Gregorian chant - definition of Gregorian chant by the Free Online Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Grego′rian chant′n. the plainsong formerly used in the ritual of the Roman Catholic Church. Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Thesaurus Legend: Synonyms Related Words Antonyms Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2012 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.
Translations Gregorian chant Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Abbaye de Solesmes - Histoire du Chant Grégorien. Gregorian Chant is a musical repertory made up of chants used in the liturgical services of the Roman Catholic Church. In fact, the liturgical tradition which the Church has given us is a vocal, monophonic music composed in Latin using sacred texts from the Ancient and New Testaments. This is why Gregorian Chant has often been called a "sung Bible".
Linked intimately to the liturgy in this way, the goal of the Gregorian melodies is to favor spiritual growth, reveal the gifts of God and the full coherence of the Christian message. What we call Gregorian chant today first appears distinctly in the Roman repertory of the fifth and sixth centuries. Its implimentation and perhaps some of its composition was in the hands of a group of ministers in a service specially dedicated to the Roman basilicas, the schola cantorum. Gregorian chant also appears to have been an aural music, that is, transmitted by ear and committed to memory - like all other music of the world at the time.
Gregorian Chant Notation. Why is chant called Gregorian? That "Gregorian" chant was named for and credited to Pope Gregory I (r. 590-604) is an accident of politics and spin doctoring. Tension between the Pope (the Bishop of Rome) and other Bishops regarding the authority of the Pope as "first among equals" was matched by tension between the Pope, as spiritual ruler of Rome, and Rome's secular rulers. This tension was an off and on thing until as late as the 15th century, when the "Conciliar Conflict" (c. 1409-1460) pitted the power of the Council of Bishops against the power of the Pope and Cardinals. Gregory I has been credited with many things, including the writing, collecting, or organizing of the body of plainchant in use at the time, as well founding the first singing school (Schola Cantorum) in Rome to train singers for the church, organizing the church's annual cycle of liturgical readings, and first establishing the church's authority over the secular rulers of Rome.
Whether he actually did any of these things is questionable. Gregorian Chant. Help support New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99... The name is often taken as synonymous with plain chant, comprising not only the Church music of the early Middle Ages, but also later compositions (elaborate melodies for the Ordinary of the Mass, sequences, etc.) written in a similar style down to the sixteenth century and even in modern times.
In a stricter sense Gregorian chant means that Roman form of early plain chant as distinguished from the Ambrosian, Gallican, and Mozarabic chants, which were akin to it, but were gradually supplanted by it from the eighth to the eleventh century. Of the Gallican and Mozarabic chants only a few remains are extant, but they were probably closely related to the Ambrosian chant. The principal proofs for a Gregorian tradition may be summarized thus: Comments Sources About this page APA citation. MLA citation. Gregorian chant. Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the western Roman Catholic Church.
Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope St. Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman chant and Gallican chant. History[edit] Development of earlier plainchant[edit] Musical elements that would later be used in the Roman Rite began to appear in the 3rd century. Scholars are still debating how plainchant developed during the 5th through the 9th centuries, as information from this period is scarce. John the Deacon, biographer (c. 872) of Pope Gregory I, modestly claimed that the saint "compiled a patchwork antiphonary",[11] unsurprisingly, given his considerable work with liturgical development. Origins of mature plainchant[edit]