Oakeley, Sir Herbert (Stanley)

Ordinary chants

Chants whose texts remain constant from day to day in the services of the Western Church, as distinct from those whose texts vary (Proper chants). Strictly the term applies to chants from both Mass and Office, but it is chiefly used to refer to the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, the parts of the Mass Ordinary most frequently set polyphonically by composers from the second half of the 14th century onwards. The Ite missa est at the close of Mass, with choral response ‘Deo gratias’, has also been included in a few such settings (e.g. by Machaut). Although the texts of the chants do not vary, they have been influenced by the principle of variation for reasons of liturgical propriety, in that they are recommended, though not prescribed, to be sung to a small corpus of different melodies, each one for use on different occasions (double feasts, single feasts, feasts of the BVM etc.). In the Middle Ages, Ordinary chants for important feasts had trope texts which rendered them Proper in the liturgical sense.

For the transmission of Ordinary chants from the Middle Ages, see Kyriale, the name given to a collection of the chants. See also Mass, §I, 2, and separate articles on the chants mentioned above.

Ordines romani

Liturgical manuals of the 8th century or earlier that describe liturgical practices (Mass, readings for the night Office, Holy Week, ordination etc.) of the city of Rome. Most often the texts, which transmit Roman and papal practice, have been adapted for/to Frankish use. See Liturgy and liturgical books, §II, 4.

Ordo

Ordo cantus missae.

The Ordo followed the revised rubrics and calendar and made provision for a daily sung liturgy in Latin. It appointed chants for the Proper of the Time and of the Saints, and many additional Mass chants for optional use. The Common chants were reorganized to include Masses for new categories of saints, such as religious, teachers, those who exercised works of mercy, and public leaders. A whole section was devoted to ritual Masses, another to Masses for special necessities, and a third to the customary votive Masses. Most of the chants in the new schemes were borrowed from existing Masses. The Ordinary chants include settings of the new or revised portions of the Mass, such as the introductory rites and the acclamations after the readings and after the consecration. Three tones are provided for the Lord’s Prayer, one being the so-called Mozarabic, stripped of its interjected Amens.

In their choice and redistribution of Proper chants, the editors aimed wherever possible to retain the most authentic pieces of the oldest layers of the chant. Some inferior compositions of more recent date were discarded. 20 additional pieces of authentic Gregorian chant were introduced and printed in full in the Ordo, such as the introit Memento nostri Domine (p.29) and the gradual Posuisti Domine (p.78); the texts of 11 of them are contained in the Antiphonale missarum sextuplex (Brussels, 1935/R), a comparative edition by R.-J. Herbert of six manuscripts dating from the 8th century to the 10th, and thus belong to an early layer of the chant. Most of the alleluias, such as the one with the verse Benedictus qui venit (p.34), are early adaptations or slightly later compositions.

The principles underlying the provision of musical settings for new or revised texts may be summarized as follows. If a new text already had a musical setting, this was automatically adopted. If no musical setting existed, the new text was adapted to a simple pre-existing tone, such as a collect tone or the Te Deum. Occasionally, following an ancient technique of chant composition, a new text was adapted to the music of another text that it closely resembled and that already had a musical setting. ‘Mortem tuam annuntiamus Domine et tuam resurrectionem’, for example, was cast into the same mould as ‘Crucem tuam adoramus Domine et sanctam resurrectionem tuam’ from the Good Friday liturgy; and the ending ‘donec venias’ was modelled on ‘donec veniam’ from the antiphon Hic est discipulus meus for St John the Evangelist (AM, p.256), following another time-honoured principle, that of centonization.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

MARY BERRY