Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

466 All Saints Day
Of all this the melody sings simply and modestly, without display,
without agitation, without any great development. The plain, rhythmic
torculi, which lift the middle note an interval of a second, strengthen
this impression. It is the song of the King of peace.
The chants of this new feast betray throughout adaptations of
older melodies. This should not, however, spoil our joy in singing them.
Each of them is like a new stanza added to a beloved old song, awakening
memories of the most beautiful seasons of the liturgical year.
ALL SAINTS DAY
(November 1)
"All Saints is a feast of exalted joy; a memorial day dedicated by
the Church militant to the honor of its triumphant members in heaven,
to its own welfare and consolation. It is a feast full of unrestrained jubilation
and thanksgiving. Wide horizons unfold themselves before the
meditating eye, presenting views similar to those seen by the inspired,
heaven-rapt disciple on Patmos in the golden depths of eternity. Peoples,
nations, tongues, innumerable hosts of men, all and each of them a
thought of God, a picture of God, a world, a marvel of divine creative
power, of divine redemptive love and wisdom. All perfect and transfigured,
illumined by the sun of eternal bliss, surrounded by the rays of
glory emanating from God's sublime majesty and from the throne of
the Lamb. All joined in one immense family of God, members of one
Body. The most sublime and glorious ideal realized in all of them:
Christ in them, God in His Christ, God all in all" (C. O., 50, 147).
Only in the ninth century was this feast definitely introduced into
the Church. Hence we ought not wonder if we find no references to it
in the most ancient manuscripts of plainsong. The chants have been
borrowed in part from older feasts; 1 some parts, like the Alleluia and the
Communion, have been composed in the classical style of plainsong.
It is the feast of All Saints. Scarcely another feast brings out the
truth so forcibly, that God is the Sun from which emanate all those rays
we admire in the saints. Already in the Invitatory for Matins the Church
sang: "Come, let us adore the King of kings, for He is the Crown of all
the saints."
c. o., 50,147.