GREG OR I AN CHANT

(See Chant .) This general designation is given to the collection of chants compiled by Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome, about A. D. 600. These chants have continued to be in use from that time to the present day, in the Western Church, and form the basis of our cathedral music. It is known that Gregory merely collected, arranged, and improved the chants which had already been used for centuries before his time. The most learned writers on the subject suppose that they are derived from those introduced by St. Ambrose into his church, at Milan, about A. D. 384. Great improvements, however, having been made in the science of music, subsequently to the time of St. Ambrose, Gregory took advantage of those improvements, and increased the number of ecclesiastical tones, (which somewhat resemble our modern keys,) from four to eight, of which number the Greg or i an chants, properly so called, still consist. The four original tones are called authentic, the others plagal. All the eight are now used in some parts of the Greek Church, as in Ru ia, doubtle adopted from the West. They have been harmonized according to the more recently discovered laws of music, and thus harmonized po e a singular gravity, which character would alone justify their perpetual retention in the Church as the basis of church music. The Greg or i an chant is not limited to psalm chants; it includes the antiphons, versicles, graduals, ., in short, all the hymns at the various services of the Romish Church. The eight tones, (which are by some multiplied to twelve,) are in fact so many scales, and all the Greg or i an hymns or anthems must be written in one or other of these tones. The ancient Greg or i an scale admitted no half notes, with the exception of B flat. The Psalm chants had considerable variation in each tone; these variations occurring in the second part of the chant: thus one tone may have three or four cadences; which in fact form so many separate chants. Much of the old English church music, since the Reformation, is based upon the Greg or i an chant: though none of our standard musicians were ever servile followers of a system, which, though very venerable, is imperfect. It may be as well to subjoin a simple rule for ascertaining the tones in which the Greg or i an music is written in the old books. In the ancient breviaries and antiphonies, ., the word EVOVAE frequently occurs, written under certain notes preceding the psalms appropriated to certain offices. This word contains the vowels of the concluding words of the Gloria Patri; viz. sEcVlOrVm AmEn: and by this is meant, that the notes placed above it form the second part of the chant to which the following psalm or psalms are sung: the first part being rarely written. Now to find the tone of the chant, we must take the first note of the Evovae , which is the dominant , or the prevailing , or reciting note of the chant (not the dominant as now technically understood by musicians): and we must take the last note of the Antiphon which follows the Psalm at length: and these two, according to the table here subjoined, give the tone of the chant: the first part of each variation in tone being, as before remarked, always the same; the second part being given in the Evovae . The Psalm Tones must be found out in one of the many movements of the Greg or i an chant. Care must be taken not to take the last note of the abbreviated antiphon which precedes, but of that which follows, the psalm. | Final note, in the Antiphon. | Dominant or reciting note, in the Evovae. | | 1st Tone | D | A | | 2nd Tone | D | F | | 3rd Tone | E | C | | 4th Tone | E | A | | 5th Tone | F | C | | 6th Tone | F | A | | 7th Tone | G | D | | 8th Tone | G | C | Of these tones the odd numbers are authentic, the even plagal. The authentic has always a relation to its plagal which follows, and has the same final note, though a different dominant.— Jebb.