Waterbury evening Democrat. [volume] (Waterbury [Connecticut]) 1903-1917, 1904-06-23
POPE GREGORY.

interest OF protestant and Catholic alike
in this old form of sacred melody
There are two schools of ecclesiastical
music known as the "Ambrosian" and
"Gregorian Chant" It appears that to-
ward the close of the fourth century,
Ambrose, of Milan, fearing the loss or
corruption of the venerable melodies
which, to that time, had been preserved
to the church by means of oral tradi-
ton only, endeavored to restore them to
their primitive purity as nearly as posi-
BILE, and at the same time to teach the
clergy to sing them with greater pre-
cision than had previously been at
tempted.
The music at the time of Ambrose adj
mitted only four tones, what are now
called the first, second, third and fifth,
and was merely a succession of changes
on these four tones. OF course the num-
Der of combinations of these were small,
and the tunes had great and not very
musical sameness. The tune called Pc
terboro in the Catholic hymn books Of
to-day is probably very lively specimen
of the Ambrosian chant
The chant which Gregory introduced
In the church, though less melodious
than the Ambrosian, had the higher ele-
ment of a full harmony. He completed
the octave, and, of course, immensely in
creased the number of com binations. BY
writing, too, the notes with separate
characters and not by numbers, he made
music independent of the poetry or
rythm OF the church song, and they
could apply 1t, to prose as well as to
poetry.
Gregory, like Ambrose, gave to the
church many hymns of his own writing,
as well as with chants and music. There
are eight hymns remaining which are
ascribed to him. Six of these are written
In the regular rhyming style of ec-
clesiastical Latin, but the other two in
the genuine Sapphic and Adonian stanza
of the old Latin poets. They are all
adapted to some peculiar festival of the
church
But Gregory did not confine his mus
zeal improvements to changes in the
science. He established at Rome the
first singing school of which we have any
record in Christian history. This school
was an extensive establishment and par
took somewhat of great university Of
music from which the directors and per-
church were graduated.
The tradition goes that Gregory him
self instructed the choirsters, for whom
he had established schools endowed
with its own little property, one in the
precincts of ST. Peters, the other in those
OF ST. John Lateran, where his own resi-
dence was. And a couch is still shown
on which he lay while giving or superin-
tending their lessons, and even the whip
with which he is said to have threatened
the singers when they made false notes.
There is very curious commentary
by John, the deacon, one of Gregory's
biographers. upon the new musical sys-
tenn which he inaugurated and it's adop-
ton throughout Europe. The Italians
seem then as now to have had poor
opinion of German modes of singing
''This music was learned easily by the
Germans and Gauls, but they could not
retain it because of making additions Of
their own, and also because of their bar
barous nature. Their Alpine bodies re-
sounding to their depths with the thun-
ders Of their voices, do not properly give
forth the sweetness of the incubation,
the savage roughness of their bibulous
throat when it attempts to give forth
delicate strain, producing rather harsh
sounds with a natural crash, as Of
wagons, sounding confusedly over the
scales" While this description might
have been true in the days of Gregory,
and Is interesting comment, still 1t has
no possible point in this day of German
musical culture.