regarding the changing of the central notes in the different phrases or members, which consequently come to establish different modal relations in relation to different tonics. This modal freedom already weakened the famous invariable theory of the eight modes. Today studies have been carried much further, to very important conclusions not entirely unsuspected by A. Mocquereau himself. For these new investigations his own system has been followed: that is, to study impartially, and as far as possible in the total whole of the repertoire, the modal facts that it presents to us. In this study of modality, the established fact of the different versions or transpositions offered by certain manuscripts has not been neglected, nor the discreet observation of how it was possible, in fixing the melodies on the staff, to forget those modal variations or shifts which, for lack of means in writing, had previously been performed by word of mouth. This investigation has been flanked by the study of the harmonic theory of the Greeks, no less than by the analysis of the Ambrosian repertoire (after the critical edition of it was made in 1935-39); A. Mocquereau had already advocated the importance of these studies, especially on Ambrosian chant, for the solution of the Gregorian modal question. In this way we can admire, even more than on the schema of the simple theoretical trope and the hypothetical system of the octoechos, the modal beauty of Gregorian chant, and above all realize how the melodies were constructed, modally. According to these results one may continue, scholastically and for the convenience of singers, especially for the chant of the psalms, to classify the melodies as of first, second, third mode, etc. But theoretical and practical analysis shows us that the modal foundation, the constructive principle followed by those monks of the school of St. Gregory, was, as for Greco-Roman music, what is called the first syllable, or the first sound nucleus, consistent and compact, that is, the tetrachord, the ascending perfect fourth.

Such was the modal theory contemporary with the first Gregorian composers, who accepted it as they accepted musical rhythm and the tonicity of the Latin accent, stripped of the classical quantity already out of use. Gregorian chant, modally and rhythmically, is a child of its time.

The diatessaron, no longer descending as in the Hellenic era, but ascending as in Greco-Roman music, can be, as a constructive process, completed up to the diapente (fifth) or the hexachord (sixth). This has been shown us by an infinity of melodies that do not go beyond this ambitus and in which the theory of the fifth and the fourth, or octave, as presented by the system of the octoechos, plays no part at all — an octave which, in the modern sense, with its static notes, was known neither to Hellenic nor to Greco-Roman harmonics. All the rest, both as regards the modal freedom of the dominants and as regards the arrangement of the final notes, which must be one of the two fundamentals of the three just tetrachords of the diatonic scale (do-fa; fa-si; sol-do), that is, do, re, fa, sol, la, is nothing other than a consequence of the constitution of the tetrachord as the foundation of ancient modality.

Gregorian chant thus brings to musical art a contribution of the greatest importance, confirmed by the testimony of the Ambrosian melodies, now critically restored.

X. AESTHETICS

After the preceding works on technique, that is, on rhythm and modality, and on the manner in which all the constituent elements are employed in Gregorian chant, it has been possible to establish the aesthetic laws of Gregorian chant, and this in a synthetic and detailed manner, such as to present a complete whole as has not been possible for any other chant. The studies could be carried forward and their results gathered (already hinted at in vols. III and IV of the Paléographie musicale of Solesmes), especially after the preparation of the thousands of tables (measuring approximately 40 × 20) that served the monk editors in establishing the critical text, and the very numerous other special tables drawn up directly for these works.

The aesthetics of Gregorian chant can be appreciated from its modality, its rhythm, and its contact with the liturgical text: elements which, studied in the actual facts of the melodies, have made it easier for us to establish its aesthetic characteristics. These can be summarized in the following points: beauty resulting from diatonicism (with "wandering" passages or intervals, and even so-called chromatic ones); rhythmic variety; periodic form; a triple general style: syllabic, neumatic, ornate, according to the purpose of each melody and the moment at which it is to be performed; musical elements; motives or melodic designs, psalm-tones, strophic or free melodies, original or unique compositions; type-compositions, which served as adaptations, or the nomos form, and cento compositions, a true melodic musician. It represents a most exquisite art, traditional and new at the same time.

The proper and peculiar expression of Gregorian chant appears from this whole complex of constituent elements as a true tradition that unites, contrary to what many had seen, the Hellenic past with Christian thought. This aesthetic apparatus shows scholars how capricious are the commentaries that have so often been made on Gregorian melodies, and how, according to the genre of the composition — original, type, or cento — or the liturgical moment, it finds the right understanding for the chant. Moreover: Gregorian aesthetics shows us a multiplicity of forms and resources for modern composers (not only for style); and there are melodies with an isolated phrase that recall, or are the development of, a true lied, or else present a certain form of suite, in which the first part directs toward a new modal form, while recalling the initial tone, with true modulations; others, on the other hand, play on the alternation of motives, like true rondeaux with a melodic response, equal or similar, with variations of motives, as happens in many sequences, which do not follow the alleluia theme note for note. All are agreed in admiring an art that was believed to be devoid of any musical spirit, and which instead is precisely the art that has inspired so many forms of composition. In the first place, it makes known to us, through the study of the elements, centos, formulae, musical words, whether and when the language is truly Gregorian, just as with grammar and dictionary we can appreciate the authentic literature of a language, and judge words that are foreign or of a scarcely classical period. In the second place, with the help of this aesthetic study it has been possible to compose the new offices, incorporating them into the Gregorian repertory without their clashing alongside the ancient melodies. An exquisite art, a remarkable skill that only the initiated have been able to realize. With the studies on Gregorian aesthetics, composers of modern religious music find a way to see in Gregorian chant an inexhaustible source of themes, motives, forms, in addition to modal combinations, such and so suggestive as to enrich new compositions, and to rejuvenate religious art artistically, and always in consonance with the prescriptions of the Church. A most abundant field which, perhaps for lack of sufficient familiarity, has not been conveniently explored, to the detriment of what religious music could and should be, and of its greater spiritual efficacy.

XI. OFFICIAL CHANT

The Vatican edition containing the Gregorian edition ad codicum fidem of the entire liturgical repertoire is obligatory from the date of its publication (that is, the Graduale and Kyriale, 1907, the Antiphonarium, 1919, the Officium Defunctorum, 1927, the Officium Nativitatis Domini, 1927, the Officium Majoris Hebdomedae, 1929). In the same way the respective new Offices are official, such as those of Christ the King, the Sacred Heart, etc. This obligation requires that this version be adopted, and according to the free rhythm with which they were conceived. Reproduction without the permission of the Sacred Congregation of Rites is forbidden; the Congregation grants it on the condition that it be absolutely conformable, in melody and in the form of the notes, without changing anything, to the typical edition produced by the Vatican printing press. The rhythmic signs called solennessi are permitted, under the proper conditions; inspired by the ancient manuscripts, they make easier for choirs the artistic and uniform interpretation of the chant. If some local melody rests on manuscripts of high authority, the Sacred Congregation of Rites will judge in each particular case whether it may be performed, even if it differs from the Vatican edition. For the sacred ministers, at the altar and in their Office, there is an obligation to use exclusively Gregorian chant, as in the dialogues with the people. The people, as such, men and women, from their place, may always respond and alternate, in the parts authorized such as the psalmody, antiphons, hymns, ordinary of the Mass, etc. Religious women in their choir, and women alone in the absence of the clergy and of men, may, always from their place, sing even the variable parts, or Proper of the Mass and of the Office, in Gregorian chant. The Scholae cantorum must be provided with the books of Gregorian chant, which greatly serves artistic-religious formation, and facilitates the dignified preparation that each singer must bring to the acts of worship.

XII. HOMOPHONIC AND ACCOMPANIED CHANT

Gregorian chant, pure melody, essentially free in rhythm as in modality, resists in a certain way accompaniment, which is harmonization by simultaneous sounds. However, the practice of accompanying it exists. The difficulty is evident, but if the one accompanying knows how to keep within the proper limits of a discreet harmonization that contradicts neither the melodic line nor the rhythmic flexibility, he can do work not only useful to the singers, but also artistic in itself. One may, therefore, accompany the chant, except on the Sundays and ferial days of Advent and Lent, and in the Mass of the dead, with the absolute condition of «silet organum dum silet cantus». It may not be accompanied, not even to sustain the pitch, in the Office of the dead and in the triduum of Holy Week.

XIII. THE CHARACTERISTICS ASSIGNED BY PIUS X

Pius X said wonderfully in his Motu proprio of 22 Nov. 1903 that Gregorian chant possesses in an eminent degree the essential conditions of sacred music: "holiness, artistic goodness, and universality"; therefore, he adds: "the ancient traditional Gregorian chant must everywhere be largely restored in the functions of worship, it being firmly held by all that an ecclesiastical function loses nothing of its solemnity even when it is not accompanied by any music other than this alone."

XIV. CHANT FERMO

In discantus the motif was called cantus firmus both because of its heavy, hammered-out rendition and because its notes, rhythmically isolated, served as the basis for the discantus to ornament it in the second voice with groups of notes on each of the liturgical notes; notes that were also heavy in the counterpoint that was practiced, at will, in the melodic line. It was called cantus firmus also in polyphony, because it served as a theme for composers, who, if they found in the seriousness of the Gregorian melody a suitable theme for their compositions, treated it in long notes, and therefore devoid of all aesthetic characteristics. Thus finally the simple choral chant of the Church was also called this, up until the reform, which, fortunately, revived the true Gregorian melody.

XV. CHANT FRATTO

From the Latin frango; a chant that breaks the Gregorian rhythm, changing its essence. Once chant is subjected to a beat, it also subdivides the value of that beat, so that the singers introduce various pauses and alter the tonal value of the intervals. This new corruption of Gregorian chant comes after the 16th century, and principally in the 17th. Although one may suppose that it takes its origin from polyphony, it must be said instead that it is due to bad taste, to the absolute forgetting of the melodic and phrased idea of chant. The Gregorian melody is deformed by the addition of other voices, performed in the same broken style. The definition of broken chant as equivalent to "softened, false, feminine voice" has no artistic value. It is still inferior in category to discantus and to organum, which at times were of an interesting harmonic development. There was broken chant in the breve, in the semibreve; with perfect time, marked by O; imperfect, by C. This established a whole system of pauses, which broke up the ancient Gregorian melody even further, rendering it thus entirely unrecognizable.

XVI. SEMI-FIGURED CHANT

It is barely distinguishable from cantus fractus by the greater freedom it employs in the treatment of the liturgical theme: in forms that almost make of it a music with all modern values, allowing itself many harmonic liberties, and giving it a character which certain modern compositions of chant in unison have in some way copied (v. INNODIA; LITURGY; SACRED AND RELIGIOUS MUSIC; MUSICAL NOTATION).