0:20
What you heard in the background, is Gregorian Chant.
Gregorian Chant was and is the music of the Roman Catholic Church.
It was first created in the time of the Apostles of Christ and
continued to be created, until the late 16th century, 1500 years.
Well obviously Pope Gregory the Great,
who sat on the throne of Saint Peter from 590 to 605, didn't write all of this.
Indeed he wrote little, if any chant, but he had
an influential biographer who gave him a lot more credit than he actually deserved.
[LAUGH] In a way, this was typical of the Middle Ages,
to ascribe to a single male authority figure the works of many individuals,
male and female that transpired over time.
1:07
Anyway, we have surviving from the Middle Ages thousands and
thousands of chants for the service of the church.
Let's look at a couple more of these chant manuscripts.
As you can see, this is one-line music, monophonic music.
Also, all the notes look pretty much the same.
There are no flags or stems on them to indicate rhythm,
because generally speaking, there is no meter and no rhythm in Gregorian chant.
We just float along smoothly, and more or less, in equal durations.
1:44
Well, what's the notation doing here then?
Well it's simply trying to indicate the ups and downs of the voice.
So this manuscript that we see here is of the 13th century.
Now we turn to one of the 14th century,
a salter hymnal from the Italian city of Verona.
A now a 15th century, century manuscript and
en tifinagh, inviting the singing of the magnificat at vespers.
And finally from the extraordinary piccolomini library in Siena Italy.
A book for the Mass, an Introit for the Mass.
2:26
All right, now let's focus on how this chant was used in the liturgy.
Liturgy is simply a fancy sounding word for religious service.
It had two functions.
One, to send out the word, the word of God in rapid fire delivery,
and two, to offer a psychologically slower kind of chant designed to
encourage the listener, to reflect upon Christ and the Christian story.
2:53
To present this, we'll turn to a class video.
Here you'll see me, dressed as a monk.
Actually, I've lived in monastery three times in my life.
But only for short durations.
Never more than 10 days.
But I wanted to dress like a monk for this class and turn out the lights, so
that the students would feel that they had been transported elsewhere.
To a different time and place back to the middle ages.
Accomplished and generally speaking in the middle ages there was this tendency to
ascribe to a single or
a couple of male authority figures, a lot more than they actually did.
The point here is the Gregorian chant was being composed 500 years before
Gregory set foot on this Earth, and nearly a 1000 years after that.
What's the purpose of Gregorian chant?
What did it do?
Well, it did two things, one, it communicated the message of the church,
it allowed for the transmission of the word of god,
as they the faithful understood the word and understood God.
And it transmitted the theology, the message of the church.
Chant then, was a medium for the broadcast, literally,
the broadcast of the word, in a resonant acoustical environment, such as a stone or
stucco church, one can project, one can impel a text better.
If you sing it rather than just simply to claim it as usual.
I could say, for
example, now let us read the epistle of the blessed apostle Paul to the Romans.
But the text projects better if I sing it.
[FOREIGN].
In that fashion it goes out better, and it can reverberate better.
4:40
Chant used for
direct reading, directly communicating the text was generally syllabic chant.
In syllabic chant, each syllable has just one note.
And in syllabic chant, the musical range tends to be rather narrow.
The second purpose of chant.
Chant also allowed for
a period of reflection upon the subject of the preceding reading.
A sermon or a passage of scripture would be followed by a reflective chant.
Time for contemplation.
This music for reflection upon a preceding religious theme, was generally melismatic.
Now melismatic chant is one in which there are many notes for
just one syllable of text.
And in melismatic chant, the range tends to be a lot broader, it's more virtuosic.
So simple chanting for readings, that's syllabic chant.
More complex chant for moments of personal feeling and
reflection, that's melismatic chant.
5:49
Let's take a, an example here, I have my venerable Liber Usualis.
Appear and I'm going to sing the Hallelujah for Easter Sunday.
At least I'm going to try to sing it.
And it's an example of a melismatic chant.
And you'll notice one syllable here is conveyed by probably 30 notes.
[MUSIC]
6:41
So that's a melismatic chant.
A moment of joyful celebration associated with the resurrection of Christ.
So that's what chant did and that's what it does today.
It is firstly a medium for a projection of sacred texts.
And secondly a vehicle for spiritual contemplation.
Craig WrightHenry L & Lucy G Moses Professor of Music
