Chant
Western ears find the traditional chant of the Roman Rite, known as Gregorian chant, less ornate than that of the Eastern rites: except in such pieces as the graduals and alleluias; it eschews the lengthy melismata of Coptic Christianity, and, being entirely monophonic, it has nothing of the dense harmonies of present-day chanting in the Russian and Georgian churches. However, when Western Europe adopted polyphony, the music of the Roman Rite did become very elaborate and lengthy. While the choir sang one part of the Mass, the priest said that part quickly, and quietly, to himself and continued with other parts; or he was directed by the rubrics to sit and await the conclusion of the choir's singing. Again, while in all the other ancient rites the Liturgy is chanted throughout, in the Tridentine form of the Roman Rite and for some centuries before, it was normal for the priest to merely speak the words of the Mass, to a large extent inaudibly. Chanting by the clergy was usually confined to special occasions and to the principal Mass in monasteries and cathedrals.
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Famous quotes containing the word chant:
“Pan’s Syrinx was a girl indeed,
Though now she’s turned into a reed;
From that dear reed Pan’s pipe does come,
A pipe that strikes Apollo dumb;
Nor flute, nor lute, nor gittern can
So chant it, as the pipe of Pan;”
—John Lyly (1553–1606)
“With the holders holding my hand nearing the call of the bird,
Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and
lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)