Gradual

GRADUAL. - I. THE BOOK. - The present Liber gradualis, an extract of which, later combined with parts of the Antiphonary, constitutes the very widespread Liber usualis, approved by the Church as a collection of the chants of the Mass, in the Vatican edition of 1907. In addition to the ancient core, it contains all the later additions, due to the introduction of new feasts into the calendar.

The definitive naming of the liturgical books can be traced back to Amalarius of Metz (9th century). The term Antiphonary was at first applied to every collection of liturgical chants. This term was later reserved for the manuscript that carried the antiphons of both the Mass and the Office. Finally "Antiphonary" was only the book containing the chants of the Office, including the responsories: the "Cantatorium" or "liber Gradalis" or "Gradualis", which at first gathered together the chants of the Mass intended for the soloist, later became the collection of all the chants of the Mass. The responsorial chants of the Mass entered the "Liber Responsorius" intended for the responsories of the Office, and the "Liber Sacramentorum", compiled for the celebrant (from the 10th-11th century onward the "Missale plenarium", heir of the "Liber Sacramentorum") and which also summarized the chants of the Mass and the readings.

II. THE CHANT

The gradual is the chant performed during Mass after the reading of the Epistle. The Introit, the Offertory, the Communion — chants that accompany an action — were introduced into the celebration of Mass after the gradual, the Tract and the Alleluia (which replaced the Tract). The latter follow some reading, whether the primitive reading of the Prophets preserved in certain Masses (Ember Days), or the second reading, that of the Apostle, the present Epistle: they are chants of rest, or rather of contemplation, intended to give the hearer time to penetrate their teaching and, with the help of music, to provoke those affections that form the concluding part of meditations according to modern methods. The chants called chants of action must instead keep the attention of the faithful awake while the rite is being carried out: procession, oblation or Communion. The chants after the readings are credited to the Synagogue; the others are an innovation of the Church.

Various etymologies of the word gradual have been given. The least accepted derives "gradualis" from "gradalis," pleasant, because the melody, highly ornamented, proves agreeable in taste. The most commonly received refers to the place that the soloist occupied in order to sing this melody, namely the ambo or "gradus": the deacon went up as far as the pulpit; the reader of the Epistle and the chanter of the gradual remained on some lower step, whence the expression "responsorius gradualis," a chant performed on the steps. The oldest term given to this chant is that of "Psalmus responsorius." Perhaps this expression was abandoned when, in place of the simple form of the refrain, richer melodies were substituted that caused the number of the soloist's verses to be reduced. In fact, the text of the gradual Responsory is as a rule taken from the Psalter. In ms. 339 of St. Gall, a good witness of the ancient tradition, out of 118 graduals 104 are counted as taken from the Psalms: the others come from biblical texts, with one exception, for the Dedication, "Locus iste." At first, the psalm was sung in its entirety (cf. St. Augustine, in Ps. 138). The refrain consisted of a verse, or part of a verse, taken from the same psalm, and was repeated after each of the verses performed by the soloist. In the 8th century the singing of the G. is found reduced to its present form, that is, without a refrain, so that it is no longer a responsory. Nor is it any longer a G., since it is no longer sung at the ambo, but in plano with the antiphons. Exceptionally, some manuscripts still give 2 verses. Certain vestiges of the ancient use persist, for example, in Easter Week: each day of the Octave the G. "Haec dies" is taken up again, and the verses are all from the same Ps. 117; originally they were all sung on the same day. Also on the 1st Sunday of Lent the Tractus "Qui habitat", which modulates the entire Ps. 90, is nothing other than a G.; the same on Wednesday of Holy Week and on Good Friday for the Tractus... "Domine audivi".

In some places, for example, in England, the refrain continued to be repeated after the verse until the 13th century. The responsorial form proper to the G. indeed requires that the first part of the chant be intoned and sung in its entirety by the soloist: the choir repeats the refrain. The soloist, rested, then performs an ornate verse, and the choir repeats the refrain; after all the verses, the choir takes up the refrain once more, and then from the beginning the whole first part of the chant. If this chant had been very ornate, an exaggerated length and a disproportion in the celebration of the Mass would have resulted: St. Augustine apologizes in one of his sermons because the psalmus responsorius had lasted longer than he wished: the psalm chosen had 24 verses! (Ps. 138). This is one reason for admitting an evolution in the melodic style of the Responsorium graduale. It is probable that at the beginning not only the first part destined for the choir, but also the verse of the soloist was more or less syllabic: a proof of this opinion is found in the fact that for the Responsories of the Office the soloist's part has remained of such a style, indeed with fixed formulas, while the part destined for the choir is much more varied and ornate.

The soloist of the Responsory graduale was until St. Gregory a deacon, as he still is in the Ambrosian liturgy. An excessive zeal for vocal displays caused the deacons to be deprived of their privilege by St. Gregory himself, at the Roman Council of 595. In the 7th century in Spain the number of soloists for the verse of the G. could be two or three (cf. St. Isidore of Seville, De ecclesiasticis officiis, I, ch. 9); in Rome one would have to wait until the 12th century to record this change: for five centuries, the soloist remained a single one and was chosen from among the most capable of the Schola cantorum. The practice of singing from memory imposed a competence that was not everyone's: at most the soloist carried in his hand the "Cantatorum" where originally he read only the words without neumes. In the earliest times in responsorial psalmody the choir charged with "responding" was perhaps the assembly of the faithful; when the refrain is in neumatic style and sometimes even melismatic, the performance no longer belongs to persons without musical culture but to the schola cantorum.

It is observed that not all the Gregorian modes are used for the melodies of the G.: the 8th mode is missing; the 1st and 4th modes are poorly represented. It is true that generally the first part of the G. is sung in the plagal form of the mode and the verse in the authentic form, and thus the G.s of the 5th mode, the most numerous and probably the most ancient, are in the 1st part in the 6th and in the 2nd in the 5th mode.

The kind of melodic composition to which the G.s belong is for the most part the centonized kind: pre-existing formulas are stitched together according to precise rules of art. This kind, which came from the use of Greek music - and perhaps also Hebrew - demonstrates together with the choice of the psalmodic text the antiquity of the singing of the G.

The Eastern liturgies have in the Mass a chant equivalent to the Roman G., the "Prokeimenon"; in the Office a chant following a reading also exists, with a term that recalls the steps on which the Roman soloist stood, and is called the "Katabasia". In the Ambrosian liturgy the chant that follows the reading of the Epistle is called "Psalmellus" and corresponds to the Roman G.

Pietro Thomas