CHORALE. - I. CHANT. - In current usage, the true choral or liturgical chant is Gregorian chant (v. CHANT). Polyphonic chant also takes the name "choral," but not properly, because only Gregorian chant is the obligatory chant in choirs, and therefore the chant of the Church. One may also speak of choral in a broad sense, as chant in the modern style, when, as in polyphony, the soloistic form does not predominate.
In Gregorian chant the rhythm is free and the modality diatonic, whereas in other cases it may, without overstepping the liturgical laws, color the melodic line with moderate chromaticism.
Protestant chant, which takes on a special form with the Lutheran Reformation, contrasts with Catholic chant, and especially with Gregorian, both in its text, usually in the vernacular and for several voices, and of symmetrical structure, and in the movement of the voices and in the cadences, which usually establish the constantly square form of the compositions. Thus also the theme, although sometimes taken from Gregorian chant, is transposed and framed to the choral measure, detaching each phrase member, with obligatory pauses or silences, thus breaking the musical phraseology of Gregorian chant.
Gregorio N. Suñol
II. BOOK
"Choir books" (c.) is the name given to the large volumes made of parchment sheets placed on lecterns in the choirs of churches and containing, with the proper musical notation, the antiphons to be sung precisely in choir.
Widely produced during the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, they had illuminated initials but, generally, not true illustrations. However, even those miniatures, because of the very size of the volumes and therefore of the initials, and because of the constant use to which the choir books were subjected, rarely possessed great artistic merit or refinement. In Siena in the Cathedral, in Pienza in the Cathedral, in Ferrara likewise in the Cathedral, in Milan in S. Ambrogio and generally in the great churches of the monastic orders, notable collections of choir books are preserved; for their decoration see also the entries: ANTIFONARIO; CODICE; GRADUALE; SALTERIO; MINIATURA. - See plate XX.
Emilio Lavagnino