Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

Septuagesima Sunday 99
In the vicinity of S. Lorenzo, Constantine the Great erected a hospital.
Perhaps this Gradual was meant to console the inmates of that
institution, to encourage them to trust in God, to beg grace for them to
the end that man, the evil in man, the spirit of darkness, might not prevail.
We, as God's own family, should also lovingly remember those who
are being visited by physical or spiritual ills, by temptations or by
trials.
The verses are taken from Psalm 9, as on the third Sunday of Lent
(whose Gradual begins with the last sentence of today's) and on the
Saturday of the fourth week in Lent. With this latter our present Gradual
has perfect similarity of word and music in (opportu)-nitdtibus and
in tribulatione. The first non of the verse is like (Do)-mine in the verse
of the other Gradual. Though none of the Graduals in the third mode
are easily understood, the one for today presents special difficulties. It
lacks a calm and ordered development. The third word goes up to e 1 ,
which is never again reached in the corpus. Many fourths occur, but not
a single fifth.
Both halves of the first phrase close with the cadence which we meet
again in the Introit of the first Sunday in Lent. Endings on d, as in the
second phrase, are favored by the third mode. The former dominant b
still occurs, and helps in the formation of the triton, as over Domine.
The beginning of the verse resembles the beginning of the third
phrase in the corpus. Of more than ordinary difficulty is the execution
of the second half of the melisma over non. The rich melody at this
point is in accord with the general rules for Gradual-verses. In the second
phrase the motive is broadened out and repeated over aeternum.
The last phrase, with its intense exsurge and its impelling fourths, is
most forceful and expressive. The conclusion corresponds to that of the
corpus.
TRACT (Ps. 129: 1, 4)
1. De profundis clamavi ad te, 1. From the depths I have cried to
Domine: Domine, exaudi vocem thee, O Lord: Lord, hear my voice,
meam. 2. Fiant aures tuae inten- 2. Let thine ears be attentive to the
denies in orationem servi tui. 3. Si prayer of thy servant. 3. // thou
iniquitates observaveris, Domine: shalt observe iniquities, 0 Lord,
Domine, quis sustinebitf! 4. Quia Lord, who shall endure iti 4. For
apud te propitiatio est, et propter with thee is propitiation, and by
legem tuam sustinui te, Domine. reason of thy law I have waited for
thee, 0 Lord.