The Spirit of Gregorian Chant - Church Music Association of America

CHAPTER I
HISTORY AND TRADITION
I see\ everywhere that which one thought, that which one did,
that which one loved in the Church in the age of Faith.
Dom Gueranger.
The song of the Church, as well as its liturgy, was born when
art was living. We shall see in subsequent chapters the direct in'
fluence exercised on both the word and melody in the organic
structure of liturgical expression by the art of the GreoyRoman
classical age, as well as by that of Jewish tradition.
The various sources of knowledge for the liturgical song of
the Church are the works of the Fathers, those of the liturgists
and grammarians, and musical treatises, as well as musical texts,
belonging to the Middle Ages. Certain codices of the early VIII
century, e. g., those of Monsa (Cantatorium) and of Zurich'
Rheinau 33, simply give the text of the Chant without notes. 1
We have extant manuscripts in neum notation dating from the IX
century on, the oldest of which are found at the Monastery of St.
Gall in Switzerland.
The four Occidental chants are: the Ambrosian and Gre'
gorian (those of Italy), the Gallican (that of Gaul) and the Mo'
sarabic or "Visigothic" (that of Spain). 2 Dom Mocquereau
alludes to them as the same musical language sung by Christian
peoples but diffused into different musical dialects, even as was the
Latin language into the Romance languages. Which is the oldest,
one does not know, but examination of the manuscripts shows that
the Gregorian, Ambrosian, Mosarabic and the little that is known of
the Gallican are all derived from the same musical language. The
affinity between the tonality and the rhythm is the same in each
of the four varieties; they have all used a notation of neums, with
individual graphic specialties. Archeologists find the Ambrosian
and Gregorian manuscripts easy to read, but the Mosarabic are
controversial, because of the similarity of the notation of these
manuscripts and certain letters used for the signatures of content
1 Dora Dominic Johner, O. S. B., New School of Gregorian Chant, Part II, Ch. I.
2 Paleographic musicale, Vol. I.