This article was published in the December 2024 issue of our parish magazine.
This is one of the most challenging pieces of music I sing in the liturgical year (the other being the Lent Prose, for all the same reasons). It’s an ancient plainsong chant, using text from Isaiah, in which the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament express their longings for the coming of the Messiah and cleansing of human sins. It is sung through Advent, building the number of verses Sunday by Sunday, and along with “Adam Lay Ybounden” (check back to the December 2020 issue of the parish magazine), often precedes festivals of nine lessons and carols as a means of setting the scene for the Christmas story.
Why is it so challenging? Well, because plainsong script predates contemporary music notation by a few hundred years, and I’ve had to go on a course to learn to read it!
As you can see in this excerpt, plainsong is written on just four lines (I’m accustomed to five), all the noteheads are solid square blocks (I’m used to a variety of symbols that represent different lengths and therefore rhythms), and sometimes there are clusters of blocks for individual syllables. Where the blocks are stacked vertically, they are sung from the bottom up; where then are diagonal, they are sung from the top down. Short lines above the notes indicate emphasis. There is no time signature, no key signature, no barlines, and no indication of meter. This is because the monks were chanting scripture with speech rhythms. The ends of phrases are shown by the short vertical lines and ends of sentences by the double vertical line. Furthermore, the pitch varies according to where the clef sits on the stave – in this example there is an elongated “C” shape on the far left of the top of each set of four lines. That tells the singer that in this case, middle C is at the top of the stave, and all the other notes are pitched below, so the original singer was probably a baritone. Representations of chants sung by tenors would have the C clef on the second line down, and counter tenors on the third, allowing them access to higher notes within the 4-line stave. As a female singer, I have to decode the plainsong script and then sing it up an octave. Plainsong is effectively a form of notation developed by monks to represent what they did.
Other things to note in this type of music are the presence of a Cantor, a soloist who sings verses or passages of scripture to which the choir responds. This is antiphonal singing, where two groups take turns. We still use this approach to reading psalms: the cantor (or priest) reads the odd numbered verses, and everyone else reads the evens. Also, every Wednesday morning at St Margaret’s, the cantor (lay assistant) reads a couple of psalm verses, and everyone else responds with a repeated verse.
Here is the text of the Advent Prose:
Antiphon: [Cantor]: Drop down, ye heavens, from above,
[All]: and let the skies pour down righteousness.
1 Be not wroth very sore, O Lord,
neither remember iniquity forever:
thy holy cities are a wilderness,
Sion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation:
our holy and our beautiful house,
where our fathers praised thee. [Antiphon]
2 We have sinned, and are as an unclean thing,
and we all do fade as a leaf:
and our iniquities, like the wind,
have taken us away:
thou hast hid thy face from us:
and hast consumed us, because of our iniquities. [Antiphon]
3 Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord,
and my servant whom I have chosen:
that ye may know me and believe me:
I, even I, am the Lord,
and beside me there is no Saviour:
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand. [Antiphon]
4 Comfort ye, comfort ye my people,
my salvation shall not tarry:
I have blotted out as a thick cloud
thy transgressions: Fear not, for I will save thee:
For I am the Lord thy God,
the Holy One of Israel, thy Redeemer. [Antiphon]
You can hear Tom and I singing the Advent Prose here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY_w5a0IhJ4
Carol P
St Margaret's Church Prestwich 