a short research project

Chant of the Church:
Text and Melody


Gregorian chant, the music of the Roman Catholic liturgy has had a history of ups and downs from its earliest origins. Chant’s very existence came about because of widespread differences in liturgical music and a desire to unify the Roman liturgy. Chant became distinct to each locale once more and was again unified, this time by the Council of Trent. The downhill took place again, and the restoration was begun by Dom Gueranger at the Abbey of Solesmes. If one were to draw a diagram of the history of chant in the Church, it would appear not dissimilar to the lines drawn by the monks of Solesmes to indicate the arsic and thetic gestures of chironomy. The history is not disconnected, but is rather a continuously undulating line of practice. Unfortunately, therefore, each time in history that chant must be, as it were, rediscovered, the scholars and musicians face the challenge of reinterpreting and selecting the old manuscripts and the importance of text versus melody.

Briefly, the first upsurge of chant, resulting in its promulgation by Pope Leo III and spread by Charlemagne throughout the Holy Roman Empire, began with the beginning of Western Monasticism. Most important in preserving manuscripts was the Benedictine monastery of St. Gall, Switzerland.[1] In the years from 1545-1563, the Council of Trent was held. By this time, chant was once again widely different in each diocese across Europe and in the aftermath of the Council, the Counter-Reformation, “intelligibility of the text was important.” A new gradual, known as the Medici edition because of the press from which it came, was published in 1614-1615 with the chants to be used by the church—although they were never officially binding. [2]

Unfortunately, the Medici edition “is shocking for its mutilation of the traditional melodies.

Melismas were mercilessly shortened, and the remaining melismas were transferred to accented syllables. This was due to Renaissance and nascent Baroque understandings of the subordination of melody to text. It was no longer understood that the ancient melodies, with long melismas and ingenious placement of melismas on weak syllables, were to be sung lightly and quickly, and with a rhythmic interpretation which brought out the text.”[3]

This left, as David Hiley points out, an opening for “further rewriting of the ancient melodies…for anyone with the will and ability to follow it.”[4] Once again, chant disintegrated to individual differences across the Church and was all but lost in the Age of Enlightenment and the era of the French Revolution.

The revival of chant would be begun this time by one Dom Prosper Gueranger who, having concerned himself with the restoration of the Faith, monasticism, and the Abbey of Solesmes looked also to restore the soul of the Church, the liturgy.[5] He hoped to renew the unity of the French Church to Rome, and he would end up beginning a movement that would lead to Rome unifying chant for the Church once more. As Katherine Bergeron points out in her book, Decadent Enchantments, sometimes restoration may mean “to create a form of life that ‘may never have existed.’” Dom Gueranger did more than bring back a way of life that once existed at Solesmes, rather, he built up beyond it in the spirit of the Church and Benedictine monasticism.

Dom Gueranger “arrived at the recognition that the archeological investigation of chant manuscripts by itself was not sufficient to bring about a manner of singing which is convincing [or] appropriate for the liturgy. For him Gregorian chant was in the first place prayer, the sung prayer of the liturgy.”[6] For this first step in restoration, therefore, the focus was primarily for the text. This focus on a text-oriented manner of singing became the practice of Solesmes passed on from Dom Gueranger to Dom Joseph Pothier and Dom Andre Mocquereau in the latter half of the nineteenth century. However, Dom Mocquereau was to develop a great interest in the “most comprehensive documentation and intensive investigation” of historical manuscripts rather than limiting himself to the text as the highest principle of interpretation.[7]

As Dom Pothier followed the path of fidelity first and foremost to the text, he also “attempted to sketch Gregorian history through the very notational signs—the neumes—in whose collective features he believed that history resided.”[8] Dom Pothier spent a great deal of time focused on beautifully reproducing and seeking to publish books of chant with clear, antique neumes and ornamentations. By making their work more beautiful, the monks of Solesmes hoped to overcome other publishers of liturgical music; but the more beautiful the books, the more beautiful must be the singing.[9] As Solesmes continued to develop its singing and production of chant, Dom Mocquereau developed his ideas regarding this music of the liturgy.

Dom Mocquereau moved beyond the development of a single beautiful printed edition and studied manuscripts, all that he could find. To his study, Dom Mocquereau brought the technology of photography. By means of photography, he “exposed Gregorian tradition not as a single, idealized creation but as a staggering diversity of representations.” Dom Mocquereau’s work presented a threat to the work of Dom Pothier. The threat was in the very number and availability of the photographs; “by its willful proliferation of images, the Paleographie musical functioned…as a kind of silent critique.” Dom Pothier feared not only that his colleague’s work would cause of revision of his, but also that because the sources were “no longer the private property of monk-scholars” and other scholars were armed with “the source” and could study Dom Pothier’s work against even more sources than he perhaps had consulted.[10]

Although one might not be led to expect it by Dom Mocquereau’s serious study of manuscripts, he also was responsible for mesure libre, “a modern invention and a purely abstract system of rhythm…in clear contradiction to the data of the very Gregorian paleography which he worked so hard to establish and disseminate.”[11] Despite that, Dom Mocquereau was responsible for bringing the study of chant from solely a question of liturgy to a field of science outside of the sacred realm. Within the Church, the restoration had a victory in the Motu Proprio of 1903 when Pope Pius X reinforced the teaching that chant was the “principle music for worship.”[12] The following year, the Holy Father followed up on the Motu Proprio by declaring preference for the interpretations and work of Solesmes above other chant books.

But this victory was not the end of the saga of Solesmes. Dom Gueranger and his successors had brought about a restoration of Gregorian chant, not just in their Abbey but also in the Church and not just in the Church but also in the world of scholarly study. Although chant would fall again from public use throughout the churches and have to begin to rise again (1960 fall and current revival), the work of the monks of Solesmes accomplished the vital task of keeping chant, manuscripts, practice, and study of it alive. As scholars continue to contend on proper interpretation and compilations of melody and rhythm, they will always have Solesmes to look to for gratitude even if not in certain agreement. And chant lives on—there is more yet to discover in our study of it.




Bibliography

Bergeron, Katherine. Decadent Enchantments: The Revival of Gregorian Chant. Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1998.

Fr. Anthony Ruff, O.S.B. "Beyond Medici: The Struggle for Progress in Chant." Edited by William Mahrt. Sacred Music (Church Music Association of America) 135, no. 2 (Summer 2008).

Goschl, Johannes Berchmans. "One Hundred Years of the Graduale Romanum." Edited by William Mahrt. Sacred Music (Church Music Association of America) 135, no. 2 (Summer 2008).

Hiley, David. Western Plainchant: A Handbook. New York City, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Wright, Craig, and Bryan Simms. Music in Western Civilization. Belmont, California: Thomson Schirmer, 2006.





[1] Craig Wright and Bryan Simms, Music in Western Civilization (Belmont, California: Thomson Schirmer, 2006), pages 17-33.

[2] David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (New York City, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), page 615.

[3] Fr. Anthony Ruff, O.S.B., "Beyond Medici: The Struggle for Progress in Chant," ed. William Mahrt, Sacred Music (Church Music Association of America) 135, no. 2 (Summer 2008), pages 26-27.

[4] Hiley, page 616.

[5] Katherine Bergeron, Decadent Enchantments: The Revival of Gregorian Chant (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1998), page 10.

[6] Johannes Berchmans Goschl, "One Hundred Years of the Graduale Romanum," ed. William Mahrt, Sacred Music (Church Music Association of America) 135, no. 2 (Summer 2008), p. 11.

[7] Ibid. page 12.

[8] Bergeron, page 35.

[9] Ibid. pages 35-58.

[10] Ibid. pages 87-89.

[11] Goschl, page 13

[12] Bergeron, page 129.