The First Literate Repertory in Western Music: Gregorian Chant
What’s not on the drop down menu? #1 Anthology
No key
No time signature
No bar lines
No dynamics
No indicated tempo
No nuances
No instrumentation
Don’t know occasion to be sung at
Old but not foreign to our modern ear
Timeless text, optimistic
Has Phrygian mode (e-e all on white)
- Phrygian mode is not like church modes.
- Dorian mode creates a relaxed mood. Phrygian mode inspires enthusiasm.
- Aristotle is a student of Plato. Plato wrote about harmonies, scales, reactions. Socrates
and Plato believed that music had a profound influence on human emotions, it could be
dangerous.
- The Epitaph of Seikilos is a short composition written on a tombstone.
- There were instruments in ancient Greece. Cithara is an ancient Greek instrument, has 7
strings.
How did the Greeks write music? What did we inherit?
STT (basic tetrachord) S: Semitone T: Tone +: micro tone/ quarter
tone
Diatonic: E f g A S T T
Chromatic: E f f ♯ A S S m3
Enharmonic: E e+ f A m.t m.t M3
Ex.
Dorian diatonic: E F G A B C D E
S T T S T T
Chromatic: E F F ♯ A B C C ♯ E
S S m3 S S m3
Enharmonic: E E+ F A B B+ C E
m.t m.t M3 m.t m.t M3 Texture
Monophonic: one single melody
Polyphonic: several melodies at once ex. counterpoint
Harmonic: chords that move together ex. Hymns
Church Music (oxford book p.7)
Byzantine chant: newly composed “songs with praise of God” in metrical verse repertoire
Liturgy: the prescribed order of religious service.
Ternary form: (ABA)
- Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 CE
- It is believed that Pope Gregory was inspired by a dove to write Gregorian chant. The
dove, in this case, represents Christ.
- It was Charlemagne’s responsibility to take the chants into France.
- Monks were responsible to know psalms and hymns.
- There were different types of praise for different Saints.
- St. Benedict decided that Monks would only sing. He made a “Rules of St. Benedict”.
This is where psalm singing became to be balled the divine office.
The Offices
- St. Benedict required that the Psalter be recited in a weekly round of services known as
the Offices, of which there were eight each day.
Guido of Arezzo
Hexachord: A musical scale of six notes with a half step between the third and fourth
Solmization: a mnemonic device in which intervals were associated with syllables
- Heighted neumes is the invention of Guido of Arezzo around 1028
- *insert Guido’s hexachord
- In order to gain a ut at the bottom on which to begin the first set of syllables Guido
placed a G below the A. This extra G was represented with the name gamut.
- The “Guidonian Hand” is a device adopted whereby items to be memorized were mapped
in spiral fashion onto the joints of the left palm
- Guido associated text with syllables with appropriate pitches and gave a syllable name to
each degree in the hexachord (ut-re-mi-fa-sol-la). This could be used for ear training.
- C D E ---- F G A B --- C
ut re mi --- fa sol la
ut re mi ---- fa
Modal Theory Mode: a fund of shared melodic turns characterizing the chants of a given functional type
Psalm Tone: a melody stripped to its minimum functional requirements as a medium for the
exaltation of a sacred utterance.
.
- Eight psalm tones are used in a Latin liturgy.
- Antiphons were grouped according to the psalm tones
- There are four different ways the psalms could end:
(1) TSTT, (2) STTT, (3) TTTS, (4) TTST
- The four final notes were further broken into two groups. The first group: authentic, with
the final note at the bottom of their range. The second group: plagal, the final note
occurred in the middle of their range.
Psalmody in Practice
Syllabic: one note to each syllable
Neumatic: nine of the twenty-one syllables in the text carry two- or three-note neumes.\
Melismatic: many notes assigned to certain single syllables, with lengthy melismas
compromising most of the music.
- The Doxology is given a group of six notes set over the space-saving abbreviation “ E u
o u a e”, which are the vowel letters in “…seculorum. Amen”
- For the Introit the Justus ut palma is more elaborate, such as the first syllable, which is
set to a seven-note complex.
- For the Offertory on Justus ut palma it is even more elaborate than the Introit, it is
melismatic.
- “Lesson chants” are responsorial ones with a soloist alternating with the choir.
- There is a format of (ABA) with the Justus ut palma as Alleluia
- There is internal repetition as well for the Alleluia (representable as aabb)
- This repetition served as vital memory aids in an age of oral compositions
- Bracketed sections of the Graduals, which there are a whole family of more than twenty
in all, share formulas. The shared formulas are found most frequently at initial and
cadential points.
Layout of the Mass Service
SYNAXIS
Mass Proper
1 Introit: an antiphon plus a verse or two
6 Gradual
7 Alleluia
9 Offertory: begins with antiphons that accompany the collection (Offertory)
Mass Ordinary
2 Kyrie: Kryie eleison x3, Christe eleison x3, Kyrie eleison x3
3 Gloria: Gloria in excelsis Deo, with a complex text that follows over 100 words in length,
generally syllabic. Multi note setting on the amen 8 Credo: Concludes the first part of the Mass Ordinary. Longer than the Gloria and thus again
invites syllabic text setting. Multi note setting on the amen
EUCHARIST
Mass Proper
9 Offertory: begins with antiphons that accompany the collection (Offertory)
12 Communion: a psalmodic chant like Offertory, which is followed by a prayer.
Mass Ordinary
10 Sanctus: an acclamation from the Book of Isaiah. Like the Gloria, sung by the trained choir.
Sabaoth (“host”) and Hosanna (“save us”)
11 Angus Dei: (Lamb of God) this accompanies the breaking of the bread. “have mercy on us”,
“grant us peace”. Kyrie is more elaborate.
13 Dismissal: “Thanks be to
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