Holy Week/Tenebrae
Tenebrae.
‡
Copyright 1891, by the Cathedral Library Association.
That portion of the Divine office which is called Matins and Lauds is chanted publicly and with great solemnity on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in Holy Week. This service is called the Tenebrae from the Latin word "darkness," because this office was formerly celebrated during the night, and even when the hour was anticipated the name of Tenebrae was kept because although it began with daylight, it ended after the sun had set. It may be too that this office points to the times when the Christians lived in persecution and concealment and consequently selected the night as the fittest time for the celebration of their sacred rites.
For many centuries this office continued to be performed at midnight, but that practice is kept up only in monasteries and convents of strictest observance. Each of its divisions is styled a nocturn or nightly prayer. It differs in very many particulars from the office of Matins as usually recited by the clergy throughout the year. Everything is expressive of the grief pressing upon Mother Church. All formulas of joy and hope wherewith on all other days she began to praise God are omitted. The "Domine labia mea aperies" (Oh Lord thou shalt open my lips), and the "Deus in adjutorium meum intende" (incline unto my aid. Oh God), the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalms, the canticles and responsories are all taken away, and nothing left but what is essential to the form of the divine office; psalms, lessons and chants expressive of grief. Each canonical hour ends with the psalm Miserere, and with the commemoration of the Passion and Death of Our Saviour. No blessing is asked on the lessons. The celebrant lowers his voicetowards the termination of the prayers, and no "Amen" is said by the people.
The most striking feature of this singular office is the large triangular candlestick placed at the Epistle side of the Altar. At the apex of this triangle is a white candle with seven yellow candles on either side. At the end of each psalm or canticle one of these fifteen candles is extinguished, but the one at the apex remains lighted. During the Benedictus the six candles on the Altar are also put out. Then the sole remaining lighted candle is taken and hidden behind the Altar during the recitation of the "Miserere" and the prayer. At the conclusion of the prayer a slight noise being made, the candle is brought from behind the Altar, and remains burning even after Tenebrae is over.
The origin of this practice is hidden in obscurity. No doubt during the nightly celebrations of the Divine Office, necessity as well as choice compelled the use of lights, but the faithful so arranged them as to make them strikingly significant. The number of lights differed. One writer tells us that in his time the Church was lighted up with twenty-four candles which were gradually extinguished to show how the Sun of Justice had set.
Another writer tells us that in some Churches all the candles were extinguished at once, in several by a hand made of wax to represent that of Judas; in others they were all quenched by a moist sponge passed over them to show the death of Christ, and on the next day fire was struck from a flint by which they were again kindled to show that He had risen again.
Some writers inform us that all the lower lights were emblematic of the Apostles and other disciples of the Saviour who at the period that his sufferings grew to their crisis, became terrified at His arrest, His humiliations, His condemnation and crucifixion, as well as by the supernatural exhibitions upon Calvary and in Jerusalem and that the extinction shows the terror and doubts by which they were overwhelmed, but that the Blessed Virgin who is represented by the candle upon the summit and which is not extinguished, alone retained all her confidence unshaken, and with a clear and perfect expectation of His Resurrection, yet plunged in grief, beheld the appalling spectres that came as from another world to bear testimony of a deicide. But the most instructive explanation appears that which informs us that the candles which are arranged along the sides of this triangle, represent the patriarchs and prophets who under the Law of Nature and the written Law gave the world that imperfect revelation which they received, but all tending towards one point which was Christ the Messias, who as the Orient on High was to shed the beams of knowledge upon those minds that had been so long enveloped in darkness, as these lights are extinguished, one at the end of each psalm, so were these chosen ones, after having proclaimed the praises of the Redeemer, consigned to death, many of them by the people whom they instructed. (Bishop England's Works; Vol. III, p. 365.)
The noise made at the conclusion of the service reminds us of the convulsions of nature at the Saviour's death, and the production of the light still burning and shedding its light abroad, recalls the Resurrection of the Saviour, and His effulgence on the world.
The principal features of the Office are the Lamentations of the prophet Jeremias, in which under the name of the daughter of Sion, he bewails the desolation of that Jerusalem over which Jesus Christ wept.
The first lamentations, usually performed on Wednesday and Friday evenings, were harmonized by Palestrina, and that of Thursday by Allegri. Little or no attempt is made to render the varied expression of each passage, but they take their tone from the character of the entire piece, and produce an unmingled feeling of devotion. The other musical features of this office are the "Miserere" and the "Benedictus" The grandest of these compositions are performed at the services on Good Friday, when the "Benedictus" from the Sixtine Chapel collection and the "Miserere" by Allegri are generally performed. We append Cardinal Wiseman's magnificent description of Baini Allegri's Miserere.
"Every verse is varied, and betrays art. At the words et exultabunt ossa humitiata, there is air or rather time, upon the first part of the verse, in a rising joyful movement, succeeded by a low, deep and sepulchral expression in the rest of the phrase. The verse Incerta et occulta sapientiae tuae manifestasti mihi, begins with a soft, stealthy expression, to convey the idea of concealment and uncertainty; then at the manifestasti, "Thou hast declared," part succeeds to part, till a grand burst of full declaration is made. Every verse proceeds upon the same principle, and the mind is thus kept undecided between different feelings, watching the art and skill of the composer,—now held in suspense, and heaving upwards on a majestic swell, then falling suddenly, by its breaking, as a wave, on an abrupt and shortened cadence; and you arrive at the conclusion with a variety of images and feelings,—the mind, like a shivered mirror, retaining only fragments of sentiments and emotions. How different is the effect of Allegri's, upon the soul of one, who, kneeling in that silent twilight, and shutting up every sense, save that of hearing, allows himself to be borne unresisting by the uniformly directed tide of its harmonies! It is a chaunt but twice varied: one verse being in four parts, and another in five, till both unite in the final swell of nine voices. The written notes are simple and unadorned; but tradition, under the guidance of long experience and of chastened taste has interwoven many turns, dissonances, and resolutions, which no written or published score has expressed. At first, the voices enter in full but peculiar harmony, softly swelling in emphasis on each word, till the middle of the verse, when a gradual separation of each part takes place, preparing for the first close; you hear them, as though weaving among themselves a rich texture of harmonious combination; one seems struggling against the general resolve, and refusing more than a momentary contact with one another, but edging off upon delicious dissonances, till the whole, with a waving successive modulation, meet in full harmony upon a suspended cadence. Then they proceed with the second portion of the verse, upon a different, but even richer accord, till once more they divide with greater beauty than before. The parts seem to become more entangled than ever. Here you trace one winding and creeping, by soft and subdued steps, through the labyrinth of sweet sounds; then another drops, with delicious trickling falls, from the highest compass to the level of the rest; then one seems at length to extricate itself; then another, in imitative successive cadences; they seem as silver threads that gradually unravel themselves, and then wind round the fine deep-toned bass which has scarcely swerved from its steady dignity during all their modulations, and filling up the magnificent diapason, burst into a swelling final cadence, which has no name upon earth.
After verse has thus succeeded to verse, ever deepening the impression once made, without an artifice or an embellishment to mar the singleness of the influence, after the union of the two choirs has made the last burst, of condensed, but still harmonious power; and that affecting prayer, "Look down, o Lord upon this thy family," has been recited in melancholy monotony amidst the scarcely expired echoes of that enchanting, overpowering heavenly strain, the mind remains in a state of subdued tenderness and solemnity of feeling, which can ill brook the jarring sounds of earth, and which make it sigh after the reign of true and perfect harmony."
The Singing of the Passion.
o
The singing of the Passion is in reality a dramatic representation. The narrative is given by a strong, manly tenor voice. The words of Our Saviour are in a deep, solemn bass, and whatever is spoken by any other person is given in a high contralto. Each part has its particular cadence of old, simple, but rich chant suited to the character represented. That of the narrator is clear, distinct and slightly modulated, and that in which ordinary interlocutors speak, sprightly, bordering upon colloquial familiarity; but that in which Our Saviour's words are uttered is slow, grave and most solemn, beginning low and ascending by full tones, then gently varied in rich though simple undulations, till it ends by a graceful and expressive cadence, modified with still greater effect in interrogatory phrases. The magnificence of this dramatic recitation consists in the choruses, for whenever the Jewish crowd are made to speak in the history of the Passion, or indeed whenever any number of individuals interfere, the choir bursts in with its simple but massive harmony, and expresses the sentiment with a truth and energy which thrills through the frame and overpowers the feelings. There are twenty-one choruses in the Gospel of Palm Sunday, and only fourteen in that of Friday. The phrases in the first are longer and more capable of varied expression than in the latter. When the Jews cried out "Crucify Him" or " Barabbas" The music like the words is concentrated with rightful energy, and consists of just as many notes as syllables. Yet in the three notes of the last word a passage of key is effected simple as it is striking. The effect is rendered far more powerful by a most abrupt termination. The entire harmony is given in a quick but marked, so to speak stamping way, well suiting the tumultous outcries of a fierce mob. In the three choruses of St. Matthew's Passion where the two false witnesses speak, there is a duet between soprano and contralto, and the words are made to follow one another in a stumbling way, a though one always took up his story from the other, and the music is in a syncopated style; one part either jarring with or clearly imitating the others movements, so that it most aptly represents the judgment that "their testimony was not agreeing." In the 16th nothing could succeed the soft and moving tone in which the words "Hail King of the Jews" are uttered. They powerfully draw the soul to utter in earnest what was intended in blasphemy. The 17th and 18th are masterpieces.
The 10th of St. John's Gospel is most exquisite in modulation: "If you let him go you are no friend of Ceasar's." The most beautiful and pathetic in all the collection is the last chorus, "Let us not divide it, but cast lots." They succeed one another in a following cadence, growing softer and softer and almost dying away, till the entire chorus swells in a mildened but majestic burst. As the catastrophe approaches the strong voice in which the historical recitation is delivered softens gradually, being reduced almost to a whisper as the last words upon the Cross are related, and die away as the last breath of of our Saviour's life is yielded up. All fall upon their knees, and a deep silence of some moments is observed and necessarily felt. Formerly the history of the Passion was chanted in Greek as well as in Latin. The last five verses are sung by the Deacon in the usual Gospel tone. After having received the blessing and incenseed the book but without having lights or incense, for it is a joyless recital. [Adapted.]
