History02

ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION

It is not possible to know accurately the characteristics of the musical expressions of the centuries previous to the process started by Constantine (from the edict of Milan, of the year 313) and that ended up by turning the christianity into religion of the State; the absence of papers there joins the fact of the stealthiness of the church people. Nevertheless everything seems to indicate that this music should have been sacred for the most part and that it was not differing in the essential from what have being executed from ancient in the synagogues of the Hebrew communities (this fact will be detailed hereinafter), so much in Jerusalem as in general in the Mediterranean area. The first of these affirmations arise from the practical nonexistence of profane music in the previous and contemporary cultures at the birth of christianity and the second one because this was considered as a dissident sect inside the Judaism. The gentiles' increasing incorporation to the new church provoked undoubtedly the assimilation of Greco-Roman influences in the liturgical canticles which became prospering soon with the diffusion of the musical Celtic traditions, especially after the fall of the Roman empire (476). The melodic recitation and the short songs are surely the two Hebraic elements most emphasized in the new musical pieces development, as well as the theory and the first notation rudiments turn out to be a clear heredity from the Greeks. For what refers to the Celts, the richest traditions personified in his bards should have had a projection beyond the strict musical plane, since it is very probable that his elaborated concept of the staging has given support to the transformation of the primitive rituals in a much more specializing liturgy of the immediate later centuries.

The first conservation and transmission of the music, in the strict sense that has been realized in Occident, was for practical motives: the need to fix in writing the canticles that were congregating the church members. Of these primitive psalters, the oldest is one which is known as Alexandrine Codex (5th century) which remains actually in the British museum. It contains a whole of thirteen canticles, included a Benedictus and a Magnificat, fundamental chants in the current development of the liturgy and, as almost all the ancient copies and against what commonly it is believed, is of small format.

The mentioned common fundamentals that can be traced in this formative period and in an unsteady sense, will be a way (4th - 6th century) to the diverse manifestations of the Byzantine music and of the ambrosian ritual of Milan school; this lead into the first original creation of the musical genius of Occident: the Gregorian Chant plainsong.

Talking about the Christian chants, it is common to forget frequently to point out that his primitive form took of the forms sung in the synagogues. It is important to regret the negligence and ignorance about one of our main sources; this fact leads to very diverse interpretations of the plainsong, as well as to errors on which we will have to insist. It is evident that the melodic exact form of the repertoire has been altered and that we cannot already consider it as a direct heir of the repertoire of the synagogue; innumerable influences modified his musical aspect. Nevertheless, when the Jewish singing was listened attentively, there were discovered in him the general terms of the melodic Christian speech: the word raised up to his biggest possible grade of solemnity thanks to the tension of the voice, the dialogue of the clergymen and his free rhythm, the vocalization, etc. It is necessary to ask how is that this musical dialect should be considered exclusively of Latin origin. ¨Which is the relationship with Judaic and Latin music?¨. How throughout the centuries has it been accumulating dictions that disfigure his original form?. These are definitively the problems that there raises the existence of the Gregorian Chant.

It is known that the "substratum" of the primitive christianity customs has his roots in the Judaism. The fact is known, but after the Christians became separated from the Judaism, it is accepted mostly that they have wanted not to preserve a minor feature of Judaism, which evidently is inaccurate since, across the Bible, the Christian world is joined deeply to the past.

Many details take us to the Jewish worship: prayers, forms of devotion, etc., and especially, the way of treating the sacred texts, or melodic declamation or cantilatio. This way of transmitting the traditions exists still at present in the Latin Church under an outlined but recognizable form in the readings of the Gospel or of the Epistle, in the prayers like the preface of the sung Mass. No important text in the current systems of oral tradition is transmitted without this form of cantilatio and there is the certainty that existed already in the Jewish world. The apostles dispersion towards Greece, Egypt and Italy plunged to the worship in a very different ambience. There were successive flutters of missionaries who departed from the most diverse points of the Christendom: Palestine, Syria, Greece, Egypt ... and this happened for several centuries. Their costumes were already fixed and they were those who had to face diverse ambiences: Galia, the Iberian Peninsula, etc., and in this extreme Occident; let's not forget the world where the cartesianism was born, a world of analysis that is opposed to the East intuitive reactions.