St. Gregory and the Gregorian Music

by E. G. P. Wyatt

Again, one ought not to expect to find the chroniclers laying stress on the Gregorian origin of the Roman books in the lifetime of those who were contemporaries and disciples of the great Pope, and who had themselves introduced the book from Rome. The fact would be taken as a matter of course. It would not be till these had passed away that a tradition would begin to form, and stress be laid on the fact; and this brings us to the date of Archbishop Egbert.

Besides, who would have suspected the full importance of this Gregorian form, and, in particular, have foreseen that it would put a limit to the period of elaboration of the Western liturgy? So many Popes had already taken the matter in hand. The great work of Gregory was to organize, set in order, and fix. But only time can show what is really fixed. The greatness of his work is only apparent after having remained unaltered for centuries.

These considerations tend to show that there is no cause for surprise that it should have taken so long for people to realize the greatness of Gregory’s work in setting in order the music of the Church.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE.

The oldest Antiphoners that we possess are some two hundred years later than Gregory I. But they possess two peculiarities which raise a presumption in favour of an origin at least as old as St. Gregory.

The first peculiarity lies in the version of Scripture from which are taken the portions to which the music is set. This version is the old Latin one known as “Itala.” Now even if at the time of St. Gregory it had not entirely given place to the Vulgate, yet from his time onwards the latter prevailed universally (except for the Psalter, which was retained at Rome till the time of Pius V., and is still used at St. Peter’s), not only in Rome, but in all the West; so much so, that St. Isidore of Seville could assert in the first half of the seventh century, that St. Jerome’s version had already been taken into use by all the Churches as preferable to the ancient one. It is natural to seek the explanation of preserving an obsolete text of the words in the respect felt for the melodies to which they were set. It is, therefore, reasonable to conclude that these melodies existed for the most part before the definite abandonment of the Itala at Rome, that is to say before the middle of the seventh century.

The second peculiarity which supports this conclusion is to be found in the comparison of the Offices, known to have been added since the time of St. Gregory, with the older portion of the Antiphoner. With very few, and those very doubtful, exceptions, the materials for these are all taken from older Offices. Sometimes both words and tunes are transferred bodily; sometimes new words are set to the old melodies.

There are certain Masses of Saints, the chants for which were taken from those which later were collected together to form the Common. For the Feasts of the Annunciation, the Assumption, and the Nativity of the Virgin, all the chants were taken from older Masses, e.g., from the masses of Advent and of certain Virgins and Martyrs. The Procession of the Purification, both words and melody, was borrowed from the Greeks by Pope Sergius. For the Mass of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross all the chants were taken from elsewhere, with the possible exception of the Communion. The Introit and the Gradual were taken from Maundy Thursday, the Alleluia from Friday in Easter week, and the Offertory from Maundy Thursday, or the Second Mass for Christmas-day. The Introit for the Purification is borrowed from the Eighth Sunday after Trinity.

The compositions either in the Sanctorale or the Temporale of the Mass that can be definitely dated as introduced after the death of St. Gregory are very few, and may perhaps have been borrowed, with the Festivals themselves, from outside by the Roman Church.

It is a reasonable conclusion to draw, then, that the addition of these portions in the seventh century shows at least a great diminution of musical productive power, and that the bulk of the Antiphoner of the Mass must have been composed before this date. This inference is supported by the conclusion which M. Gevaert draws from his examination of the Antiphons of Divine Service (La Melopée Antique, p. 175), viz., that the Golden Age for compositions of this class was the period 540-600. The natural deduction from this is that the main settlement of the Antiphoner of the Mass fell within the same period.