Gregorian Chant: Perfect Music for the Sacred Liturgy

today is going to be very objective in the sense that I'm going to talk about the history a chant I do want to start with a brief personal note chant for me it's been hugely influential in my own life as a Catholic as I talked about at greater length in the book that father was just holding up tradition insanity I discovered chant in high school as a junior I think I was in high school I was involved in the music program at my all-boys Benedict in high school and unfortunately the monks there were rather progressive and they didn't sing chant anymore so I discovered one day in the music library a bunch of old copies of the grotto La Romana meets this nice black volume published in the 1940s that has all of the chants the proper is an ordinary of the mass according to the monastic liturgy and I asked my music teacher what this was and he said oh well that's the chant book that the monks used to use I said are they using it he said no could I have a copy I thought it was quite intriguing I had no idea what this book was it had all these strange hieroglyphics in it you know the way the chat looks when you've never seen it before and and I was just kind of intrigued by this as somebody interested in music in general so then I went out to a record shop and I bought I asked them you know show me where the Gregorian chant section is and it was a big enough record shop that they had a few you know somewhere and so I picked up my first chat CD and I looked in the index of the book and I found in the book where the chants were on the CD and I just listened to them over and over again I taught myself how to read the chant from listening to the monks singing because that time nobody I knew knew anything about chant and so I actually consider that to be a turning point in my life I didn't know what the role of chant was in the liturgy I had never been to a liturgy that had used chant by that time and and yet there was something magical if I could use that word mysterious alluring to these chants as I was listening to the recording of them and it to seed in me to somehow to pursue that to find out where that came from and and and what's it all about so I actually kind of date that as the beginning of my conversion or reversion or whatever you want to call it to a more traditional Catholicism then I just want to mention that fast-forwarding later my wife and I are blessed with two children my son Julian some of you have met him and my daughter rose and when each of them was born and I received the baby in my arms for the first time I started singing chant to them and I remember very distinctly with Julian I started with the Saudi Regina and I went through all the Marion anti-fans the Regina Coeli the of a virginity lorem and the the Alma radom Tory's monter and every time they would fuss at night I would just sing chat to them and it would always calm them down so now my son Julian is discerning his vocation at a Benedictine monastery in Ireland it's a monastery called silver stream maybe some of you have heard of it where they spend about five hours a day chanting the praises of God and I attribute that much more to God's grace than to anything I did but certainly I think it didn't hurt to hear chat from the moment they were born [Applause] so one might think that something called plain chant or plain song would not furnish much to talk about after all it's very name says it's plain and it's chant in reality Gregorian chant is anything but plain except in the sense that it's beautiful melodies are meant to be sung unaccompanied and unharmonious as befits the ancient monastic culture out of which they sprang what we call Gregorian chant is one of the richest and most subtle art forms in Western music indeed in the music of any culture and in fact if you look at any reputable book on the history of music it will say something like Gregorian chant contains the largest body of developed melody of any music known to man in my presentation today I will first give a rapid sketch of the history of chant and then I will spend most of my time talking about the characteristics that make it uniquely suited to the Sacred Liturgy so I have some slides to go along with with my talk most of the time I won't be referring heavily to the slides they can just be ornamental to understand the origins of chant we must go back to the church's Hebrew roots this nicely dovetails with the last lecture the tradition of chanting Scripture a practice known as cantillation began at least 1,000 years before the birth of Christ in the Old Testament the Book of Psalms and the books of chronicles speak of musical instruments and the central function of music in Temple worship there were two basic forms of worship for the Israelites the bloody sacrifice involving the death and destruction of an animal which represents the total surrender of one's being to God in adoration obedience and humble self-effacement and the chanted Salter expressing our praises and petitions as verbal incense offered up to God by our intellects since the Psalter of David was composed for the very purpose of divine worship and was seen as the Messianic book parks launce the first christians spontaneously chose the Psalter for their prayer book they didn't write a new prayer book they just took the one that they already had so already we see that principle of liturgical conservatism we see Peter Paul and the Apostolic fathers quoting it countless times in their preaching in letters moreover Christians saw the Lord's offering of himself on the cross as the fulfillment of all the bloody animal sacrifices you see that most clearly in the Epistle to the Hebrews the Eucharist makes present the reality and fruits of this supreme sacrifice in an unbloody manner suitable for those who have been redeemed thus all Christian liturgy can be said to spring from the combination of Psalter and sacrifice we should not be surprised then to find that the traditional Roman Rite of mass which is primarily a sacrificial offering is permeated throughout with verses from the Psalms and that the other great public prayer of the church the Divine Office or Liturgy of the hours is primarily composed of Psalms yet with incense burned at the altar during the gospel canticles at least in its solemn form an acknowledgment of the one supreme sacrifice that unites heaven and earth the early Christians continue to chant Psalms and other prayers in the Hebrew man are familiar to them from the temple worship in Jerusalem and from the synagogues spread throughout the Roman world some Gregorian melody is still in use today are remarkably close to Hebrew synagogue melodies most notably the ancient gospel tone in hero tempore DGG Azusa discípulos rules that tone the preface tone of the mass and the tone used for Psalm 113 in xe2 Israel a Egypt oh just called the tonus peregrinos it's the only Psalm that uses that Psalm tone so my first audio example is it's a recording where we first hear a Jewish Cantor singing a verse in Hebrew from Psalm 113 followed by a scholar singing the same verse in Latin in the tonus peregrinos and you'll hear right away the similarities between the two tones I like to imagine the Hebrew chant as the voice of our Lord and the Latin chant as the response of his bride the Catholic Church in her Western sphere [Music] so wonderful to see that parallel there but Christians also absorbed Christians also absorbed influences from surrounding Greek and Roman music particularly in the development of the system of eight modes this system like so much else developed separately in the Latin and Byzantine realms which roughly correspond to the Western and Eastern halves of the ancient Roman Empire to this day most Latin chants and most Byzantine chants fall into eight modes but the only thing these modes have in common is that there are eight of them I'll talk more about modes later but for now I just thought I would play you this really fascinating piece of music it's called the song of cyclist it's considered to be the oldest extant musically notated song that we have it's from the second 1st or 2nd century AD there's some debate about that and it was carved into a sarcophagus by a Greek it's a Greek song and they don't obviously didn't use this modern musical notation because that wasn't invented until many many centuries later really in the Middle Ages what they used was they used a system of letters to represent notes so the scholars have been able to reconstruct [Music] of course is being played on a reconstructed ancient Greek harp so it's probably a pretty good impression of what the music would have been like in the pagan circles in in ancient times and what I find fascinating about the melody is that the melody itself if you kind of slow it down the way that it's you could you can almost hear a Gregorian chant melody and that like puer notice that you can see so it's the Hebrew and the Greek Roman influences chant developed prodigiously in the first Christian millennium over time not just the Psalms and their antiphon work ant elated but also the scripture readings orations intercessions litanies instructions for example Follette thomas gen who are let's kneel it's a very simple thing to say but it was sudden and in general anything meant to be proclaimed out loud by the time we reached pope saint gregory the great who reigned from 590 to 604 a body of chant already existed for the sacrifice of the mass and the daily round of prayer divine office even as he gave final form to the roman canon which is the defining trait of the Latin Rite st. Gregory organized this musical repertoire as a result of which the Chad ever afterwards has been honored with his name Gregorian the core of the Gregorian chant repertoire dates to before the Year 800 the bulk of it was completed by the Year 1200 it deserves mention that the chant of the Roman Church was not the only chant being used in the Latin speaking sphere of the Catholic Church there was also the Ambrosian chant of Milan there's a picture of st. Ambrose there at the top the Mo's Arabic chant in Spain and the Gallican chant of gaul modern-day France as different as their melodies and particular texts were these regional types of chant shared the exclusive use of the Latin language and the system of eight modes due to Charlemagne's centralizing ambitions and his allegiance to the papacy the Roman Rite was brought into Frankish Empire during its transalpine sojourn many Gallican elements were incorporated into the Roman Rite later on these migrated back to Rome the medieval Roman liturgy was therefore an amalgamation of ancient Roman and Gallican sources this is why the the highfalutin scholars like to call it the Roman o Gallican liturgy instead of just the Roman liturgy and we get a lot of important things from gaul such as the procession with palms on Palm Sunday that was not originally part of the Roman liturgy but part of the Frankish liturgy and it came back to Rome another example would be saying the Creed or singing the Creed at Mass was also done last in Rome it was done everywhere else first and finally the Romans capitulated and decided to sing it as well since chant was the custom made music that had grown up with the church's liturgy the chant traveled wherever the liturgy traveled no one dreamed of separating the texts of the liturgy from their music they were like a body soul composite or a happily married couple or you could compare the chance to the vestments worn by the priest the chants are the garments worn by the liturgical texts we might even dare with medieval freedom to apply the words of Psalm 103 to the chant in relation to the liturgy actually let me just comment for a moment I've got this map here what the map shows is the different ritual families that developed in the first millennium in fact at the beginning of the first millennium of Christianity and they we have so many different rites in the church they're all ancient they're all traditional they're all equal they're all apostolic the Latin Rite the Byzantine Rite the Antiochian right the Alexandrian right that's the original cluster then you have the Ambrosian Rite in Milan the Gallican right in France the Celtic Rite which unfortunately has long since perished the most Arabic right which still survives in one place Toledo and then you have different forms of the Byzantine liturgy the the Liturgy of st. basil though Chrysostom the liturgy of the presanctified gifts armenian yes hard little hard to read from here the armenian liturgy the jerusalem west syrian liturgy the Chaldean liturgy syro-malabar cyril melon cara coptic right so all of these different liturgies which proceeded from a number of parent cells and then spread as Christianity spread what I the point I want to make about this is every one of these liturgies is chanted they all have their own ancient body of chant and to this day they're all chanted except for the Roman Rite that is to say the Roman Rite is the only right among all of these that has stopped chanting its liturgy as in in large part and that I think is a serious aberration for reasons that will become apparent so we need to get back with all these other rites doing what we should be doing so we might dare with medieval freedom to apply the words of Psalm 103 to the chant in relation to the liturgy thou hast put on praise and beauty and art clothed with light as with a garment in the Transfiguration of Christ there were two elements the mortal body of our Savior and the radiance of glory he allowed to shine through his body from a soul already enraptured with the beatific vision in some ways the chanted text is a transfigured text radiant with an otherworldly glory that reminds us of our true home Gregorian chant flourished in the period circa 600 to the mid 16th century the Council of Trent which met from you can see 1545 to 1563 reaffirmed the place of chant in the liturgy and discouraged the use of excessively complex polyphonic music especially when it was based on secular tunes yes we've had this problem before nevertheless there began to be a decline in the use and quality of chant caused in part by the increasing splendour variety and quantity of instrumental and polyphonic music Monteverdi is Vespers of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Handel's Carmelite Vespers you're seeing Monteverdi and Handel there would be two fine examples of the kind of music that supplanted simpler forms at least where patrons could afford it the accident on splendour was particularly emphasized by the counter-reformation which coincided with the Baroque phase of the fine arts this mean this meant that to some tastes chant was just a little too plain for the perceived needs of the moment it continued to be used of course but it was sidelined old melodies became abbreviated or corrupted neumes as the little groups of notes were forced to conform to a regular beat like the metered music of the day and new chants were written that lacked the inspiration and savor of the originals one who picked up a gradual a in Germany in the 19th century and here's a page a sample from such a gradually would find melodies stripped of their melisma x' or melodic embellishments so that they could be chanted as quickly as possible and the choir could get on with the real music in parts or with instruments this utilitarianism right which was ordered to just getting the liturgical texts out of the way as quickly as possible so that something else could be performed took away the chief beauty of the chants in their original form and spoiled the internal balance of the parts of the liturgy restoration of such an immense treasure of the church and such an integral part of her solemn liturgy was bound to come sooner or later it came through the combined efforts of a monk and a pope dom prosper Garin Shay 1805 to 1875 founded solemn Abbey in 1833 and built it up into a powerhouse of monastic observance including the fully chanted Divine Office and mass the monks of celeb poured over hundreds of ancient and medieval manuscripts in their work to restore the chance distinctive melodies and rhythms that's celeb monastery down there at the bottom now this lecture could rapidly become five lectures have to be really careful not to spend too much time on any one thing but I do want to point out that what we think of as the notation of Gregorian chant is a late development it's a medieval development we call square notes what Chad looked like originally was this okay so what you had was you had liturgical books in which the text in this case a gradual from the mass was written out and then little little neumes as that to use the technical term little signs were written above the syllables reminding the Cantor's or the Scola of a melody that they already knew so this is a mnemonic device it's not actually musical notation the way we think of it what it's telling them is where to lift their voice where to go down how many pitches to go down so it's a quasi musical notation and the monks who sang this and the clergy canons who sang this music day in and day out they would be able to look at this and say oh I remember that chant that's how it goes and so here's the [Music] [Music] so of course the disadvantage of this system is that you have to know the music already in order to make any sense of this and therefore the square notes were developed later as a teaching device to teach new monks or young clerics more quickly how to chant and of course it's a very useful system for that but it loses some of the subtlety that these noobs have but that's a whole separate topic leave that so the monks of celeb we're looking at manuscripts from various periods and down there this one picture here in the lower right corner shows a celeb publication with the square notes and the neumes from two different manuscripts so the square notes are an attempt to put into a different form what those squiggly lines are also telling us and of course this was a huge labor that the monks undertook to look at all of these manuscripts throughout Europe everything they could get their hands on so that they could restore the chant to its original beauty soon after his accession in 1903 Pope st. Pius the tenth met in Rome with monks of celeb and placed on their shoulders the monumental task of publishing all of the liturgical books of chance with corrected melodies and rhythms from this papal directive was born a long string of influential publications from celeb most of which are still in use today most notably the Libre zoo alleys that large book the garage volley romanum and the antiphonal a monastic home and some of these books are out there on the table for sale from Paraclete Press it's a remarkable labor of love from Jarrell J solemn and pious the 10th to chapter six of the Second Vatican councils Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy sacrosanct and Concilium is a straight and logical line chapter 6 is the most conservative and least problematic of all the chapters of that document I mean almost nobody has a problem with chapter 6 unless you hate traditional liturgical music so let me share with you some choice words from that document from after six of that document words that many of you may already be familiar with quote the musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value greater even than that of any other art it's a remarkable statement right greater even than no trade on Cathedral in Paris is Gregorian chant that's what the council is saying here the main reason for this preeminence is that a sacred song United to the words it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy so you can chant Mass in the middle of an open field but you still need the chant to do that so chant is more fundamental to the liturgy than architecture for example accordingly the sacred council keeping to the norms and precepts of ecclesiastical tradition and discipline and having regards the purpose of sacred music which is the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful decrees as follows and among the things it decrees are these liturgical worship has given a more noble form when the divine offices are celebrated solemnly in song the treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care choirs must be diligently promoted and then they've the real kicker the church acknowledges Gregorian chant especially suited to the Roman liturgy with the result that other things being equal it ought to be given the foremost place in liturgical services but other kinds of sacred music especially polyphony are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action that's Vatican 2 now I have to say that the first time I read these words many years ago I was dumbfounded they correspond it to nothing whatsoever that I had ever experienced as a Catholic growing up in America in the 1970s and 1980s attending a church with purple carpets StarTrek lighting and heavily amplified singers where the gold standard was on eagle's wings the original liturgical movement out of which these stirring words of sacrosanct and Concilium came was devoted to restoring and recovering the richest and most beautiful traditions of Catholic prayer not to abandoning them and replacing them with second or third rate folksy substitutes an explosive combination of fantasy antiquarian ism and a craze forage ornamento or modernization effectively burned down the house of Catholic worship obliterating chant from the lives of Catholics the good news is that a slow process of rebuilding here and there and here in particular has brought back Gregorian chant from near extinction to a moderately flourishing condition again in any case chat will never die because it is perfect liturgical music and whenever this fact is rediscovered people fall in love with it all over again now the council fathers offered no explanation of why Gregorian chant is the music proper to the Roman Rite or why more broadly speaking ancient chant is proper to the celebration of the liturgy were they simply taking it for granted that might have been naive of them it goes without saying that it cannot be taken for granted today at least in the West my goal in the second part of my talk is to provide a rationale for the consistent and predominant use of Gregorian chant in the Roman Rite and any of the other Western rites before I go into the eight special qualities of chants I would like to tackle a more basic question why do we sing our liturgical texts why not just speak them in all religions of the world we find the chanting of sacred texts this universal practice derives from an intuitive sense that holy things and the holy sentiments that go along with them should not be talked about as ordinary everyday things are but elevated to a higher level through melodious modulation or submerged into silence authentic rituals therefore tend to alternate between silences and chanting both of these may take place by themselves or in conjunction with simple like actions that is to say you could have a time in the liturgy when chanting is occurring and nothing else or you could have a time when chanting is occurring while something else is being done like the offer at the offertory right the contrast between singing which is human expression at its highest and silence which is a deliberate withholding of discourse is more striking than the contrast between speaking and not speaking the former is like the rise and fall of ocean waves while the latter seems more like switching a light bulb on and off so this is the reason why silence works so much better in complementarity with chant than it does simply with speech speech and silence are like a light switch song and silence are like the rise and fall of waves speech is primarily discursive an instructional aimed at a listener while song which more easily and naturally unites many singers into one body is capable of being in addition the bearer of feelings and of meanings that go beyond what words can convey greatly augmenting the penetrating power of the words themselves we find this especially in the melisma zuv chant the lengthy melodic elaborations on a single syllable that give voice to inner emotions and aspirations that words cannot fully Express here's a wonderful example of a melisma filled chant from the Pascal season the offertory chant for Easter Thursday which takes a verse from the Old Testament from Exodus chapter 13 and applies it to newborn Christians in the day of your solemnity saith the Lord I will bring you into a land flowing with milk and honey hallelujah [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Laughter] so I chose that chant I could have chosen you know from a thousand other ones but I chose it because it's past full-time but or the end of passoth um I guess but also because it gives some great examples of melisma x' so the the final allelujah right you could sing that in four notes hallelujah but it takes a lot more notes to get that that word out because it's more than just about the word it's about the word beyond the word it's about as as dr. Schmidt iki was saying it's about the infinite word that no words can express and you see that on a number of words here Dominus Indu calm tehram fluent em right these are all words that are very much drawn out and I'm gonna talk later about why the chant does that with words the philosopher victor suka kondal says quote music is appropriate is helpful where self abandon is intended or required where the self goes beyond itself were subject and object come together tones seem to provide the bridge that makes it possible or at least makes it easier to cross the boundary separating the two by means of the tones the speaker goes out to the things brings the things from outside within himself so that they are no longer the other something alien but he is not but the other and his own in one the singer remains what he is but his self is enlarged his vital range is extended being what he is he can now without losing his identity be with what he is not and the other being what it is can without losing its identity be with him unquote ultimately it comes down to this we sing when we are at one or wish to be at one with our activity or the object of our activity this is true when we are in love with another person that's what inspires most singing it is most of all true when we are in love with God's that is the origin of the incomparably great music of the catholic tradition st. Agustin says only the lover sings we sing and we whisper and we fall silent in the course of his discussion Zuka kondal makes a point that reminds me painfully of years of growing up in the novus ordo with congregations reciting together at the gloria or the holy holy holy bazooka kondal says can one imagine that people come together to speak songs one can but only as a logical possibility in real life this would be absurd it would turn something natural into something utterly unnatural unquote the recitation of normatively sung texts at a low-mass works only because the priest alone is saying the texts and doing so at the altar odd orientem he is not addressing the words of the song to anyone except God they thereby acquire a ritual status comparable to that of the recited canon silent canon the speaking of sung texts is not liturgical ii ideal really this form of mass the low mass developed for the personal devotion of the priest when celebrating at a side altar with an a clerk or an accolade to have a large church packed with people and then to say the songs together rather than singing them should strike everyone as odd then there are the practical reasons for singing as experience proves texts that are sung or chanted with correct elocution are heard with greater clarity and forcefulness in a large assembly of people than texts that are read aloud or even shouted the music has a way of carrying the words and making them penetrate the listeners ears and souls though I could say Dominus vobiscum or I could sing in dominoes of all of you his school and that immediately makes it a much more penetrating Proclamation in ancient times epic and lyric poetry and even parts of political speeches were chanted for this very reason at Homer and Virgil were chanted acts of public worship are rendered more solemn and their content more appealing and memorable by the singing of clergy Cantor's choir and congregation allow me to digress for a moment on the use of microphones and speakers in churches Hopa Magdalene is here somewhere to hear this electrical amplification is very helpful in a situation like this giving a lecture or in an airplane in an airport where you need to hear your name called or the gate called but electrical amplification is unnecessary when architects build churches that resonate properly and liturgical ministers learn how to sing out a well-built church with well trained singers has absolutely no need of artificial amplification moreover contrary to one of the key assumptions behind the wreck evasion of our rights not everything in the liturgy has to be seen or heard by everybody obviously one can't imagine a modern day airport without loudspeakers but when the same technical pragmatic impersonal and unfocused type of sound production invades churches it is a tragedy in a church the microphone kills the intimacy humility locality and directionality of the human voice the voice now becomes that of a place list giant a Big Brother larger than life coming from everywhere and nowhere dominating and subduing the listener putting mics and speakers in a church does not enhance a natural process it subverts it there is no continuum between the unaided voice and the artificially amplified voice they are two separate phenomena with different phenomenology 'he's okay end of rant so then on to these special characteristics of chant the first characteristic is the primacy of the word chant is above all music and service of God's revealed word to which it grants primacy it is sung prayer a form of that low key kala TRAI or rational worship that st. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans says we are to offer up to God the chant exists to proclaim and interpret divine words or human poetry inspired by divine words in this respect it is unlike much later music where the text serves almost as an excuse for the music unnecessary scaffolding for human voices or where texts of human authorship can be of inferior quality or theologically problematic most Gregorian chants delivered to us God's own words in Scripture sung in musical phrases that draw out the words depth of meaning Dom shock Julie a quotes father Hamelin who says it is not a question of adding music to the words nor even of setting words to music instead is the question of making the words bring forth the music they already contain chant is an exegesis of the text the melody and rhythm is not casually or incidentally related to the text but unpacks and savor as its truth emphasizing this or that aspect of it this is the reason why we can call chant music Alexio Divina it illuminates the words much as medieval scribes illuminated capitals and decorated the margins of their books now I'm afraid about time here so I'm just going to point out this chant as an example it's it's a communion chant from the I believe it's the second Sunday after epiphany so is connected with the gospel of our Lord's first sign or miracle at the wedding feast of Cana and if we oh let's listen to it okay but what I want you to pay attention to is the way that the chant brings out the the drama that's in this text right what what it says is it says the Lord says fill up the water jars with water and bring them to the head steward the architour cleanness when the head steward tasted the water made wine he said he says to this to the bridegroom you have served you have saved the best wine until last this first signed Jesus did in the company of his disciples so by the way it's very interesting when you look at the text of John the anonymous author of this chat has really carefully chosen the words he wants to use there are a lot more words in the account in John but he's kind of you know brought it down boil it down to its essence [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] so what we see in this wonderful chat is really an exegesis of the text of John it's an interpretation of it and and it's even though I often find this with chance that there's a there's sometimes even a bit of word painting going on it's very subtle but in this chat for example when they're filling up those water jars you know talk about filling up the water jars it starts with a lower lower pitches almost like the action of filling up the water jars and then they're brought to the to the head steward and the melody climbs almost like a procession right and then he tastes it come gustas it and the melody does this little funny turn like whoa he just tastes it you know and he's like what happened there that it goes from the tea to the Tay makes a neat little shift and then he exclaims right now you have saved the best wine for last and it really just soars at that point like he's an ecstasy right now it's perfect perfect you could never get that just from reading that text out just reading the text out all right second characteristic free rhythm precisely on account of the foregoing characteristic that is that it's using the words of Scripture Gregorian chant is a metrical or non metrical the only music of its kind in the Western tradition Gregorian musical phrases follow the irregular rhythm of the scriptural texts unlike the pagan poets of Greece and Rome the Hebrews did not have metered poetry they didn't write in dactylic hexameter or something like that the Greek and Latin translations of the Psalms faithful to the original the character of the original are not metrical either moreover the Church Fathers were opposed to the use of strongly rhythmical language in the littered music in the liturgy music with a beat as it smacked too much of pagan cults which used that kind of music to kind of pump people up in a dynasty and fashion kind of like life teen or something because chance is not confined to a predetermined grid of beats such as duple or triple time think of a March or a waltz but conforms to the syllables of the words it's phrases seem to float flow along B and ER and soar it breathes rather than marching ahead it moves with a wave-like engine undulation or like birds circling in the sky non-metric ality and modality are the two characteristics that most obviously distinguished chant from all other music a large part of the magic of chant is caused by its unconstrained fluidity and freedom of motion which seems to break out of the hegemony of earthly time and the constraints of the flesh represented by the beat father Moser talked about this a little bit yesterday in the old celeb method one can illustrate the non-metro cavity of chant by counting groups of twos and threes so-called binary and ternary groupings so for example in this in troit from Advent so what that shows when you grip it in twos and threes is that there isn't a meter I mean if you're gonna put metrical indications in this it would look like a score by Igor Stravinsky you know three four - four - you know it could be going back and forth all the time right you can't do it it's impossible as criticized as this approach has been the celeb approach of binary and ternary groupings was written off as a romantic reconstruction no alternative method has proved capable of equaling the old celeb method in lyricism tranquillity of spirit ensemble unanimity and liturgical fitting Necedah lone pedagogical clarity and ease which as a teacher I can assure you is hugely important since these qualities are rather important for us as believers in worshipers my vote still goes with the old celeb method in general although I do not mind incorporating ideas from the more recent celebs goals such as repercussions of notes in a district or tryst refer the omission of the vertical episome the extension of one note horizontal Epis Amos over neighboring notes and other things like that now we're really talking you know baseball as they say still it is always my advice that new or large scholars should sing together with the old celeb method while only the Cantor's or a small scholar of picked singers should try to bring in any of the newer insights paleographic 'el insights and only to the extent that it produces edifying results third characteristic modality a mode may be defined as a particular sequence of whole steps and half steps taking for granted the Western predilection for eight steps in a scale that's why we talk about octaves octave meaning eighth so we have eight steps in our musical scales other cultures had somewhat different scales like the Hindus have you know thirteen notes in their scale or something like that but Western musical civilization is completely unanimous about eighth notes in the scale among which there is a dominant or reciting tone and a final tone on which the music comes to rest the eight modes fall into four authentic modes one three five and seven called Dorian Phrygian Lydian and mixolydian and for play goal modes two four six and eight called hypo Dorian hypo Phrygian hypo Lydian and my favorite hypo mixolydian a play goal mode has the same final but starts a fourth below it and ends a fifth above it obviously we can't go into too much detail about this but the main point I want to make is this all pre Baroque western music and some post Baroque music too was written using these modes these eight modes Scarborough Fair for example is in the Dorian mode as are many other English folk songs but due to the prodigious development of harmony in the Renaissance and of harmonic theory in the Baroque era music after 1600 crystalized around what came to be called major and minor keys which correspond more or less to only two of the eight the original eight modes while the major minor system of tonality allowed for sophisticated cordis sequences and dramatic modulations melodies were forced into tighter confines and the subtle variations in feel or mood made possible by the modes were lost except in chant and how wonderfully various are these modal moods medieval musicologists assigned a special descriptive epithet to each mode the first was called modus gravy's the second that the serious mode ii modus twisties the sad mode the third modus mysticus the mystical mode the fourth modus harmonic was the fifth mode Oh Slade to us the joyful mode the sixth moterz devote us the devout or maybe an introspective mode the seventh mode us angelic hosts and the eighth motives perfectors and it's really neat when you start looking at chants in these different modes you can actually pick up the reasons why the medievals use these names they actually suit the character of the mode very well because our ears are so habituated to the major minor key system Gregorian chants which employ eight different modes that seldom conform to our modern musical expectations strike us as otherworldly haunting incomplete or to use a term that has been applied to Byzantine icons brightly sad we should rejoice in this fact which illustrates a general rule an ancient art form is more not less likely to be associated by a modern believer with the holiness and unchanging truth of God his strangeness or other nests his transcendent mystery the special homage he deserves and the need for our conversion from the flesh to the spirit that is from a worldly mentality to a godly one as Saint Paul says be not conformed to this world but be reformed in the newness of your mind the very different nests of the ancient art form or the medieval art form which the passing of ages has only accentuated acquires theological and religious significance we see the same thing with the use of ancient liturgical languages silver or gold chalices ornamented priestly vestments the wearing of veils by women and Romanesque or Gothic architecture see all of those things were once much more common they were found much more widely but as time goes on they become more and more restricted to the sacred domain and therefore they've acquired expressive and impressive power due to their long-standing exclusive association with divine worship in other words I want to say that we have advantages in a sense that medieval people didn't have because to medieval people to chant the eight modes didn't sound all that strange it was pretty much the only music that they ever heard to us it does sound strange because we've had hundreds of years of musical development since then the fourth characteristic unison singing because the focus in Gregorian chant is on the Word of God as it gathers us into the one body of Christ it is eminently fitting that it be sung in unison that is everyone singing the same melody at the same time now technically men and women are singing at octaves so not really unison but it sounds like unison to us because the octave is is a two-to-one ratio and it's it's it just we don't even think about it as it as a different pitch we just think about it as unison as a 1974 document from the Vatican put it another document that was incidentally ignored by nearly every one quote Gregorian chant will continue to be a bond that forms the members of many nations into a single people gathered together in Christ's name with one heart one mind and one voice this Living unity is symbolized by the union of voices that otherwise speak in different languages accents and inflections is a striking manifestation of the diversified harmony of the one church unquote that's from the introduction to yubi lotte deo which was a little collection of the minimum repertoire of chant that everyone should know that's what you'e thought today was the subtle rhythm of chant and the much admired inventiveness and intricacy of its melodies are in fact only possible because of this insistence at once practical and symbolic on unison singing harmonized music whether Palestrina or Monteverdi adds splendor to ceremonies but it involves a certain sacrifice in melodic purity and complexity while I am passionately fond of polyphonic Mass Ordinaries and have composed a few myself I nevertheless believe that there are irreducibly distinct and great qualities in the plain chant masses that make them singularly appropriate to the spirit and letter of the liturgical texts we can make a few generalizations about the glory enchants of the ordinary so here's some kiria number nine one of my favorites the kiri a with its melismatic melodies has the character of intensely pleading for divine mercy it's traditional nine fold structure gives it a doubly underlined Trinitarian character as befits a longer text the Gloria chats are syllabic or pneumatic that is each syllable of the text is set to one musical note or at most a few notes and full of solemn joy in keeping with a hymn intoned by angels in honor of the redemption the Credo melodies I don't have an crate open the crate o melodies are simple and stately graceful and balanced perfectly paced for the prayerful confession of the dogmas of faith like the Gloria they tend to avoid melisma z' except in the final almond the chant settings of the Sanctus hymn of the angels par excellence are particularly solemn owing to the proximity of this prayer to the offering of the holy victim on the altar so we're kind of thinking in terms of chronology of the liturgy we're coming closer and closer to the great miracle and that's and that that's reflected in the character the chance I believe the song to us often features broad lofty noble soaring ecstatic melodies and then finally the honest AE a miniature litany that complements the penitential kiri a features tripartite structure the melodies are focused imploring and reserved since they are being chanted in the very presence of the king so in other words the the FIR the first four parts of the mass ordinary are all pre consecration but the on you stay is post consecration so once again that makes a difference in the character of the music it's so subtle but it's so effective you don't even need to know this you just experience it but when you think about it you just marvel at it all the more alright the fifth characteristic unaccompanied vocalization to this day Eastern Christian tradition does not allow instrumental music in the liturgy that's my little silly thing with the organ it has clung to the ancient rule that in the temple of God only the human voice should be heard the god-given inborn instrument of the rational creature remade in the image of the Incarnate logos Christ the new song as Saint Clement of Alexandria calls him while the Western Catholic traditions starting in the Middle Ages was friendlier to the development of both accompanied and instrumental music and with what magnificent results it cannot be denied that Roman Catholics have often faced the difficulty of keeping our music sacred or to put it negatively keeping the profane out of the temple as Joseph Ratzinger points out there have been three major periods of encroaching secularism in church music the century before trend the century before Pius the tenth trollies Lachie to Denis that was the the heyday of Italian opera and the half century after Vatican two down to the present day although this fourth characteristic be unaccompanied vocalization is perhaps the least startling especially since there are other types of vocal music frequently sung unaccompanied and such as Renaissance polyphony it remains true that the sound of the naked human voice raised up to God in prayer is singularly real sincere humble and focused and less vulnerable to the kind of distractions that come with the use of instruments especially when they're played virtuosic ly rambunctious ly or just plain loudly sometimes chant is quietly accompanied by a modest organ accompaniment but in my judgment and we can argue about this later this is not optimal people learn over time to sing better more confidently and with more satisfaction when they're not leaning on an organ for support there are other reasons too but I will come to those few things witness more impressively to the unity antiquity and universality of the church than a large congregation chanting the Creed together at mass demonstrating in action that the church is one Holy Catholic and Apostolic okay the sixth characteristic the vast majority of Latin chants were composed by anonymous monks Canter's and canons we will never know their names in this life what a healthy corrective to the egotism that often comes with artistic creativity and performance chant quenches distinctive personality both and that we usually don't know its author and in that we cannot shine or standout in a rock star way when singing chant in a Scala or congregation it works against the desire for show encourages a subversion of one's individuality in Christ and makes us act and feel as members of his mystical body like other traditional liturgical practices use of chant strips us of the old man and clothes us with Christ this process of conversion needs to be gentle and continual if it is to be ultimately successful it cannot be the result of fits of enthusiasm emotional highs or psychological violence the seventh characteristic emotional moderation it would be a mistake to say chant is without emotion the melodies are deeply satisfying to sing and to listen to when well executed they plumb the depths of joy and exultation bitterness and sorrow yearning and trustful surrender they expressed many fine shades of feeling they can even induce tears in one who is spiritually sensitive however the emotions in chant are moderate gentle noble and refined they induce and conduce to meditation to the flight of the Spirit into God who is spirit in this way chant is well suited to the ascent of Prayer which begins with a symbol or text that we encounter on which we ruminate from which desire is kindled and which when God favors us rests in his embrace I am referring here to the four stages of Lexi o Divina which guigo the carthesian identifies as Lexi o medet a CEO or a CEO con-tem-plat-- CEO so I believe that that process is what chant accomplishes I mean chant is not the only thing that does it but gem does it the temperance of chant takes on a special importance in our times when so many people live a fast paced if not frantic life busily rushing over the surface of things hyped up and wired excitable and even wearied from too much emotional stimulation for example music movies videos Internet in a way that was undoubtedly not as necessary in the Middle Ages chant becomes for us a medicinal remedy a health giving purgative a summons to greater interior tea and aid for achieving restful silence a promoter and guardian of right spiritual hierarchy as Jacomo bravia says quote liturgical prayer teaches us to put ourselves on a wavelength independent of worldly chaos Gregorian chant has the power to sing to divert the heart from preoccupations because it Orient's itself to God in adoration and silence unquote pope leo xiii says something similar in a letter from 1901 quote in truth the Gregorian melodies were composed with much prudence and wisdom in order to elucidate the meaning of the words there resides within them a great strength and a wonderful sweetness mixed with gravity all of which readily stirs up religious feelings in the soul and nourishes beneficial thoughts just when they are needed unquote all right nearly done here the eighth characteristic is unambiguous sacral tea this is perhaps the most obvious fact yet its significance is seldom fully appreciated Gregorian chant arose exclusively for divine worship and lends itself to no other use or at least not it doesn't plausibly lend itself to any other use it is inherently sacred that is set apart for God alone it is the musical equivalent of incense and vestments which are not used except for worship such things are the privileged honor guard and attendants of Christ powerfully evoke insan' deafer tlie guiding us into that presence chant says Joseph Swain is the musical icon of Roman Catholicism as such it contrasts with secular styles of music that when brought into the church have an ambiguous signification are we dealing with our Lord or with the world or even worldliness are we lowering God to our own level or asking him to lift us up to share in his divinity and as the very Feast of the Ascension reminds us it's often been remarked that the connection between chant and Catholicism is well exploited by Hollywood movie directors who whenever they want to evoke a Catholic atmosphere make sure there is some chant wafting in the background if only today's clergy had half as much business sense of course present company excluded so to recapitulate the eight characteristics of Gregorian chant are primacy of the word free rhythm modality unison singing unaccompanied vocalization anonymity emotional moderation unambiguous sakra leti these characteristics taken together show us that chant is not only a little bit different from other types of music but radically and profoundly different it is liturgical music through and through existing solely for divine worship perfectly suited to its verbal sacred nature as well as to the needs of the faithful who associate chant with worship and who find it both beautiful and strange as God Himself is we can see better now why the Second Vatican Council says the chant is a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy why it gives a nobler form to the celebration of the liturgy and above all why it is specially suited to the Roman Rite and deserves the foremost place in it when performed in an edifying manner chant in and of itself accords with the spirit of the liturgical action which cannot be assumed of any other type of music it is in other words the very definition of what it means to accord with the spirit of the liturgical action and other musical works must line up to be evaluated as it were by this supreme criterion even as Pope Pius the tenth had said in his motive proprio from 1903 quote it is fully legitimate to lay down the following rule the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement inspiration and savor the Gregorian form the more sacred and liturgical it becomes and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model the less worthy it is of the temple thank you for your kind attention [Music] you

Channel: Peter Kwasniewski

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Length: 65min 17sec (3917 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 31 2020