GRADUAL
716
GRADUAL
Tract. A number of Lenten Masses that have kept
the old three lessons also keep the old arrangement, by
which the Gradual follows the first, the Tract the
second (e. g. Wednesdays in the Lenten Ember week
and Holy Week), others (e. g. the Ember Saturday)
that have more than three lessons have a Gradual
after each of the former ones and a Tract after the
Epistle. There are again others (e. g. Tuesday in
Holy Week), in which there is no Tract at all, but
only a Gradual after the first lesson. And even when
they are sung together their essential separation is
still marked by the fact that they have quite different
melodies, in different modes. Thus, on the first
Advent Sunday the Gradual is in the first and second
modes mixed, the Alleluia in the eighth; the next
Sunday has a fifth-mode Gradual followed by a first-
mode Alleluia, and so on. The Gradual itself always
consists of two verses, generally from the same psalm.
There are however many cases of their being taken from
different psalms; .some, of ver.ses from other books of
Scripture (e. g. those for the Immaculate Conception
are from Judith); and a few in which the text is not
Scriptural. The feast of the Seven Dolours has such
verses, "Dolorosa et lacrymabilis es Virgo Maria"
. . . and " Virgo Dei Genitrix" ... So also " Benedicta
et venerabilis es Virgo Maria" for the Visitation
(July 2) and other feasts of the B. V. M., and the first
verse of the Gradual for Requiems (" Requiem a?ter-
nam . . . ")• The first of these two verses keeps the
old name Responsorium, the second is marked V (for
versus) . It may be that the first represents the former
acclamation of the people (like the Invitatorium of
Matins), and that the second is the fragment of the
psalm originally sung by the lector (Gihr, Messopfer,
410; and note 4 from Guyetus, Heortologia, Venice,
1726).
The second chant is normally the versus alleluia- ticus (in this case the shorter one). The use of the word Alleluia in the Liturgy is also a very old inherit- ance from the Synagogue. It became a cry of joy without much reference to its exact meaning in a language no longer understood (as did Hosanna). Its place in the Liturgy varied considerably. In the Byzantine Rite it comes as the climax of the Cherubic Hymn at the Great Entrance (Brightman, Eastern Liturgies, Oxford, 1896, p. 379); in the Gallican Rite it was sung at the Offertory (Duchesne, Origines du Culte Chretien, Paris, 1S98, p. 160, n. 1). Its place here before the Gospel is peculiar to the Roman Rite. It appears that before the time of St. Gregory I (d. 604) it was sung only during Eastertide (Ep. ix — see Duchesne, loc. cit.; Atchley, Ordo Rom. I, 78-9). Sozomen goes further: "At Rome, Alleluia is sung once a year, on the first day of the Paschal feast, so that many Romans use this oath: may they hear and sing that hymn!" (Hist. Eccl., VII, xix). This con- nexion with Easter (unknown in the East) afterwards led to additional Alleluias being scattered throughout the Mass in Eastertide (at the Introit, Offertory, Communion, etc.) ; but its old and essential place for the normal Liturgy is here, where it has displaced the former second psalmus responsorius. It will be noticed that the three great Alleluias that usher in Easter on Holy Saturday come here in the place of the Gradual. The chant consists of two Alleluias sung to exactly the same melody. At the end of the second one its last sound (a) is continued in a long and complicated neum. This musical phra.se (called variously neuma, juhilalio, jiihihis, cantilena) is a very old and essential elenipiit of the Alleluia. A great nimiber of medieval commentators insist on it, and explain it by various mystic reasons. For instance Rupert of Deutz (Rupertus Tuitiensis, O. S. B., twelfth century) :"We rejoice rather than sing (jubila- mus magis quam canimus) . . . and prolong the neums, that the mind be surprised and filled witti the joyful sound, and be carried thither where the saints rejoice
in glory" (De Officiis, I). So also Sicardus of Cre-
mona: "Congrue quoque in Alleluia jubUamus [this
means singing the neum] ut mens illuc rapiatur ubi
Sancti exsultabunt ..." (Mitrale, III, 3, P. L.,
CCXIII); Durandus: " Est etiam Alleluia modicum in
sermone et multum in pneuma, quia gaudium illud
majus est quam possit explicari sermone. Pneuma
enim seu jubilus qui fit in fine exprimit gaudium et
amorem credentium", that is, "the Alleluia is short
in word and long in neum, because that joy is too
great to be expressed in words. For the neum or
juhilus at the end denotes the joy and love of the
faithful" etc. (Rationale, IV, 20; see the whole
chapter). The question of the neum is discussed and
many authorities quoted in Pothier, " Les Melodies
Gregoriennes d'apres la tradition" (Tournai, 1881),
xi, 170-9. It should certainly never be omitted.
In the case of a figured Gradual a jubilus in figured
music should be supplied. After the jubilus of the
second Alleluia a verse follows. This verse is by no
means so commonly taken from the psalms as the
verses of the Gradual, and there are a great many
cases, especially on feasts of saints, of a fragment of a
Christian poem, or other ver.se not from the Bible.
On St. Lawrence's feast (10 Aug.), for example, the
Alleluiatic verse is: "Levita Laurentius bonum
operatus est, qui per signum crucis cameos illuminavit"
(The Levite Lawrence, who made the blind see by the
sign of the Cross, worked a good work). This Alle-
luiatic verse is a kind of continuation of the jubilus
with a text fitted to the long-drawn neums. Then a
third Alleluia, the same as the second with its jubilus,
ends the chant.
There are two exceptions to this order. The first is when the Alleluia is replaced by the Tract. Since this word began to be looked upon as a special sign of joy, most suitable for Eastertide, it followed, as an obvious corollary, that it should not be sung in times of penance or mourning. There is no such idea in the East, where they sing Alleluia always, even in the Office for the Dead, as was once done at Rome too (Atchley, Ordo Rom. I, 78-9). That Latins some- times avoid it was one of their many preposterous grievances at the time of Cierularius's schism (Card. Humbert's Dialogus, LVI-LVII, in Will, "Acta et Scripta de Controv. Eccl. Graecae et Latime", Leipzig, 1861, pp. 122-3). In the West, from Septuagesima to Easter (even on feasts), on Ember days, most vigils, and at Requiems, the Alleluiatic verse disappears. The Vigils in question generally have only the Gradual (but some have the Alleluia, e. g. the eves of Epiphany- Ascension, Whitsunday). On the other days the Gradual is followed by the Tract. The Tract (tractus) is the second psalm sung between the lessons, which, although later displaced by the Alleluia on most days, has kept its place here. We find it as an alternative to the Alleluia in the First Roman Ordo: "Postquam legerit cantor cum cantatorio adscendit et dicit re- sponsum. Ac deinde per alium cantorem, si fuerit tempus ut dicatur Alleluia, concinitur, sin autem trac- tum, sin minus tantummodo respon.sum cantatur", i.e. " After the reading (of the Epistle) the cantor ascends with his book and chants the Response. Then, if it be the proper season, another cantor chants the Alleluia; but if tlie Alleluia have to be omitted [i.e. in times of penance] the Tract or at times [as still on vigils] only the Response is sung" (ed. Atchley, London, 1905, p. 130, supplemented by Ordo Rom. III). The name " Tract", Psalmus tractus, was given to it, because it was sung straight through without any answer by the choir (in uno traclu). This was the special note of the second psalm, that distinguished it from the first psalmus responsorius (Amalarius of Metz, De eccl. oflic, III, 12; Duchesne, op. cit., 108). Later authors explain the word incorrectly as describing the slow and mournful way in which it was sung ("a trahendo, quia lente et lugubriter cantatur", "from trahendo,
