Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

Third Sunday in Lent 135
our hearts. It sings along serenely, not taking any audience into consideration;
it rejoices in the revealed truth and is an expression of the
soul's good fortune in being able to walk with simplicity and love in the
ways of God. It is the song of a soul firmly grounded, of a soul that has
tasted the sweetness of the Lord. It is like the morning prayer of a child,
fresh as the dew, whose eyes reflect its innocence, and who has as yet
no inkling of the world's wickedness and does not realize how bitter
commerce with it may become.
The motive over Domine runs through the entire piece. We hear it
over rectae, and even before, over justitiae, then in corda, and beautifully
expanded over dulciora. The second phrase modulates to c, which is a
fourth lower than the tonic. While the first and second phrases contented
themselves with seconds and thirds, the third phrase also has
fourths. Everything up to the last notes very evidently belongs to the
sixth mode. Suddenly we meet with a surprising melodic turn. Now the
passage agfg gf becomes agf gfe e. Occasionally the masters of polyphony
also close with an unexpected key, as is shown by some of Schubert's
songs. In itself there is nothing peculiar about the ending on e.
In this, or in a somewhat expanded form, it frequently occurs in pieces
of the fourth mode, for example, in the Gloria of the fourth Mass. In
that selection, however, sixteen preceding phrases end on e. But here
final e for the first time comes at the very end. That is the striking feature.
After the bright, open melody of the sixth mode it comes as a question,
a slight doubt. Is what you say true? Will you remain faithful? Will
you be of the number of those whom the Lord in today's Gospel calls
blessed because they hear the word of God and keep it? In the Gospel
of the present Sunday the Blessed Virgin is set before you as a model.
She deserves the encomium, for she was privileged to bear in her womb
the Saviour, the Word of God, but still more because no one else heard
and observed God's word as she did. Will you keep your promise? In
today's Mass formulary the Missal has a decided and clear custodit: Thy
servant keepeth Thy commandments. In the earlier editions of the Liber
Gradualis (1883 and 1895), published under the supervision of Dom
Pothier, the Offertory patently closed with the sixth mode: agf agf f, as
did also the Medicean edition. The older reading, however, demands
custodiet: He will keep them, is determined to keep them. And the old
melody, closing on the half tone, is far removed from victorious certainty.
It sounds like a fervent petition: Lord, give me the strength for
it through Thy holy Sacrifice.
In the psalm and in the text of the Missal before the words et judicia
tua we find the strange neuter form dulciora: Thy judgements are sweeter
than honey.