Plainsong

Plainsong or Plainchant, liturgical chant of the Roman Catholic Church. The origins of Christian chant are obscure, but in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages there were various local liturgies and forms of chant in the West, notably Gallican (in France), Mozarabic (Spain), Ambrosian (Milan), and Old Roman. The type which eventually became official was Gregorian chant, named after Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604), though scholars question Gregory’s association with the chant that bears his name. It was under Carolingian rule during the 8th and 9th centuries that a combination of Roman and Frankish influences resulted in the establishment and codification of the core Gregorian repertoire. This repertoire continued to be added to in succeeding centuries, often by the elaboration of existing chant—a process known as “troping”.

Plainsong is monophonic, meaning it consists of a single melodic line, and is rhythmically free; the words include psalms, other biblical texts, prayers, and hymns. The Gregorian repertoire is large and varied, and can be classified in a number of ways. Plainsong is modal music; early medieval theory recognized eight different modes, the mode of a particular melody being determined by its final note and its range. Another classification is based on the style of text-setting: syllabic (one note per syllable), neumatic (a group of a few notes per syllable), or melismatic (where some syllables are set to melismas of many notes). The number of words to be sung is a relevant factor here: for example, in the Mass the shortest text, the Kyrie, tends to be melismatic; the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, with more words, neumatic; and the Gloria and Credo, with lengthy texts, syllabic. Structurally, plainsong melodies range from through-composed (that is, with no structural repetition) to refrain and verse forms. Plainsong is often formulaic, and characterized by the repetition, combination, and recombination of short melodic formulas—not surprisingly in a repertoire that was originally created, developed, and handed on orally by improvisation, rote-learning, and memory. Performance of plainsong can be categorized as responsorial, antiphonal, or direct. In responsorial chant a soloist and a choir alternate; in antiphonal chant two choirs (or soloists) alternate; in direct performance a soloist, or the choir, sings the whole chant.

Gregorian chant stands at the beginning of two important developments characteristic of Western music: notation began with the devising of a means to notate plainsong; and the origins of polyphony are to be found in the practice of adding a further melodic line to a plainsong melody. The flourishing of polyphony between the 12th and 16th centuries did not detract from the continuing central role of plainsong in church music.

As plainsong has developed and different traditions of performance have emerged, so have attempts been made at reform. As early as the 12th century the Cistercian order tried to reform and simplify chant. Four centuries later the Counter-Reformation led to reform of the liturgy and a revision of plainsong. In 1903, Pope Pius X decreed a return to the earliest sources, following the extensive scholarly work undertaken by the Benedictine monks of Solesmes in France in recovering and (from 1883) publishing these manuscripts.