Introit - Musical Setting

Musical Setting

In the musical idiom of Gregorian chant, Introits normally take the form antiphon-verse-antiphon-doxology-antiphon. In the Tridentine Missal, this form was, with very few exceptions, reduced to antiphon-verse-doxology-antiphon.

For example, the Tridentine Missal presents the Introit of the Fourth Sunday of Advent as follows:

First the antiphon Rorate Caeli from Isaiah 45:8:

Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant iustum:

aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.

(Bedew us, heavens, from above; ye clouds, rain down the Just One. Let the earth be opened up, and produce the Saviour.)

Then the verse from Psalm 18:2:

Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

et opera manuum eius annuntiat firmamentum

(The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament declares the work of His hands.)

Then the doxology.

Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritui Sancto,

Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

(Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.)

Then, once again, the initial antiphon: Rorate ... Salvatorem.

Introits, like Offertories and Communions, are believed to have evolved from simpler reciting tones. Introit melodies show this musical parentage most clearly, and are often anchored around two reciting notes which may be repeated or percussed. The melodies are mostly neumatic, dominated by neumes with two or three notes per syllable, although syllabic and melismatic passages also occur.

The Introits of Old Roman chant share many similarities with their Gregorian cousins, and often include a repeated extra verse that fell out of use in the Gregorian repertory.