Dominican Liturgical Chant for Christmas
Chants of the Order of St Dominic according to the Prototype
of Antiphonary from the convent of St Sabina in Rome (1254) and of
the Parisian treatise De Musica by Hieronymus from Moravia
(1270)
Over ten years ago the prominent French musicologist and singer Marcel
Peres began research on the reconstruction of the 13th-century
Dominican tradition. The practical outcome of his studies was
astonishing. They presented a picture of music that was unknown, even
shocking for present-day Europeans. It was a picture which ran counter
to most of our customary aesthetics, particularly those relating to
sacred music and Gregorian chant. The surprising newly-revealed element
was rhythmic chant, ornamental, strong, consisting of short phrases
with frequent, rhythmic breaths. At first glance, such extravagant
music seemed a product of the researcher's pure fantasy. So, if we took
our tastes as the criterion of historical truth, nobody would ever have
probed deeply into this new challenge. And yet...
Legend has it that St Dominic used to walk during collective prayers
encouraging his brethren to sing louder. In times of trouble, he is
said not to have lost his spirits and sang Ave maris stella and
Veni Creator Spiritus in full voice. In the Middle Ages, no
other order had its tradition so minutely described as the Dominicans.
It should be remembered that this was a time when the oral tradition
reigned supreme. Only rarely was it supplemented with written records.
However, the Dominicans decided to unify liturgical chant within the
entire, fast-expanding order by means of documentation. After many
years of work, two probably identical 1000-page volumes were made (c.
1254) containing the order's entire musical heritage. They comprise all
the sources, including the most basic, commonly-known songs, which were
not recorded elsewhere, if only because of the price of parchment.
Europe's best educated people wrote even the simplest liturgical items
for equally well-educated people in other parts of Europe. The extant
copy of the Prototype, which has survived in the convent of St
Sabina in Rome, bears the traces of carrying straps on its covers. This
is proof that it was carried from one monastery to another, where
copies were made, without a single change of a note or pause, as the
Blessed Humbert admonishes in the 20-page introduction. The musical
materials of the Holy Trinity Monastery in Cracow include four graduals
dating from before 1320. They were written therefore at a time of close
proximity to the Prototype, strictly according to Humbert's
directions.
The pauses, written in the Dominical notation as vertical lines every
two or three notes, constitute the key to understanding this type of
chant. Their theory was outlined in the very difficult but precise
treatise De Musica written by Hieronymus of Moravia in 1270. It
was so difficult that a century ago the work of Gregorian chant
reformers was discredited as a scholastic joke. Today, attempts are
being made to gain fresh insights into the treatise by employing the
latest research in this field and above all by applying the experience
of those cultures which have preserved the traditional manner of sacred
monodic singing. Without the help of Greeks, Copts and Syrians we would
not have been able to solve the majority of riddles relating to rhythm,
notation and articulation. European musicological apparatus has proved
insufficient, and musical practice has almost disappeared. We therefore
consistently use rhythm according to manner I ('general'), described in
De Musica, which is different from manner II, used solely by the
French at the time. However, the rhythmical interpretation derived from
the treatise has been verified through the practice of today's
traditional singing. The points of convergence which we have found have
surpassed our boldest expectations. We adopted a similar approach in
the reconstruction of the art of ornamentation, which was described
only laconically by Hieronymus and has been by now almost totally
forgotten in Western liturgical practice. We had to learn it from those
who apply it on a regular basis. These are not necessarily residents of
far-away countries. The inhabitants of the Kurpie re¬gion in
north-eastern Poland, for instance, have preserved many elements of
this art. They have never abandoned monodic singing. Working on the
intonation, too, we had to use the experience of those singers who
practice solely modal monodic singing, not affected by the requirements
of equal temperament.
It has long been thought, and many people continue to think, that
13th-century Dominican chant was some sort of extravaganza of its time.
Today, however, being aware of the Dominican order's attachment to
tradition and conservative thinking, we are able to see with increasing
clarity that nothing new was created in the 13th century. The only
thing the Dominicans did, thanks to their precise way of thinking, was
to provide a detailed description of liturgical chant. They created a
new notation, which in itself was not an element of tradition.
Incidentally, this notation was created most probably in collaboration
with the Franciscans (their sources exhibit identical notation). Every
successive month of contact with this type of singing has made us
realize that we are dealing with the fundamental elements of the entire
musical tradition of liturgical chant not only of the 13th century but
of two millennia, and not only of European culture but of its much
older antecedents.
The chants for Christmas featured on this CD follow closely the
liturgical order. However, it is not all the music which could be
included in such a solemn liturgy, but only some chants, characteristic
of Christmas. We have treated these chants as hymns and Christmas
songs, taken out of their liturgical context and yet celebrating the
mystery of the Incarnation. We can only imagine the liturgical theatrum
in its entirety and let this sense of insufficiency remain with us. The
recording begins with fragments of Officium lectionis for
Christmas Eve: the long meditative song (invitatorium),
followed by responsorium, the genealogy of Jesus Christ
according to St Matthew, and the Te Deum. Then come the
changeable parts of Mass (propria). Instead of the bells which
were often used, and continue to be used, during the Te Deum,
we have employed the brass daff, which are used by Coptic
bishops and cantors during their chants. Bells of any kind have
probably never been used rhythmically in the Latin Church. By applying
the daff we wish to draw attention to the role of rhythm in the
traditional Christian liturgy. Let this exceptional use of the daff
be a modest tribute to tradition, faithfully cultivated over the
centuries, a tradition which was preserved all too often thanks to the
martyr's blood of its followers. It is our mission to learn much from
them.
The recording ends with a 2-voice Benedicamus Domino from the
collection of the Poor Clares from the Convent in Stary Sącz, southern
Poland. This chant rounds off the Office of Readings. It is notated in
exactly the same manner as the chorale in other Franciscan and
Dominican sources, also with the application of many rhythmical pauses.
We have also based the rhythmical interpretation of this organum
also on the rules of Hieronymus of Moravia, thus achieving two fully
equal monodies, but sung simultaneously and in parallel. Most
prob¬ably, it was in this way that the new music of the Christian West
was created between the 11th and 13th century.
Marcin Bornus-Szczyciński and the Dominican Friars from Cracow
(Translated by Michał Kubicki)