Textbook of Gregorian Chant (1930) - MusicaSacra

Introduction. xj.
the personal impression is everything; little is asked of the hearer
or the beholder, and since he has not got to seek for much inner
significance he is free to read his own meaning or pour his own
feeling into what is offered him. It is easily seen to which of
these two categories plain music belongs. In every syllable of her
Liturgy the Church follows the Scriptures in teaching by types
and figures, and the chant echoes the liturgical formulas in their
scorn for the superficial and the obvious. This is one reason why
plainsong does not appeal to the casual listener on a first hearing;
one must possess the key to the liturgical mood as it were, and
penetrate below the surface by some preliminary liturgical training
before the old melodies will consent to yield up the secret of their
charm. We shall have occasion to revert to this point in speaking
of expression.
Death and Resurrection. The Solesmes Revival. Text Expression.
It is remarkable to note how, after the unity of medieval Europe
was broken up, Gregorian chant ceased to be appreciated, and
gradually fell either into debased forms or total disuetude. Its
simplicity was too archaic even for an age which revelled in
polyphony, and with the development of orchestral music and
complex harmonisation it took its place among the aesthetic
curiosities of a bygone age, vanished apparently beyond the possibility
of resuscitation. But the Sleeping Beauty lay very safe,
eclipsed and unsuspected, through the centuries of social disruption
and changing musical fashion. It was too far to travel to some
dispeopled and forgotten abbey to seek in a dusty half dismantled
library for the crabbed manuscripts which a later age could no
longer even decipher. Happy may we be in knowing that the
awakening was for our own time, the day of patient scientific
research and reverent reconstruction in so many different fields of
learning.
Constant mention of the "Solesmes theory" has occasionally
given rise to the impression that something new is being evolved
under colour of the Gregorian revival. In actual fact nothing
could be less true. In this connection it will suffice to quote the
following authentic statement concerning the work of the Solesmes
Benedictines. " The ruling idea of the Gregorian restoration at
" Solesmes has always been to return to the oldest tradition, alike
" in rhythm and in melody, and if there is a rhythmical theory
"peculiar to this school, setting out to complete or interpret the
" positive indications supplied by the manuscripts, this theory only
"claims to recognise and define more precisely the objective
" rhythm which naturally arises out of the melody itself. The
" Solesmes theory, so-called, is thus seen to be nothing else than a