Transcript CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 3
Music in the Monastery and Convent
Important Monasteries in the West
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Early monasteries were
centers of worship and
the study of the
scriptures, and they
generally followed the
Rule of St. Benedict
compiled c530 C.E.
St. Gall, Switzerland,
settled by an Irish monk
around 612 C.E., was an
important center for the
creation of manuscripts of
chant and learning.
Today the library at St.
Gall preserves one of the
richest collections of
medieval chant books.
Reconstruction of the monastery of St. Gall
Virtually every monastery included a church, a cloister, a refectory, a
dormitory, a scriptorium, and a library.
• Canonical hours: regularly scheduled gatherings
for praying, reading scripture, and singing as
prescribed by St. Benedict. Matins (early morning)
and Vespers (early evening) are the most important
canonical hours.
• Gregorian chant (plainsong): an amalgam of
Gallican and Roman chant fashioned in the
northern portion of the Holy Roman Empire during
the ninth and tenth centuries. Charlemagne (742814) had Roman chant brought north from Rome to
Gaul where it mixed with Gallican chant to form
what we now call Gregorian chant.
• Chants for Vespers: antiphons, psalms, hymn,
and canticle
The framework of a psalm tone
Nuns of a Benedictine convent in Bethlehem,
Connecticut, singing chant today
Gregorian chant for the Mass
• Proper of the Mass:
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Introit
Gradual
Alleluia
Offertory
Communion
Introit for Mass of Christmas Day: Puer
natus est nobis (A boy is born to us)
Gradual for Mass of Christmas Day: Viderunt
omnes (All the ends of the earth have seen)
Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo,
Sanctus, and Agnus dei)
From the fourteenth century onward, composers in
the West usually set only the Ordinary of the Mass in
polyphony.