In the early Christian celebrations of the Eucharist the presentation
of bread and wine by the deacons was a simple, practical matter surrounded
with little or no ceremonial. Liturgical and musical elaboration of this
part of the liturgy seems to have taken place first in Africa early in the
fifth century concomitant with the development of the laity's role in the
offering. The first extensive description of the Western offertory appears
in Ordo Romnnus l: the laity did not form a procession and only the existence
of an offertory chant is mentioned. Since the compiler of the Ordo does not
regard the offertory as similar to the introit and communion (and, therefore,
antiphonal) it must have been performed responsorially. A responsorial performance
is appropriate for the offertory as it appears in the earliest
musical record of the Roman liturgy, the Gregorian Gradual of Mt. Blandin.
Thus, the late medieval term, antiphona ad offertorium, does not reflect the
authentic form of the offertory.
The elaborate verses of the Old-Roman and Gregorian traditions
probably existed in the early ninth century. Their gradual disappearance
has been attributed to a decline in the people's participation at Mass.
In general, the texts of the offertories are drawn from the Psalterium
Romanum but in a significant number of cases Old-Roman end Gregorian chant
texts agree on a particular reading against the Psalterium Romanum.
Two quasi-psalmodic formulae are found in the refrains and verses
of many Old-Roman offertories. One of them, Formula B, occurs in virtually
all F-mode offertories, frequently repeated many times within a single piece.
In Formula A the reciting element (a repeated torculus) is more prominent.
Thia formula is also shorter than Formula B (4 elements versus 7). Formula A occurs more frequently in the verses than it does in the refrains.
Repetition of melodic material plays an important role in the formal
design of the Old-Roman offertories. Forty offertories of a total of ninety four
studied have at least one repetition of an entire phrase; in most cases
the repetitions are extensive enough to have a unifying force. Small segments
of the phrase which is repeated are broken off and subjected to multiple
repetitions so that the complete phrase is heard only two or three
times. The procedures of adaptation are extremely flexible though the
identity of the model phrase is recognizable through all the variants.
Repetition of short phrases or motives (generally a a or a a') occurs
in both neumatic and melismatic portions of the chant. The Old-Roman melos
is pervaded by this mosaic-like working with small motives. An extension
of the principle of melodic repetition exists in the many cases (50) of
"rhyme" between the ends of verses or between refrain and verse. In about
one-third of the Old-Roman offertories at least one verse closes with the
same cadence which preceded the detachable conclusion of the refrain (that
part of the refrain which is repeated after each verse).
In the tritus and tetrardus modes cadences which close a refrain
never appear at the end of a verse or as internal cadences. This functional
division is not adhered to strictly in the other-two modes. Text repetition,
a phenomenon unique to the offertories, demonstrates the common textual basis
of Old-Roman and Gregorian chants. All but four of the twenty-three Old-Roman examples observed have parallels in the Gregorian tradition.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/41870 |
| Date | January 1971 |
| Creators | Dyer, Joseph Henry, Jr. |
| Publisher | Boston University |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | This work is being made available in OpenBU by permission of its author, and is available for research purposes only. All rights are reserved to the author. |
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