About the Gregorian Chant

Gregorian chant is an ancient musical form used by religious communities (monasteries and convents) and the Roman Catholic and Anglican congregations in worship. This chant style is an official style for Roman Catholic church worship, and one of a variety of musical styles in Anglican worship. Prayers are sung with Gregorian Chant for Eucharistic worship (Mass) and for the Daily Office (lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, vespers, compline or morning prayer/matins and evening prayer/evensong).

History

Gregorian chant originated in the Benedictine monastic communities who recited all 150 Psalms each week in "Opus Dei," the Work of God. Seven daily prayer times varied with the season and the amount of daylight, but generally occurred as follows: prime at 6 a.m.; terce at 9 a.m.; sext at noon; none at 3 p.m.; vespers at 6 p.m.; compline at sundown; and lauds in the middle of the night.
Chanting prayers pre-dates Christianity. Different regions of Europe evolved their own style of chanting. The British Isles had Celtic chant; Spain, Mozarabic; Milan, Ambrosian; and France had Carolingian from the Charlemagne and Gallican. Popes and emperors wanted a single, unified style of chant throughout Western Europe. During the era of the Crusades, and the rise of universities in medieval cities, Gregorian chant was declared the official chant of the church. Locales that wanted to continue in a different chant tradition were likely to face sanctions. By attributing the style's origin to St. Gregory, who had been Pope 6 centuries earlier, the proponents of a unified chant style claimed historical authority.

Features

Gregorian chants are choral and fall into 2 general types of melody. The first is the recitative, a long phrase or group of phrases on a single note with some variation of the note at the beginning and/or ending of the phrase. The 2nd is the free melody.
Around the 1st millennium, Guido arranged singing ranges in gamuts (6 pitches up and down a scale--C to A or G to E, for example). The next ordering came by describing 8 modes copied from the 8 Byzantine chant forms. Modes I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII and VIII are the official ones. Each mode refers to the key of the chant and the note on which the chant ends, and whether the tune is in major or minor key.

Antiphons

Liturgy frequently adds a brief quote from scripture to highlight the theme of the season. An antiphon is placed at the beginning and end of a psalm or prayer to set the focus. Likewise, antiphons may focus the ordinary of the mass Santus. During the 9 days before Christmas, each day has a new antiphon, featured in the hymn "O Come, O Come Emanuel." Antiphons frequently are in free melody and the psalms they frame are usually recitative, in one of the 8 modes. The transition between the antiphon and mode is easier when the modes match.

Sequences

Sequences are short choral phrases prior to and following the reading of the Gospel. For nearly 600 years, sequences had been used for any number of saints' days, feasts and other cyclical events. The 1570 Missal of St. Pius V reduced the number of sequences to 4--1 each for Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and All Souls' masses for the dead.

Reforms and Updates

The music of 1 era often seems cumbersome or old fashioned to the next. The earlier Gregorian chant had to be adapted to fit the gamuts. During the disruptions and abolition of monastic communities of the Reformation and revolutions in Europe, the traditional office chants were set aside and forgotten by many. The Abbey of Solesmes reorganized in the late 1800s after the French Revolution and researched diligently to find early manuscripts of chant. They reconstructed use of the chant for Roman Catholic communities, although the interpretation they made has been the subject of controversy, especially concerning the rhythm. High church Church of England choirs and their Anglican communion communities around the English-speaking world also continued a version of Gregorian chant from the Reformation.