Plainsong or Plain Chant

PLAINSONG or PLAIN CHANT. A general term for a certain style of unisonal music, comprising chiefly the church music called "Gregorian" which belongs to Rome, and that called "Ambrosian" which hails from Milan. But the other Western collections of church-music, much less well-known than these, and a good many groups of Eastern church-music could also quite properly be put under this heading.

Origin.

There are various factors in the genesis of music which determine its essential characteristics. Music intended for a dance is necessarily regular in its rhythm; so also, though less tied, is music which is set to metrical verse. On the other hand music fitted to a prose text is not so regular. Thus there arise different kinds of rhythm in music, ranging from strict time to the freest of movement. Again some music arises from recitation and the need to declaim some words artistically and audibly; while other music aims at melody, that is to say a succession of sounds, which is pleasant for its own sake, and would be so inde pendently of any words.

The ecclesiastical music which is called plainsong is so named because it is unmeasured music, not regular in rhythm, a cantus planus as contrasted with cantus mensurabilis or measured music.

It is this feature that chiefly differentiates it from modern music ; and at the same time allies it with such things as sea chanties, counting-out rhymes, and the like. The Christian church, like other worshipping bodies, requires euphonious sounds for the recitation of its psalms, and for the reading of its scriptures in public. As these passages are not (for the most part) written in any strict metre, the music to be provided is essentially a "plain" chant; there are several classes of such plainsong.

Influence of the Psalter.

The chief influence in this evolu tion has been that of the Psalter. Hebrew poetry follows a met rical system, but this disappears in translation. There survives however, a more obvious feature of the original, viz., its parallel

ism. This consequently becomes a prominent characteristic of certain sorts of plainsong, so that the chants directly derived from the psalms take a binary form. The recitation demands a reciting note, on which the text can be freely recited in its own rhythm and shape. If this note alone is used, the effect soon becomes, in the strict sense of the word, monotonous. Therefore the music adopts the natural tendency of the voice to rise up to its reciting note at the beginning and to drop down from it at the end of the phrase. Thus arises the commonest chant-form of plainsong, con sisting of (I) an intonation, (2) recitation, and (3) cadence, in each half-verse. The psalm-tones whether Gregorian or Ambro sian take this shape; and the form is capable of more or less elabo ration for the psalms. The Gregorian tones are very simple ; more elaborate forms of them are used for the Gospel-canticles ; and still more developed forms for the Introits. A limit is naturally set to the amount of elaboration either (a) when whole psalms are to be sung at length, or (b) when they are to be sung by the whole congregation. When, however, select verses only are sung, and are sung by trained singers, there is far more scope for elabo ration; and the developed responds used both at Mass and at the Choir-office exhibit this chant-form in a highly ornamental shape. The chief development occurs in the Cadences. In its simplest form the musical cadence affects only the last syllable, e.g. there is the drop of a minor third. Next it concerns the last two syl lables. These two simple cadences are familiar, even to those who do not know the Gregorian tones, from their being used in the Versicles and Responses of the Prayer Book. The more elabo rate cadences naturally followed the "cursus" used by Latin prose writers of the best, or at any rate, the most formal, style. In the responds a five-syllable cadence is constantly in use, and often in a highly decorated form.