About Gregorian Chant, Musical Forms and the Liber Usualis

1. A historic overview of Gregorian Chant.

http://www.solesmes.com/GB/gregorien/hist.php
Gregorian Chant is a musical repertory made up of chants used in the liturgical services of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, the liturgical tradition which the Church has given us is a vocal, monophonic music composed in Latin using sacred texts from the Ancient and New Testaments. This is why Gregorian Chant has often been called a "sung Bible". Linked intimately to the liturgy in this way, the goal of the Gregorian melodies is to favor spiritual growth, reveal the gifts of God and the full coherence of the Christian message.

What we call Gregorian chant today first appears distinctly in the Roman repertory of the fifth and sixth centuries. Its implementation and perhaps some of its composition was in the hands of a group of ministers in a service specially dedicated to the Roman basilicas, the schola cantorum. Gregorian chant also appears to have been an aural music, that is, transmitted by ear and committed to memory - like all other music of the world at the time.
In the second half of the eighth century, the political rapprochement between the French kingdom of Pepin and Charlemagne, and the papacy, widened the Roman liturgy's field of application. The French crown decreed its adoption throughout the kingdom. This is when the first written records which have come down to us begin to appear, first in France, then all over the Empire and beyond. Despite wide graphic differences, their uniformity of content clearly records a single reading of an unbroken tradition.

The texts (words and some musical notations), committed to writing in books, become at this time an official reference text. The general allure of the Roman chant with its modal architecture was very attractive to Gallican musicians. They dressed it, however, in a completely different way. The term "Gregorian chant" was first used to describe this hybrid of Roman and Gallican chant.

At first, written records served as memory prompts with only artistic directions for correct interpretation and performance.
The musical tones were still taught by ear and transmitted by memory.

But with the gradual increase of pitch indications in the manuscripts came a corresponding decrease in the interpretive directions, and with it, a decrease in the role of memory. As a result, Gregorian chant fell into complete decadence by the end of the Middle Ages: the manuscripts offer little more than a "heavy and tiresome succession of square notes". The Renaissance brought with it Gregorian chant's coup de grâce. The melodies, which show the correct reading of the literary text by highlighting keywords and phrases, were "corrected" by official musicologists - the long vocalises, for example, reduced to a few notes each. Worse, the words, literary compositions which are the official text of the Roman liturgy, and that constitute a lyrical catechism, were also officially "corrected" against a verbatim reading of the Vulgate Bible. The mangled result which persisted for two hundred years is generally known in English as "plainsong".

In 1833, a young priest of the diocese of Le Mans, Dom Prosper Guéranger, undertook the restoration of Benedictine monastic life on the site of an old priory at Solesmes, after forty years of silence due to the French Revolution. He seized upon the restoration of Gregorian chant with enthusiasm and began by working on its execution, asking his monks to respect the primacy of the text in their singing: pronunciation, accentuation and phrasing, with an eye to guaranteeing its intelligibility, in the service of prayer. Dom Guéranger also placed the task of restoring the authentic melodies into the hands of one of his monks.

The handwriting, in "thin flyspecks", of the original manuscripts was indecipherable at the time. But the invention of photography soon brought unforeseen benefits with it. Little by little, an incomparable collection grew at Solesmes, facsimiles of the principal manuscripts of the chant contained in the libraries of all Europe. this was the genesis of the Paleography of Solesmes.

2. Musical Forms

The Proper Chants of the Mass.

http://www.solesmes.com/GB/gregorien/forme.php
The Propers are the pieces whose text varies according to circumstances. The principal pieces of the Propers are
the Introit, the Gradual, the Alleluia, the Offertory chant, the Communion chant.

Introit
The Introit accompanies the entrance procession of the celebrant and his ministers, and helps the faithful to enter into the particular mystery being celebrated: it "sets the tone" of the day, feast or occasion.

The Gradual
The Gradual is one of the reading responses.
It is constructed from a form of psalmody with refrain. Originally, the congregation responded with a simple formula to a soloist who sang the verses of the psalm one by one. But in the fifth to sixth centuries, a musical enrichment led to curtailing of the literary texts.

The Alleluia
"Praise the Lord" is the literal translation of this Hebrew word. At Mass, it was originally a chant reserved for Easter Day alone. From there its use was extended to Eastertide, then to Sundays of the year, weekly celebrations of the Resurrection.

The offertory
This is not just a "functional" chant but more of an accompaniment to the ceremonies, a sumptuous "musical offering" of sorts.

The communion
The purpose of this chant is to accompany the procession of those distributing communion.
Also, it frequently seeks to create a synthesis between the liturgy of the Word and the liturgy of the Eucharist.

The Ordinary of the Mass

Other than the Proper chants, whose texts vary according to circumstances,
the celebration of the Mass includes chants of texts that are fixed, independent of the day or feast.

The Kyrie
Kyrie eleison is a Greek formula by which the faithful "acclaim their Lord and implore his mercy."
Today this chant is placed at the beginning of the Mass, as part of the penitential rite, preparing the faithful for the celebration.

The Gloria
This hymn of Eastern origin may date from as early as the second century.
In the Roman liturgy the Gloria originally came into use for the midnight Mass of Christmas only. Later it was steadily extended to the great feasts of the year and,finally, to Sundays.

The Sanctus
At the beginning of the Eucharistic Prayer the Sanctus is introduced by the great recitation of the Preface. The Sanctus is the "hymn of the Seraphim", heard in the Temple of Jerusalem by the prophet Isaiah. It invites the Church on earth to join in the liturgy of heaven.

The Agnus Dei
This is the chant which accompanies the breaking of the Bread which has just been consecrated, a necessary breaking which preceeds its distribution at the communion of the faithful. The time between the fraction of bread and communion is used by the congregation to "greet with homage and humble supplication the One who has been made present under the appearance of bread."

The Divine Office

This great daily prayer of the Church consecrates the whole of human time by divine praise. Seven times a day, and again once every night, the Christian community gathers together to celebrate this liturgy by and large composed of psalms.

The Antiphons
The chanting of a psalm is framed by a brief piece called an antiphon. Sung for its own sake, it introduces and concludes the psalm. Like the propers at Mass, proper antiphons of the offices change with the feast or day and give each of the psalms they accompany a particular reading.

The Responses
These are chants which occur between readings from the Bible and from writings of the Church Fathers during the Night Office (Vigils). On great feasts, they follow the reading at first vespers. They are meditative chants, contemplative musical commentaries of the sacred text.

The hymnsThe most popular pieces of the office are undoubtedly the hymns. Their importance in the Western liturgy was recalled by Vatican II. The hymn sets the tone and helps the faithful enter into the liturgical season or the particular mystery being celebrated. Often it is a simple and melodious composition.

Conclusion

At first hearing, Gregorian chant might seem monotonous. Undoubtedly it disconcerts our modern ears, accustomed to more contrasted music, but often less profound. In reality the Gregorian repertory is a complex world which unites several centuries of musical history. It is in fact a world of astonishing variety which mysteriously approximates almost delirious enthusiasm as well as the most delicate interior realities. It is a paradoxical world where music blooms amid silence.

3. About the Liber Usualis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liber_Usualis

The Liber Usualis is a book of commonly used Gregorian chants in the Catholic tradition, compiled by the monks of the Abbey of Solesmes in France.

This 1,900-page book contains most versions of the ordinary chants for the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei), as well as the common chants for the Divine Office (daily prayers of the Church) and for every commonly celebrated feast of the Church Year (including more than two hundred pages for Holy Week alone). The "usual book" or "common book" also contains chants for specific rituals, such as baptisms, weddings, funerals, ordinations, and benediction. This modal, monophonic Latin music has been sung in the Catholic Church since at least the sixth century and through the present day.

An extensive introduction explains how to read and interpret the medieval musical notation (square notation of neums or neumes). A complete index makes it easy to find specific pieces.

The Liber was first edited in 1896 by Solesmes abbot Dom André Mocquereau (1849–1930). After the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (opened by Pope John XXIII in 1962) allowed in the constitution on the liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium the vernacular (local language) to be used in Church rites, its use has decreased, although the same council mandated that Gregorian Chant should retain "pride of place" in the liturgy (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116.). Gregorian chants are still sung in most monasteries and some churches and in performances by groups dedicated to its preservation.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Liber_Usualis_(Gregorian_Chant)

Editor:
Benedictine Monastery of Solesmes, France
Publisher:
Tournai, Desclee & Co. 1952, reprint 1961.
Copyright:
PUBLIC DOMAIN. The Liber Usualis was registered under US Law in the name of Desclee & Co. under EFO-16387 after publication 1 October 1951; however, no renewal was made.
Misc. notes:
The Liber Usualis contains virtually the entire corpus of Gregorian Chant both for the celebrations of Mass, and for the hours of the Divine Office (e.g. Matins, Vespers). The text of the Propers and Commons vary throughout the year. The texts of the Ordinary remain (usually) unchanged.

Page last modified: August 07, 2013