Plainsong or Plain Chant

For the choir-offices there was provided a large number of antiphons to go with the psalmody, and a considerable number of responds which mainly served as interludes between the lessons at Mattins. When hymnody began with St. Ambrose it was taken up and incorporated into the services by the monks; but Rome was for a long time too conservative to admit hymns. The plain song hymn-tunes are, in the nature of the case, more definitely metrical than the other music: but they retain a considerable freedom of movement, and are not "measured," like modern hymn-tunes.

Underlying Musical Theory.

The musical theory which lies behind this music is based on a series of eight scales or Modes. It uses the old diatonic scale of the Greek theorists (equivalent to the white notes of the pianoforte with the addition of B), but the modes themselves are different from the old Greek modes, and the use of the old Greek names only leads to confusion. The eight-mode system was probably the same as the 6KrOnxos which underlies the Eastern church music ; but the origins are obscure alike in East and West. The scheme seems to go back at least to St. John of Damascus (c. 75o) ; but it is known in the West only in theoretical treatises derived through the Byzantine teachers at the court of Charlemagne at the end of the eighth century.

The eight modes are really four pairs, each pair being founded on the same note, the one scale (called Authentic Mode) being an octave ranging above the foundation or final note, the com panion (called Plagal) being an octave ranging above and below it.

Each of these pairs has a character or tonality of its own, depend ent upon the position which the semitones have in the scale. None is similar to the major or minor key of modern music. It is this tonality which gives the special character to plain-song melody. Some theorists have reckoned twelve or even fourteen Modes; but this is unnecessary. So far as pitch goes, the range of two octaves covered by the eight modes is adequate ; and so far as tonality is concerned, the new modes would be only the same as the first four or six over again with the Bb used instead of B. (For further discussion of the Modes see HARMONY.) This modal theory does not fully account for all the procedure of the classical plain-chant (practice always surpasses theory) : but these eight modes are clearly the foundation of this music, whether responsorial or antiphonal.

In the middle ages the cantilena Romana was handed on by tradi tion from St. Gregory's days; in the ninth century it was recorded in the notation reames. The notation on a staff which began a couple of centuries later, while it fixed accurately the pitch of each note, failed to reproduce the rhythmical delicacies which the earlier notation had recorded. Hence the recent renascence of classical plain-song has been based on a return to the reames, as interpreted by the subsequent tradition.

The revived interest in music of the Carolingian era stimulated composition, which had been long in abeyance. Not only new music for new feasts arose, but fresh settings of the "Ordinary" (fixed elements) of the Mass. While the old music was preserved, it was padded out with new and inferior interpolations called by the generic name of "Tropes." These had their day and per vaded all the church music for a century or more ; but then they went out of fashion, leaving only two considerable legacies, (a) a further series of settings of the "Ordinary," (b) the new form of rhythmical, or (later) metrical, poem called Sequences or Proses. These survived in considerable numbers down to the sixteenth century, but at the present time only a few are in use.

Modern Revival.

The rise of the art of harmony beginning from the eleventh century, diverted attention from the monody of plain-chant, and part-singing had the effect of "measuring" the music so that it fell into regular time and was no longer free or "plain." Under these influences the old plain-song was pro gressively debased and as harmonized music went up, plain chant went down. Not until the nineteenth century did this degrada tion cease. The efforts then made in various quarters to recover alike the true rhythm and tonality of the old music have cul minated in the work of the Benedictines of Solesmes and their followers, and in the revival which has produced the new Vatican Gradual and is producing by degrees a restored Antiphonal as well. With the recovery of the music has come a new insistence upon its use and study, as being the official music of the Roman Church. (W. H. F.) PLAINTIFF: see PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE.