16 Facts About Gregorian Chant

Gregorian Chant melodies are traditionally written using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern four-line and five-line staff developed.

Multi-voice elaborations of Gregorian chant, known as organum, were an early stage in the development of Western polyphony.

Gregorian Chant reorganized the Schola Cantorum and established a more uniform standard in church services, gathering chants from among the regional traditions as widely as he could manage.

Gregorian Chant's renowned love for music was recorded only 34 years after his death; the epitaph of Honorius testified that comparison to Gregory was already considered the highest praise for a music-loving pope.

Willi Apel and Robert Snow assert a scholarly consensus that Gregorian chant developed around 750 from a synthesis of Roman and Gallican chants, and was commissioned by the Carolingian rulers in France.

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Gregorian Chant was often depicted as receiving the dictation of plainchant from a dove representing the Holy Spirit, thus giving Gregorian chant the stamp of being divinely inspired.

From English and German sources, Gregorian chant spread north to Scandinavia, Iceland and Finland.

Similarly, the Gregorian repertory incorporated elements of these lost plainchant traditions, which can be identified by careful stylistic and historical analysis.

Early Gregorian chant was revised to conform to the theoretical structure of the modes.

Ever since restoration of Gregorian Chant was taken up in Solesmes, there have been lengthy discussions of exactly what course was to be taken.

The actual pitch of the Gregorian chant is not fixed, so the piece can be sung in whichever range is most comfortable.

Certain classes of Gregorian chant have a separate musical formula for each mode, allowing one section of the chant to transition smoothly into the next section, such as the psalm verses that are sung between the repetition of antiphons, or the Gloria Patri.

Gregorian Chant melodies are more likely to traverse a seventh than a full octave, so that melodies rarely travel from D up to the D an octave higher, but often travel from D to the C a seventh higher, using such patterns as D-F-G-A-C.

Gregorian Chant devised a new graphic adaptation of square notation 'simplex' in which he integrated the rhythmic indications of the two most relevant sources, that of Laon and Sankt Gallen.

Gregorian Chant's intention was to provide a corrected melody in rhythmic notation but above all – he was a choirmaster – suited for practical use, therefore a simplex, integrated notation.

Gregorian Chant melodies provided musical material and served as models for tropes and liturgical dramas.