The Light of Liturgy
In the reading of Exposition of the Ancient Gallican Liturgy, St. Germanus explains the Gallican Mass. One main idea that is clear is during the liturgy music is used at certain points and that the music has certain meanings and structures. The Gallican Mass is made up of different sections. There are two main sections: Fore-mass and the Eucharist. The Fore-mass is broken down into the Preface, Kyrie and Gloria, Readings, Silence, the Aius, Prophecy, the Prophet and the Apostle, the Hymn, Gospel. The Eucharist consists of the Homilies, Prayer, Catechumens, Sonum, Lord's Prayer and the Blessing. In this paper only the Fore-mass will be discussed with example of music structure. The description from the Exposition of the Ancient Gallican Liturgy mainly is a description of a mass service which would have place during the eight century A.D. Just to give a quick history of the meaning of liturgy. The word liturgy comes from the Greek word leitourgia, which means "public work". This is so because the liturgy is perceived to be when a group of people gather around an altar and prepare for the sacrifice of the Lamb of God. For such an event to take place there would be need for a very structured ritual. Hence we have a liturgy
Following the previous sections we come before and during and after of the Gospel. The Gospel is introduced by an aius. The Aius is opened by an alleluia that's sung with all the phrases almost sung in the exact same rhythm with slight differences for the different syllables. The Alleluia comes from the Gospel, which means it will be a simple chant in which everyone will understand it. The song may be a key to helping the Gospel be understood. The Gospel sets the scene for "Christ attaining the seat of his royal father" (p. 167). Then the Gospel is followed by a santus. The Santus is sung by the choir. This is sung while the Gospel book is being returned ass in representation of Christ being returned from hell. This is the final section of the Fore-mass. As recently stated, the second part of the mass is the Eucharist. The Gallican mass began by a Preference. The basic introduction began by opening with a hymn of the Lord's death (p. 165). The meaning toward the song is about the Lord's death. This song may be used to help the congregation in preserving life and eternal peace as well as rooting out evil. The sung portion of the introduction has two chanting styles. Using the example on page 8 in the NAWM, the first way is used to sing the psalm. The melody has basically the same pitch. Style two has more notes which mean it's the antiphon or the music that precedes the psalm. The Readings follow the Preference, but first there is an antiphon that beings the section of the Reading, I am not going to go into the Eucharist because the main point of this paper is to show how the mass is structured and how
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1100
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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