The greatest boon bestowed on the church by St. Ambrose was the rhythmical hymn, mentioned above, all of which, and many others he wrote for the Cathedral which he built at Milan.
“The entire accent, and style of chanting as regulated by him, was undoubtedly an artistic and cultivated improvement on that of preceding church services, such as would naturally result from the rare combination of piety, zeal, intellect, and poetical and musical power by which he was distinguished.” The Ambrosian chant was eventually merged, but certainly not lost in that vast repertory of plain song, (whether then ancient or modern,) which we now call Gregorian, from the name of the next great reformer of church music, St. Gregory the Great.[253] St. Ambrose died A. D. 397; it was but a short time afterwards that the great invasion of the northern barbarians took place. The history of the vicissitudes of the ecclesiastical music, during the general disruption of Europe and the western civilization, which followed, can only be imagined; but scarcely had a calm been re-established, when, at a period when the reforms and inventions of St. Ambrose had not been vitiated or lost, the great reformer of church music arose, and re-instated the art upon a firmer pedestal than ever.
Gregory, the Great, born about A. D. 540, and pope from September 3, 590, to March 12, 604, was of an illustrious Roman family. His father Gordianus, was a senator, and Felix III., one of the early pontiffs, was among his ancestors. He was one of the most remarkable, zealous, and intelligent of the fathers of the church.
We have here only to follow his musical work, but in every branch of work connected with his church, he was most eminent. He founded six monasteries in Sicily alone. He voluntarily resigned an honorable office, to leave the world, and seek retirement in the monastery of St. Andrew, which he himself had founded at Rome. On this occasion he gave to the poor all his wealth, and declining the abbacy of his own convent, began with the ordinary monastic life, about 575.
He wished to attempt the conversion of the Britains, (moved thereto by the well known incident of seeing some beautiful Anglo-Saxon youths exposed for sale in the Roman market place), but was prevented by the clamor of the populace who refused to lose him. Like St. Ambrose, he was called to office entirely against his will, and, on being made pontiff, he seems to have excelled in every department of his administration; thus much, to show that music was but one of the fields in which this wonderful man exercised his talents.
He collected the available church music, he added to it by composing new hymns and anthems, he arranged them for the various special days of the year, he invented or amplified the system of ecclesiastical composition, and took care that the reforms should be permanent, by having most things relative to his musical labors, written out in a lasting manner.[254]
These reforms he began about A. D. 599. He did not discard the four modes of St. Ambrose, but rather extended them; and yet (through the great personal popularity of St. Ambrose), the Milan Cathedral kept the Ambrosian chant unadulterated, for centuries after the establishment of the Gregorian.
As late as the latter half of the fifteenth century, Franchinus Gafor speaks of the Gregorians and Ambrosians as partizans. Of course, in order to secure uniformity, the rulers of Europe, sought to dwarf the workings of the Ambrosian system, and Charlemagne even ordered the Ambrosian books to be burnt. Although, as above stated, there was nothing antagonistic in the two systems, yet their musical results seem to have had a material difference, for Radulf of Tongern an unimpeachable witness of the fourteenth century, who heard both methods in their purity, says that he found the Ambrosian chanting, widely different from the Roman (Gregorian); the former being strong and majestic, while the latter was sweet-toned, and well arranged.[255] This distinction is utterly meaningless to us, for the Gregorian chant is certainly majestic and strong, at least to our ears.
Gregory also founded a singing school in Rome, which was large enough to occupy two good-sized edifices. In this he probably taught personally.
There have been shown as relics of his instruction, the couch on which he sat while teaching, and the rod with which the boys were corrected, or awed into giving proper attention to their studies.