Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

Christmas Day—Third Mass 55
this Child is equal in essence to the Father, and against the tenets of
the Mithraic cults, that on the present day, the day of increasing sunlight,
it is not a question of mere symbolism, but of the birth of the
divine Sun of Justice in the flesh. The Church, therefore, addresses these
words to the newborn Babe: Thine are the heavens, and Thine is the
earth. Thou art the Creator and Governor of the world; Thine it is with
all its inhabitants. Prominently this tu dominates the melodic line, which
otherwise never rises above a. Tuae of the third phrase corresponds to
funddsti. Nor does the remaining part speak of the poor manger in which
the Child is lying. It speaks of His throne, of the exercise of His judicial
power, of His zeal for right and justice, of His eternal, immutable judgements.
In the same strain run the verses which formely belonged to this
Offertory: "Thou art a great God and terrible; Thou wilt slay the dragon
of the sea. Mercy and truth shall go before Thy face. Thou strikest
down the proud; with the strength of Thine arm Thou wilt cut down
Thine enemies. For strong is Thy hand, O Lord, and mighty is Thine
arm."
Vigorous words, these. But the melody? Proske, in the preface of
his Musica divina, makes too sweeping a statement when he says of the
church music of the ancients that it avoided all specialized expression.
To plain song, at least, a greater freedom of expression must be conceded.
But he is right when he characterizes as lyric meditation, or contemplation,
that ancient church music which of set purpose avoided any definite
emotion. Over this present Offertory, for instance, there hovers a
delicate shimmer of light, dreamlike one might almost call it. At sunt
caeli we find Palestrina (IX, 16, 1) using a sixth (d-b); plain chant,however,
is content with simple minor thirds and seconds within the tetrachord
d-g, and similarly over ejus later on; justitia likewise confines
itself to a tetrachord, e-a. Low / is the dominant of the entire piece. The
first and third phrases have a range of only a fifth; the second, excepting
tu with its reach of a minor third above the note a, has the range of a
sixth. All is in an unpretentious style: there seems to be deliberate selfrestraint.
Large intervals are rare; the few that do occur are quite inert,
as in the ascending sequence over est, whose nucleus is / g a g, an inversion
of which is found in (pleni)-tu-(dinem): e g f g. At ejus the melody
effects a retarding tension much like the related melody in the Introit.
Tu can then sound with full effect. Justitia sets in energetically. We may
regard the melody over judicium, and especially that over sedis tuae, as
a free variation of est terra.
To understand and appreciate this chant, one might imagine the
Blessed Mother kneeling before the manger, contemplating her divine
Child. Her meditation turns into song, and this tender melody reveals