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114 GREGORIAN CHANT
artistic resources, composed melodies of unequalled beauty. 1 Leo IV,
in a letter to Abbot Honorius (c. 850), speaks of a 'traditio canendi
legendique' (a tradition of singing and reading) which St. Gregory
had given to the Church: most unfortunately no detail of it has come
down to us.
Next comes (b) the antiphonal style. From the fourth century, or
earlier, psalmody is combined with the antiphon and is sung as an
alternating chant between two choirs, sometimes at the octave. In
this respect it will be useful to examine (1) the simple antiphons of the
Office, the most ancient form of which is represented by the Alleluia
antiphons, in which the word Alleluia is repeated from three to nine
times. For the text of the other antiphons Rome for a long time con
fined itself to the Bible, especially to the Psalter, and to the Acts of
the Martyrs (sixth century). The antiphons to the Magnificat and
Benedictus are usually taken from the Gospels. In the melodies of
these antiphons the form used is that which we have described above
as mosaic or patchwork; and they are, as may be expected, very
numerous, the ordinary or secular Antiphoner containing 1,230, the
monastic 1,183. Someantiphons are purely syllabic, others melismatic:
some follow the parallelism of the text by dividing into two parts,
others into three or four. Though written in all the eight modes, the
eighth and the first predominate. Some are even written in a combina
tion of two modes, such as the first and the third. The antiphons of
the Magnificat and Benedictus are more florid than the rest, being
comparable in this respect to the antiphons in the Ordinary of the
Mass: 2
Ex.36 (a)'
t~~
It
Veni sponsa Christi, accipe coronam, quam tibi Dominus praeparavit in aeternum,
Ex. 36 (b)
. quam
ni . spon sa Chri -
sti, ac - ci - pe co - ro - nam,
ti - bi Do - mi - nus prae-pa- ra-vit in ae-ter - nuni.
1 An example of liturgical recitative is recorded in The History of Music in Sound
(H.M.V.), ii, side 4.
3 An example of antiphonal psalmody is recorded in The History of Music in Sound,
ii, side 4.
3
Antiphonale Vaticanum, p. [56].