Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

8 Structure and Expressiveness of the Variable Mass-Chants
ond mode and have mostly the concluding form d e f d ( = ab c a) or c e
f d, six to the third and fourth mode, mostly with the concluding form
a b c g. The pressus is thus most adaptable for concluding the jubilus
melody.
The Alleluia-verse often bears the same relation to the preceding
Alleluia and jubilus as do the variations of a theme to the theme itself.
Seldom is every such relation absent. The first words of the verse frequently
repeat the melody of the Alleluia. As in the Gradual verse, one
syllable (which is, as a rule, the accented one) has a florid melisma and
is finely membered, like that of the jubilus. Reference might be made
to odor em in the Alleluia for the feast of St. Andrew.
It is proper to designate the systematical division of the various
chants of the Gradual by a a 1 b, etc., and to designate identical and similar
passages with a circumflex either above or below the neums. The
singer is thus afforded a general view of the whole composition and acquires
that self-confidence which is consonant with the spirit of prayer.
As a rule, the verse has the same rich closing melody, the same
jubilus as the Alleluia. Only a few melodies, among them those of the
three Christmas Masses, have a different ending. They were most likely
composed at a time when the sense of the symmetrical rounding-off of
phrases was not so well developed. Wagner (III, 398 ff.) assigns them to
an older (archaic) form. Neither is the inner development of these melodies
so clearly arranged as that which marks other melodies (cf. Pal.
mus., Ill, 53 ff).
F. THE TRACT
As a rule, the text of the Tract is taken from the Psalms or the Canticles.
Its several verses have psalmodic structure. Tracts were invariably
assigned either to the second or eighth mode. The first verse generally
has an extended beginning and the last verse a rich closing melisma.
The mediant divides each verse into two halves; in the following it is
indicated by f-
The most frequently occurring form of mediant of the second mode
is that which, for instance, is found in the first Tract of Good Friday
over timui, cognosceris, mea, veniet, eius, and is characterized by the
descent of a fourth with a pressus and close on c. A few other forms (in
the same Tract over innotesceris) occur less frequently, but close on c.
Between the beginning and the mediant, but more frequently the mediant
and the closing cadence, a number of caesuras are now and then inserted,
which as a rule have a melodic upward tendency and close on /,
as, for instance, in the second Tract of Good Friday over iniquo, die,
dspidum. In the following the caesura is indicated by (—).