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by more than one note above and below. This rule is
broken by many Gregorian melodies. But Guido had
no scruple in apph"ing the pruning knife, and sixty-
three Graduals and a few other melodies had to un-
dergo considerable alteration. Another systematic
change affected the Alleluia verse. The long mehsma
regularly found on the final syllable of this verse was
considered extravagant, and was shortened consider-
ably. Similarly a few repetitions of melodic phrases
in a melismatic group were cut out, and finally the idea
that the fundamental note of the mode should begin
and end every piece caused a few changes in some
intonations and in the endings of the Introit psalmody.
Less violent changes are found in the chant of the
Dominicans, fixed in the thirteenth century (Wagner,
op. cit., p. 305). The main variations from the gen-
eral tradition are the shortening of the melisma on the
final syllable of the Alleluia verse and the omission of
the repetition of some melodic phrases.
From the fourteenth centurj- forward the tradition begins to go down. The growing interest taken in poh^phony caused the plain chant to be neglected. The books were written carelessly; the forms of the neums, so important for the rhythm, began to be dis- regarded, and shortenings of mclismata became more general. Xo radical changes, however, are found until we come to the end of the sixteenth century. The re- form of ^lissal and Breviary, initiated by the Council of Trent, gave rise to renewed attention to the litur- gical chant. But as the understanding of its peculiar language had disappeared, the results were disastrous. Palestrina was one of the men who tried their hands, but he did not carry his work through (see P. R. Molitor, "Die Xach-Tridentinische Choral Reform", 2 vols., Leipzig, 1901-2). Early in the seventeenth century, however, Raimondi, the head of the Medi- cean printing establishment, took up again the idea of publishing a new Gradual. He commissioned two musicians of name, Felice Anerio and Francesco Su- riano, to revise the melodies. This they did in an in- credibly short time, less than a year, and with a simi- larly incredible recklessness, and in 1614 and 161.5 the Medicean Gradual appeared. This book has consider- able importance, because in the second half of the nineteenth century, the Congregation of Rites, believ- ing it to contain the true chant of St. Gregory, had it republished as the official chant book of the Chiu-ch, which position it held from 1870 to 1904. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries various other attempts were made to reform the Gregorian chant. They were well intentioned, no doubt, but only em- phasized the downward course things were taking. The practice of singing became worse and worse, and what had been the glory of centuries fell into general contempt (see P. R. Molitor, "Reform-Choral", Frei- burg, 1901).
From the beginning of the nineteenth century dates a re\"ival of the interest taken in plain chant. Men began to study the question seriously, and while some saw salvation in further "reforms", others insisted on a return to the past. It took a whole century to bring about a complete restoration. France has the honour of having done the principal work in this great under- taking (see P. R. Molitor, "Restauration des Grego- rianischen Chorales im 19. Jahrhundert" in "His- torisch-politische Blatter", CXXXV, nos. 9-11). One of the best attempts was a Gradual edited about 1851 by a commission for the Dioceses of Reims and Cam- brai, and published by Lecoffre. Being founded on limited critical material, it w;is not perfect; but the worst feature was that the editors had not the courage to go the whole way. The final solution of the difficult question was to come from the Benedictine monastery of Solesmes. Gueranper, the restorer of the Liturgy, also conceived the idea of restoring the liturgical chant. About 1S60 he ordered two of his monks, Dom JausioDS and Dom Pothier, to make a thorough exam-
ination of the codices and to compile a Gradual for the
monastery. After twelve years of close work the
Gradual was in the main completed, but another
eleven years elapsed before Dom Pothier, who on the
death of Dom Jausions had become sole editor, pub-
hshed his " Liber Gradualis " . It was t he first at t empt
to return absolutely to the version of the MSS., and
though capable of improvements in details solved the
question substantially. This return to the version of
the MSS. was illustrated happily by the adoption of
the note forms of the thirteenthcentury, which show
clearly the groupings of the neimis so important for
the rhythm. Since that date the work of investigating
the MSS. was continued by the Solesmes monks, who
formed a regular school of critical research under Dom
Mocquereau, Dom Pothier's successor. A most valu-
able outcome of their studies is the " Paleographie
Musicale", which has appeared, since 18S9, in quar-
terly volumes, giving photographic reproductions of
the principal MSS. of plain chant, together with scien-
tific dissertations on the subject. In 1903 they pub-
fished the "Liber Usuahs", an extract from the Grad-
ual and antiphonary, in which they embodied some
melodic improvements and valuable rhythmical direc-
tions.
A new epoch in the history of plain chant was inau- gurated by Pius X. By his Motu Proprio on church music (22 Xov., 1903) he ordered the return to the traditional chant of the Church and accordingly the Congregation of Rites, by a decree of 8 Jan., 1904, withdrawing the former decrees in favour of the Ratis- bon (Medicean) edition, commanded that the tradi- tional form of plain chant be introduced into all churches as soon as possible. In order to facilitate this introduction, Pius X, by a Motu Proprio of 25 April, 1904, established a commission to prepare an edition of plain chant which was to be brought out by the ^'atican printing press and which all publishers should get permission to reprint. Unfortunately dif- ferences of opinion arose between the majority of the members of the commission, including the Solesmes Benedictines, and its president, Dom Joseph Pothier, with tlie result that the pope gave the whole control of the work to Dom Pothier. The consequence was that magnificent MS. material which the Solesmes monks, expelled from France, had accumulated in their new home on the Isle of Wight, first at Appuldurcombe afterwards at Quarr Abbey, remained unused. The Vatican edition, however, though it is not all that modern scholarship could have made it, is a great improvement on Dom Pothier's earlier editions and represents fairly well the reading of the best MSS.
Tone Syste.m .\nd Modes. — 1 he theory of the plain chant tone system and modes is as yet somewhat obscure. We have already remarked that the current medieval theory laid down for the tone system a heptatonic diatonic scale of about two octaves with the addition of b flat in the higher octave. In this sys- tem four notes, d, c, /, and g, were taken as fundamen- tal notes (tonics) of modes. Each of these modes was .subdivided according to the compass, one class, called authentic, having the norma! compass, from the fun- damental note to the octave, the other, called plagal, from a fourth below the fimdamental note to a fifth above. Thus there result eight modes. These, of coiu^se, are to be understood as differing not in abso- lute pitch, as their theoretical demonstration and also the notation might suggest, but in their internal con- struction. The notation, therefore, refers merely to relative pitch, as does, e. g., the tonic sol-fa notation. Not being hampered by instrumental accompaniment, singers and scribes did not bother about a system of transposition, which in ancient Greek music, for in- stance, was felt necessary at an early period.
The theoretical distinction between authentic and plagal modes is not borne out by an analysis of the existing melodies and their traditional classification
