Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

340 Twenty-First Sunday after Pentecost
nem quoque ejus gravi ulcere vul- his substance and his children: 6.
neravit. and wounded his flesh also with a
grievous ulcer.
With its purposely restricted range, this piece expresses heartfelt
sympathy for the patient Job. This compsasion must be all the more
noble, since here are portrayed the sufferings of a man who was "simple
and upright, and fearing God," who really had not deserved his misfortunes
personally, and who stands before us exhibiting an imcomparable
greatness of soul. When we regard this melody we can understand
why the ancients called the second mode elegiac and used it extensively
in the antiphons of the Office of the Dead.
The Vatican Gradual divides this piece into six phrases, of which
the first, third, and fifth begin with almost the same motive. The similar
passages over simplex and rectus serve to emphasize the same thought.
This similarity holds good of facultdte and et in came further on. In the
Introit we were able to point out a like procedure. With quern Satan the
melody takes on a new and tenser turn, even though the formula over
tentdret, which recurs over filios, over vulnerdvit, and in an expanded
form over Domino, again relaxes the tension somewhat. So much more
effective is the fourth phrase, et data, in whose first half high d plays the
role of dominant. The twofold division in facultdte and et in came is more
fully developed in the fifth and sixth phrases. A deep melancholy is
manifested in the final phrase with its prominent accents, its repetition
of the same motive ccbag a, which was heard over ut in the third phrase.
The piece has been transposed by a fifth, most probably only for
practical reasons, in order to render ledger lines unnecessary.
At the present time we have just this one verse. In the Antiphonary
of St. Gregory several more verses follow, in which the dramatic element
becomes almost passionate. This is apparent even exteriorly from the
frequent textual repetitions, which are otherwise quite rare in plainsong.
The last verse, a vehement cry for the joy which every human heart
demands, nine times repeats the words ut videam bona (cf. Wagner, I,
110, and especially III, 430 f.).
Job is a figure of Christ, and his sufferings are a type of Christ's
sufferings. For this reason the Book of Job was read during Holy Week.
Even on his couch of suffering Job protests his innocence, but his friends
do not believe him and assert that his sins are the cause of this awful
visitation of God's justice, which afflicted him so much that he had to
cry out in his distress. In the same manner Christ, who is Holiness itself,
suffers for our sins, which He took upon Himself in merciful love.
He too is jeered at in His agony. If with this Offertory we enter the in-