Chants of the Vatican Gradual, by Dom Johner - Church Music ...

Fourth Sunday of Advent 37
giving. All this should fire our zeal, should make this song of praise ascend
from our inmost hearts, to help verify the closing thought of today's
Epistle: "Then shall every man have praise from God."
ALLELUIA VERSE
1. Veni, Domine, et noli tar- 1. Come, 0 Lord, and do not dedare:
2. relaxa facinora plebis tuae. lay; 2. forgive the sins of thy people.
Today's Alleluia begins like that of the Sunday after Epiphany.
The jubilus has the form a a b. Its first member is formed from gab
c c d b of Alleluia. The relation of Alleluia to its verse is not readily apparent.
We find the florid closing melisma of the verse in all its length
at the close of many a verse in Gradual-responsories of the first mode.
(Cf. All Saints, the twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, or Domine
praevenisti in the Common of Abbots.) But here in the Alleluia after
ffecis inserted g g fg a, which is wanting in the previous melodies. Not
only the close but the entire verse bears the impress of a piece of the
first mode with its continued b. According to the present notation, the
Alleluia belongs to the third mode, the verse to the first. Originally the
verse closed on e. And since the melody goes a full tone over e (now d e
d), it ran e /# e; thus the entire piece was sung with /#, so that the verse
began with d e f# gg ga. The melody not only had a frequent /#, but in
the passage over et which now runs / a b c it also had c#. In order to
write the /# on lines according to the rules of the ancient notation it
was necessary here, as in many other selections, to transpose the entire
piece a fourth higher; then the piece began with g ab c d and closed with
a b a, as, in fact, many of the early sources actually give it. Thus the entire
piece could be written in the customary way, except for the passage
over et, which even in the transposition retained an /# (the original c#).
A second transposition of a fourth made it possible also to write this
note; then the piece began with c d e f g and the passage in question became
f a b c, the melody remaining intact. But now its relation to the
Alleluia had been changed. Formerly closing with the same note as the
Alleluia, on e (or a fourth higher on a), the verse now closed on d and the
Alleluia on e. If originally, from a purely melodic standpoint (even if
not theoretically), e /# e was sung, and afterwards Alleluia with e f e
was added, this should not seem strange. Similar combinations can be
found elsewhere in plain song. Thus in the Introit for the fourteenth
Sunday after Pentecost the first phrase ends with agababba, while
the second begins with a g a b a a. With the present notation of Alleluia
and verse a distinctive melodic finesse was lost. After the somewhat