(Latin Graduale, from gradus, a step)
Gradual, in English often
called Grail, is the oldest and most important of the four chants that
make up the choir's part of the Proper of the Mass. Whereas the three
others (Introit, Offertory, and Communion) were introduced later, it
fill up the time while something was being done, the Gradual (with its
supplement, the Tract or Alleluia) represents the singing of psalms
alternating with readings from the Bible, a custom that is as old as
these readings themselves. Like them, the psalms at this place are an
inheritance from the service of the Synagogue. Copied from that
service, alternate readings and psalms filled up a great part of the
first half of the Liturgy in every part of the Christian world from the
beginning. Originally whole psalms were sung. In the "Apostolic
Constitutions" they are chanted after the lessons from the Old
Testament: "The readings by the two (lectors) being finished, let
another one sing the hymns of David and the people sing the last words
after him" (ta aposticha hypopsalleto, II, 57). This use of whole
psalms went on till the fifth century. St. Augustine says: "We have
heard first the lesson from the Apostle. Then we sang a psalm. After
that the lesson of the gospel showed us the ten lepers healed." (Serm.
clxxvi, 1). These psalms were an essential part of the Liturgy, quite
as much as the lessons. "They are sung for their own sake; meanwhile
the celebrants and assistants have nothing to do but to listen to them"
(Duchesne, "Origines du Culte chrétien", 2nd ed., Paris, 1898, p. 161).
They were sung in the form of a psalmus responsorius, that is to say,
the whole text was chanted by one person — a reader appointed for this
purpose. [For some time before St. Gregory I, to sing these psalms was
a privilege of deacons at Rome. It was suppressed by him in 595
(Ibid.).] The people answered each clause or verse by some acclamation.
In the "Apostolic Constitutions" (above) they repeat his last
modulations. Another way was to sing some ejaculation each time. An
obvious model of this was Ps. cxxxv with its refrain: "quoniam in
æternum misericordia eius"; from which we conclude that the Jews too
knew the principle of the responsory psalm. We still have a classical
example of it in the Invitatorium of Matins (and the same Ps. xciv in
the third Nocturn of the Epiphany). It appears that originally, while
the number of biblical lessons was still indefinite, one psalm was sung
after each. When three lessons became the normal custom (a Prophecy,
Epistle, and Gospel) they were separated by two psalms. During the
fifth century (Duchesne, op. cit., p. 160) the lessons at Rome were
reduced to two; but the psalms still remain two, although both are now
joined together between the Epistle and Gospel, as we shall see.
Meanwhile, as in the case of many parts of the Liturgy, the psalms were
curtailed, till only fragments of them were left. This process, applied
to the first of the two, produced our Gradual; the second became the
Alleluia or Tract.
I. THE NAME
Gradual comes from the
place where it was sung. In the First Roman Ordo (10) it is called
Responsum; Amalarius of Metz (ninth century) calls it Cantus
Responsorius; Isidore (seventh century) Responsorium, "quod uno canente
chorus consonando respondet" ("De Eccl. Officiis", I, 8; Ordo Rom. II,
7. Cf. Mabillon, "Musæum Italic." II, 9, note f). This name was also
used, as it still is, for the chants after the lessons at Matins; so
the liturgical Responsorium was distinguished later by a special name.
The reader who chanted the psalm stood on a higher place, originally on
the steps of the ambo. He was not to go right up into the ambo, like
the deacon who sang the Gospel, but to stand on the step from which the
sub-deacon had read the Epistle (Ordo Roman. I, 10, II, 7: "he does not
go up higher, but stands in the same place where the reader stood and
begins the Responsorium alone; and all the choir answer and he alone
sings the verse of the Responsorium." Cf. Ordo Rom. III, 9, VI, 5).
Later in various local churches, when the ambo was disappearing, other
places were chose, but the idea of a high place, raised on steps,
persists. At Reims, the steps of the choir were used, sometimes a
special pulpit was erected. Beleth (twelfth century) says that on
ordinary days the cantor stands on the altar-steps, on feasts on the
ambo (Rationale, II, P.L., CCII); Durandus a little later writes:
"dicitur Graduale a gradibus altaris, eo quod in festivis diebus in
gradibus cantatur" (Gradual is so called from the steps of the altar,
on which it was sung on holidays. — Rationale, IV, 19). There seems
then to be no doubt that the name comes from the place where it was
sung; Cardinal Bellarmine's idea that the gradus in question are those
the deacon is climbing for the Gospel while the Gradual is being
chanted (De Missâ, II, 16) is a mistake. We have seen that this psalm
was not sung to fill up time during the procession to the ambo.
Originally the deacon and all the ministers would wait till it was over
before beginning their preparation for the Gospel. The older name
Responsorium lasted, as an alternative, into the Middle Ages. Durandus
uses it constantly and gives a mystic explanation of the word
("Responsorium vero dicitur quia versui vel epistolæ correspondere
debet", etc., loc. cit., i.e. "Responsory is so called because it ought
to correspond to the verse or epistle.")
It is difficult to say
exactly when the Gradual got its present form. We have seen that in St.
Augustine's time, in Africa, a whole psalm was still sung. So also St.
John Chrysostom alludes to whole psalms sung after the lessons (Hom. In
Ps., cxlv); as late as the time of St. Leo I (d. 462), In Rome the
psalm seems not yet to have been curtailed: "Wherefore we have sung the
psalm of David with united voices, not for our honour, but for the
glory of Christ the Lord" (Serm. ii in anniv. Assumpt.). Between this
time and the early Middle Ages the process of curtailing brought about
our present arrangement.
II. ORDER OF THE GRADUAL
If we open a Missal, at
most of the days in the year (the exceptions will be described below),
we find between the Epistle and Gospel a set of verses with some
Alleluias marked Graduale. Although the whole text follows this
heading, although we usually speak of it all as the Gradual, there are
here two quite distinct liturgical texts, namely the first part, which
is the old psalmus responsorius (now the Gradual in the strictly
correct sense), and the Alleluia with its verse, the Alleluiatic verse
(versus alleluiaticus). We have seen that these two chants came,
originally, one after each of the lessons that preceded the Gospel. Now
that we have only one such lesson as a rule (the epistle), the Gradual
and Alleluiatic verse (or its substitute), are sung together. But there
are still cases of their separation. In Lent, as we shall see, the
Alleluia is replaced by the 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 verses 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
æternam."). 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 alleluiaticus (in this case the shorter one). The
use of the word Alleluia in the Liturgy is also a very old inheritance
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
Chrétien, Paris, 1898, 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 connection 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 change 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 phrase (called variously neuma,
jubilatio, jubilus, cantilena) is a very old and essential element of
the Alleluia. A great number 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 (jubilamus magis quam canimus) . and prolong the neums, that
the mind be surprised and filled with the joyful sound, and be carried
thither where the saints rejoice in glory" (De Officiis, I). So also
Sicardus of Cremona: "Congrue quoque in Alleluia jubilams [this means
sing 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 jubilus 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 Mélodies Grégoriennes d'après la tradition" (Tournai,
1881), xi, 170-9. It should certainly never be omitted. In the case of
a figuredGradual 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 verse 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 cæcos
illuminavit" (The Levite Lawrence, who made the blind see by the sign
of the Cross, worked a good work). This Alleluiatic 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 sometimes avoid it was one of their many
preposterous grievances at the time of Cærularius's schism (Card.
Humbert's Dialogus, LVI-LVII, In Will, "Acta et Scripta de Controv.
Eccl. Græcæ et Latinæ", 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
canto cum cantatoria adscendit et dicit responsum. Ac deinde per alium
cantorem, si fuerit tempus ut dicatur Alleluia, concinitur, sin autem
tractum, sin minus tantummodo responsum 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 the 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
tractu). This was the special note of the second psalm, that
distinguished it from the first psalmus responsorius (Amalarius of
Metz, De eccl. Offic. 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, because it is sung slowly and mournfully". — De Carop,
"Bibl. Liturg.", Pt. I, a. 2, quoted by Gihr, op. cit., 416).Durandus
gives this, with other symbolic reasons, for the name: "It is called
tract from trahendo because it is sung drawn out ( quia tractum
canitur) and with a harshness of voice and length of words; since it
implies the misery and labour of our present life" (Rationale, IV, 21.
See the whole chapter). The text of the "Ordo Rom. I" quoted above
shows that it was sung from the steps of the ambo, like the Gradual. We
have still a few Masses in which the Psalmus tractus has kept its
original nature as a whole psalm. On the first Sunday of Lent it is Ps.
xc; on Palm Sunday, Ps. xxi; on Good Friday, Ps. cxxxix. Otherwise the
Tract too has been shortened to two or three verses. It is nearly
always taken from Scripture, but not seldom from other books than the
Psalter; verses from various psalms or other texts often follow one
another, connected only by the common idea that runs through them.
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays in Lent are the old feriæ legitimæ,
the official days of penance, that still keep certain peculiarities (in
choir, on these days, the Office for the Dead, the penitential and
gradual psalms are said). Except on Wednesday in Holy Week they have
the same Tract, a prayer for forgiveness from Ps. cii and lxxviii. All
feasts that may come between Septuagesima and Easter and all common and
votive Masses have a Tract, to be used in that time. Good Friday has
two Tracts, one after the Prophecy and one after the lesson from Exodus
that takes the place of the Epistle; it has no Gradual. The first
Easter Mass on Holy Saturday, among many other peculiarities, keeps so
much of the nature of a Lenient vigil that it has, after the great
Alleluia and its verse, a Tract. On Whitsun eve the characters of
Eastertide and a vigil are combined. It has no Gradual, but first an
Alleluia, then a Tract. It will be noticed that each verse in the
Tracts is marked V. This calls attention to the nature of the old
psalmus tractus that was sung straight through by the cantor. There are
no responses for the choir.
The second exception to the
usual order is in Eastertide (from the first Easter Mass to the
Saturday after Pentecost). During this time the great Alleluia is sung;
it has displaced the Gradual altogether. "Rightly during the fifty days
in memory of this our most peaceful and happy deed, we are accustomed
to sing Alleluia oftener and more joyfully" (St. Bede, II Hom., x). An
exception in this season is the Easter octave. The greatest feasts have
always kept older arrangements, so on Easter Day and till the Friday
following the normal Gradual followed by the Alleluiatic verse (and a
sequence) has remained. From White Saturday to the end of paschal time,
including all feasts, instead of these two separate chants, one, the
great Alleluia, is substituted. Two Alleluias are sung first as a sort
of antiphon; the second has a jubilus. Two verses follow, each with an
Alleluia and jubilus at the end. These last two Alleluias have the same
melody, different from that of the first two. The verses are taken from
all parts of the Bible, in the Proprium temporis chiefly from passages
in the new Testament about the Resurrection. In this case too feasts
and other Masses that may occur in Eastertide are provided with this
great Alleluia, as an alternative to be used then. Lastly, five
occasions (Easter, Whitsun, Corpus Christi, the Seven Dolours, and
Requiems) have a sequence after the Gradual. These five are all that
Pius V's reform left of the innumerable medieval poems once inserted at
this place (see SEQUENCES).
III. THE GRADUAL IN OTHER RITES
In the East, too, there are
fragments of the psalms once sung between the lessons, that therefore
correspond to our Gradual. In the Byzantine Rite the reader of the
epistle first chants "the Psalm of David" and then the "Prokeimenon
[prokeimenon] of the Apostle". Both are short fragments of psalms. The
Prokeimenon only is now usually read. It is printed before each Epistle
in the "Apostolos". After the Epistle the reader should sing Alleluia
and another fragment of a psalm (Brightman, op. cit., p. 370-1). This
too is now always omitted by both Orthodox and Melchites; even the
Prokeimenon seems to be said only on Sundays and feasts in many
churches (Charon, Le Rite byzantin, Rome, 1908, 683-4; but I have found
churches where it is still used every day). The Armenian Rite, which is
only a modified form of that of Constantinople, has however kept the
older arrangement of three lessons. Before the Prophecy a fragment
called the Saghmos Jashu (Psalm of dinnertime) is sung, before the
Epistle the Mesedi (mesodion), again a verse or two from a psalm, and
before the Gospel the Alelu Jashu (Alleluia of dinner-time) consisting
of two Alleluias and a verse (Brightman, op. cit., 425-6). Of the two
older rites, that of St. James has the same arrangement as
Constantinople (a Prokeimenon before and an Alleluia after the Epistle,
Brightman, 36), that of St. mark has a verse and an Alleluia after it
(ibid., 118). The Nestorians have hymns (not Biblical texts) before
both Epistle and Gospel which they call Turgama, and three verses of
psalms each followed by three Alleluias (this group is called Zumara)
after the Epistle (Brightman, 257-260). The Gallican Rite in the time
of St. Germanus of Paris (d. 576) had three lessons. The Benedicite
canticle (which he calls Benedictio) was sung after the second,
sometimes by boys, sometimes by a deacon (Duchesne, Origines, 185-7).
The place of this canticle was not always the same. At times it
followed the first lesson (ibid.). The present Ambrosian Rite sometimes
has a Prophecy before the Epistle. In this case there follows the
Psalmellus, two or three verses from a psalm. After the Epistle,
Hallelujah is sung (on feasts of Christ, except in Octaves, twice),
then a verse, then again Hallelujah. In Lent, on vigils and fast days,
instead of this the Cantus (our Tract) is used. After the Gospel
follows the Antiphona post Evangelium, from various books of Scripture
(except in Lent and on fast days). And on certain great feasts there is
also an antiphon before the Gospel (Rubr. Gen. Miss. Ambros., sect.
11). The Mozarabic Rite has three lessons. After the Prophecy follows a
chant marked Psallendo. It has two verses, then a third marked V, then
the second is repeated. The priest says: "Silentium facite" and the
Epistle is read. Nothing is sung after the Epistle. In the seventh
century a Council of Toledo (633) commanded under pain of
excommunication that the Gospel should follow the Epistle immediately.
After the Gospel follows the Lauda, consisting of an Alleluia, a verse,
and a second Alleluia (Missale mixtum, P.L., LXXXV, e.g. for the first
Sunday of Advent, col. 110, 112).
IV. RULES FOR THE GRADUAL
The nature and arrangement
of the chants that form the Gradual in the Roman Rite have already been
explained, so that little need be added here about its use. As a result
of the reaction of low Mass upon high Mass (by which everything sung by
anyone else must also be read by the priest at the altar), the
celebrant at high Mass reads the Gradual with the Alleluia, Tract, or
Sequence, according to the form for the day, immediately after he has
read the Epistle and at the same place (this is just as at low Mass).
As soon as the sub-deacon has finished chanting the Epistle, the
Gradual (of course, again, in the complete form for the day) is sung by
the choir. There is now no rule for the distribution of its parts. All
may be sung straight through by the whole choir. It is however usual
(partly for the sake of artistic effect) to divide the texts so that
some are sung by one or two cantors. A common arrangement is for the
cantors to sing the first words of the Gradual (to the asterisk in the
choir-books), the choir continues, the cantors sing the versus and the
first Alleluia, the choir the second, the cantors the Alleluiatic
verse, and the choir the last Alleluia. Or, all Alleluias are sung by
the cantors, the choir only joining in the neum. Similar arrangements
may be made easily for the Tract or the great Alleluia in Eastertide.
Normally it is all sung to plain-song and, now that we have the Vatican
edition, to the form in that book. But there is no law about this, and
the Gradual may be sung to any figured music that satisfies the
principles of the "Motu Proprio" of 22 Nov., 1903. There is a useful
arrangement of all Propers of the Mass in simple figured music by Tozer
(New York, 2 vols., 1906) against which the only objection is that the
composer has ignored the jubilus at the end of the Alleluia.
V. GRADUAL-BOOK
The name Gradual (Graduale
Romanum) is also used for the book that contains the music sung by the
choir at Mass. The name comes from this most important chant, but the
book contains the plain-song music for the Ordinary (this part is also
published alone with the title Ordinarium Missæ or Kyriale) and all the
Propers for the year. This book is one of the three parts of the old
Roman Antiphonarium. Originally all the chants of the choir were
contained in that. But by the ninth century it was already divided into
three, the Graduale or Cantatorium for Mass, and the Responsiale and
Antiphonarium (in a stricter sense) for the Office (Amalarius of Metz,
De Ordine Antiphonarii, P.L. XCIX, in prolog.). The history of the book
forms part of that of the development of plain-song. An authentic
edition (the Medicæa) was issued at Rome in 1614. It is now supplanted
by the Vatican edition (1908), of which reproductions are being issued
by various publishers.
Publication information
Written by Adrian Fortescue. Transcribed by Calvin Culver.
The Catholic Encyclopedia,
Volume VI. Published 1909. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Nihil
Obstat, September 1, 1909. Remy Lafort, Censor. Imprimatur. +John M.
Farley, Archbishop of New York
Bibliography
Among the medieval writers
see especially DURANDUS, Rationale divinorum Officiorum, IV, 19-21;
GIHR, Das heilige Messopfer (6th ed., Freiburg im Br., 1897), 408-427;
DUCHESNE, Origines du Culte chrétien (2nd ed., Paris, 1898), 107-8,
161-3; ATCHLEY, Ordo Romanus primus (London, 1905), 73-9; NIKEL,
Geschichte der katholischen Kirchenmusik (Breslau, 1908), I, 83 sqq.,
and passim.
