, while the G-8 tracts generally
stay within the pentachord f-c', with fairly frequent inclusion of d'
and, less often, e' above.(Lat. tractus: ‘drawn out’). A chant replacing the alleluia of the Mass on a limited number of occasions.
3. The D-2 and G-8 melody types.
JAMES W. McKINNON
The tract is a solo chant of considerable melodic elaboration that follows the gradual in the Masses of several penitential occasions. It thus occupies the same position as does the alleluia on all non-penitential dates of the liturgical year. Ordo romanus I (c700), which has the earliest unequivocal reference to the tract, describes the relationship of the three solo chants of the Fore-Mass as follows: ‘After the subdeacon has finished reading [the Epistle], a cantor holding a cantatorium ascends [the ambo] and sings the gradual [responsum]. If it be the season to sing the alleluia, then yes; if, however, not, then the tract; if neither, then only the gradual’. If the tract and alleluia appear to be subject to analogous assignment according to the liturgical season, the tract was the chant used much more selectively; in Rome it was sung only on the Sundays of the Lenten season, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and on an additional handful of penitential ferias and Lenten sanctoral dates. It thus has a much smaller repertory than other chants of the Mass Proper.
The tract is distinguished from the gradual and alleluia in its manner of performance, being sung neither responsorially nor antiphonally but directly (in directum), that is, its verses, generally derived in order from a psalm, were sung one after the other by a soloist without intervening choral responses. Amalarius of Metz (d c850) cites this as the single characteristic that separates the tract from the gradual: ‘hoc differtur inter reponsorium, cui corus respondet, et tractum, cui nemo’ (‘this is the difference between the responsory, to which the chorus responds, and the tract, to which no-one responds’, Liber officialis, iii.12). A further distinguishing feature is its great length; two tracts in particular, Qui habitat for Quadragesima Sunday and Deus Deus meus for Palm Sunday are by far the longest chants of the entire Mass Proper. They are among the five chants the singing of which Bishop Angilram of Metz (768–91) specified as worthy of extra payment. The meaning of the word ‘tract’ has given rise to considerable discussion over the centuries, but the most obvious conjecture is surely the most likely: the Latin noun tractus derives from the past participle of the verb trahere, to ‘pull’, ‘draw’ or ‘extend’; tractus, then, meaning ‘drawn out’ or ‘extended’ appears to be no more than a reference to the chant's length.
Finally, the tract is noteworthy for its confinement to two Roman finals, D and G, and two corresponding Gregorian modes, 2 and 8 (in the following discussion the respective tracts will be referred to as ‘D-2’ and ‘G-8’ chants). Considerable melodic relationship exists among the tracts of each type (see §3 below).
If the core repertory is defined as those chants that were transmitted from Rome to the Carolingian realm in the second half of the 8th century, the core repertory of tracts comprises 16 chants, five D-2 and 11 G-8. The repertory and its Roman liturgical assignments are given in Table 1, with certain omissions and additions. Omitted are the assignments of the Vigil of Pentecost, which are identical to those of the Easter Vigil, and the assignments of Laudate Dominum to Saturday of the Pentecost week Ember Days and to the feast of the Annunciation. Two chants are assigned twice: Laudate Dominum on the Saturday of the Lenten Ember Week and the Easter Vigil; and Qui habitat on Quadragesima Sunday and as a second tract on Good Friday. The four canticles of the Easter Vigil are shown in brackets; they appear in the Roman sources only as mode 8 Gregorian chants and would therefore seem to be Frankish additions (see §4 below). The Franks also added one mode 2 tract, Eripe me, using it to replace the Roman Qui habitat on Good Friday. Thus the 9th-century Frankish repertory expanded to a total of 21 tracts, six mode 2 and 15 mode 8. Three of the mode 2 tracts, De necessitatibus, Domine exaudi and Domine audivi, are treated as graduals in the Frankish sources (see §4).
The 9th-century Frankish assignments extend to only a handful of liturgical occasions beyond those of Rome, but in subsequent centuries both the Gregorian repertory and its assignments expanded considerably. Most notably Domine non secundum was sung on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent and a number of new sanctoral tracts were fashioned for post-Septuagesimal dates. Effuderunt sanguinem came to be sung on the feast of the Holy Innocents and Absolve Domine at the Requiem Mass (the Roman Mass for the Dead simply adopted De profundis). An 11th- or 12th-century Aquitanian or Italian gradual might have about 30 tracts and a late medieval gradual several more. The majority of later tracts were of the mode 2 type.
Melismatic
passages occur less frequently in tracts than in graduals, and the melismas are
on average not quite so long. The tonal range of tracts is also narrower than
that of graduals, particularly the gradual verses with their high tessitura;
the D-2 tracts confine themselves for the most part to the hexachord c-a
with occasional extensions downwards to A and upwards to b, while the G-8 tracts generally
stay within the pentachord f-c', with fairly frequent inclusion of d'
and, less often, e' above.
The melodic feature of tracts most often singled out in the musicological literature is their formulaic character, a trait that has tempted some scholars to think in terms of variation technique or of an elaborated psalm tone. However, the inclusion of 9th- and 10th-century additions to the original repertory within most of the published systems of analysis has resulted in somewhat exaggerated estimates of the tract's melodic homogeneity, because later tracts are generally more stereotyped in their formulaic usage. Nevertheless, even if observations are confined to the 16 core repertory chants, much remains to be said about the musical interrelatedness of tracts, both in their Roman and Gregorian versions.
The most remarkable trait of the D-2 tracts is the succession of phrases cadencing on D, C, F and D. Of the 41 verses of the five D-2 tracts the series is present in no less than 28. Yet the clarity of the pattern is frequently obscured by additional cadences; there are just 16 verses where the D–C–F–D pattern exists in its pure four-phrase form. More significant perhaps is the persistence of the C cadence (ex.1), which generally serves to divide the verse into two half-phrases; it is missing from only two of the 41 verses. The figures given here are taken from the Gregorian tracts, but the Roman and Gregorian versions consistently maintain the same cadential points within the D-2 tracts.
If the placement of cadences is the most regular musical characteristic of D-2 tracts, the melodic homogeneity of the cadential figures is also considerably more consistent than that of the complete phrases. The final D phrase of all five tracts, however, is nearly invariable. As for the opening phrases (ex.2), the Gregorian use of the distinctive figure at the beginning of all five tracts might create an initial impression of uniformity, but the continuation of the phrase differs significantly, except in the two tracts that open with the word ‘Domine’. The Roman opening phrases, on the other hand, while appearing to vary because of adjustments made to accommodate differing syllabification, have the same closing melisma, except in the case of De necessitatibus. For phrases other than those that open and close an entire chant there is much melodic variety. There is an especially large number of opening phrases for the verses, no less than ten, and at least five for the closing phrases; the interior phrase cadencing on F, however, is considerably more regular. It should be noted that De necessitatibus has little in common melodically with the other tracts apart from its opening figure (see ex.2) and concluding phrase.
The 11 G-8 tracts of the core repertory, generally shorter than D-2 tracts, have a total of 36 verses. These verses fail to display a cadential pattern comparable to the D–C–F–D series of their D-2 counterparts, but 23 of them have an interior F cadence (ex.3) which is melodically similar to the C cadence of the D-2 tract (see above, ex.1) and frequently plays a similar role in defining the structural mid-point of the verse.
As for melodic formulae, all 11 G-8 tracts conclude with the same G phrase, but five different G phrases are used to begin the chants. At least nine other G phrases are employed throughout the verses, but one of them is used six times to open verses, thus contributing to an impression of melodic homogeneity. The fact that there are only four different F phrases, one of which is used 12 times, strengthens this impression. The Roman and Gregorian versions generally cadence at the same points in the text and on the same pitches, but on first examination it would seem that the Gregorian melodic formulae are maintained with more regularity than the Roman. An obvious instance of this is the G phrase used to open five of the Gregorian tracts. If, for example, the Gregorian Laudate Dominum and Jubilate Dominum are compared with their Roman counterparts (ex.4), the two Gregorian phrases appear to be melodically identical while the Roman ones vary noticeably from each other. However, if differences of syllabification are taken into account, it will be seen that the melodic formulae of Roman G-8 tracts are used with remarkable regularity (Nowacki, 1986). Thus certain portions of a melodic formula are omitted to accommodate a lesser number of syllables in the text and others are added to match extra syllables. The Frankish cantors, however, appear to have forced the text into conformity with the melodic formula. (The conclusions reached above in connection with ex.2 suggest that Nowacki's findings for the G-8 tracts may also apply to the D-2 chants.)
Those scholars who see an elaborated psalm tone in the verses of the tract compare the quadripartite phrase structure of the verses to an intonation, mediation, continuation formula and termination. However, an alternative explanation (Hiley, 1993) is equally plausible: ‘the conventions of articulation (starting phrases, terminal melismas) are a natural response to the need to mark off major breaks in the text, found in very many chant genres and not necessarily deriving from simple psalmody’. It should be added, too, that only a minority of tract verses have precisely four phrases, some 29 of 77 in the Gregorian versification (which differs occasionally from the Roman). Yet there remains the persistence of the C cadence in the D-2 tracts and the F cadence in the G-8 tracts. Not only do these cadences frequently create the feel of a bipartite structure, but they occur generally at the mediating point of the psalm verse. It is wholly reasonable to suppose that the chant’s melodic characteristics were ‘an essential part of the tract from the start’ (Hiley, 1993), yet it is still possible to imagine that the psalm tone model might somehow have figured in the creation of the genre.
A number of exceptional features about the tract, both musical and liturgical, have prompted a variety of fascinating and controversial positions on the history of the genre. (However, no attempt has been made to pass definitive judgement on the views outlined in the following discussion.)
It is not surprising that the tract, with its tendency towards an underlying cadential structure and a variety of differing but related melodic formulae, played a part in the thinking of Leo Treitler (1974) when he advanced the notion of a cantor reconstructing a chant from year to year, changing its melodic detail while maintaining the broad melodic conventions and characteristic formal features of the genre to which it belonged. Nor is it surprising that Cullin (1989–96) has seen the multiple verses of the tract, with their psalm-like structure and broad melodic similarity, as one of several indices for the view that the tract represents a later manifestation of the original mode of psalmody – psalmody in directum – which predated the responsorial psalmody of the late 4th century. The gradual, according to this view, evolved from the tract, and evidence of the original tract can still be seen in the multiple verses of the Easter week Haec dies.
Conversely, a number of scholars, including Peter Wagner (1901) and Apel (1958) maintain that all mode 2 tracts are in reality graduals. The view stems from the fact that three of these tracts, De necessitatibus, Domine audivi and Domine exaudi, are labelled ‘Resp.Grad.’ in the early Frankish graduals. Hucke (1967) concluded that at least two of them, Domine audivi and Domine exaudi, shared the same musical characteristics as the other mode 2 tracts, and that these characteristics, moreover, were peculiar to tracts and not to graduals. The one exception he allowed was De necessitatibus, a chant consisting of three verses, of which the second and third (closely related to each other melodically) arguably partake of the special musical character of the gradual verse. There are liturgical arguments suggesting that all five D-2 tracts were indeed originally looked upon as such at Rome: they maintain the normal placement of the tract after the gradual (save for Domine exaudi in Good Friday's generally exceptional liturgical configuration), and they are called tracts in the Roman manuscripts, suggesting that the labelling of the three ‘Resp.Grad.’ in the Frankish manuscripts might have been done so mistakenly.
Perhaps the most intriguing question involves the four Easter Vigil canticles, Cantemus Domino (Exodus xv.1–2), Vinea facta (Isaiah v.1–2), Attende caelum (Deuteronomy xxxii.1–4) and Sicut cervus (Psalm xli.2–4). The first three are in fact canticles, figuring in each case as a final verse of three Old Testament readings, while the fourth consists of three verses of Psalm xli sung in directum during the procession to the baptismal font. The texts of all four appear in the early unnotated Frankish graduals, and the mode 8 tract melody appears with all four in the earliest notated Gregorian graduals. However, in the Roman graduals the four are not set in the Roman version of the G mode melody, as might be expected, but in the Gregorian version. Actually, the earliest Roman appearance of the chants is not in the Roman graduals but in a mid-11th-century lectionary (see Boe, 1995), which also gives the Gregorian melodic version. This, together with with the fact that neither the earliest Roman lectionaries or ordines romani make reference to the four chants, suggests that it was the Franks who singled out these four texts and treated them as discrete solo chants, applying to them the mode 8 melody of the Easter Vigil tract Laudate Dominum. The putative status of the four in 8th-century Rome calls for somewhat more venturesome speculation: perhaps the three canticles were simply recited by the lector as conclusion to their respective readings, and perhaps Sicut cervus (chanted in its entirety) was a psalm associated for so long a time with the baptismal rite of the Easter Vigil that there was no need to make mention of it in the earliest documents. Augustine had already cited Sicut cervus in connection with baptism (In psalmo xli, 1).
A final controversial question on the history of the tract involves its antiquity. Chant scholars since Wagner (1901) have assumed it to be among the most ancient of Mass Proper items, a view that Hucke (Grove6) was one of the first to dispute, no doubt persuaded by the obviously incomplete state of the tract's 8th-century Roman repertory.
Grove6 (H. Hucke)
P. Wagner: Einführung in die gregorianischen Melodien: ein Handbuch der Choralwissenschaft, i: Ursprung und Entwicklung der liturgischen Gesangsformen bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters (Leipzig, 2/1901, 3/1911/R); (Eng. trans., 1901/R), 86–8
M. Andrieu: ‘Règlement d'Angilramme de Metz (768–91) fixant les horaires de quelques fonctions liturgiques’, Revue des sciences religieuses, x (1930), 349–69
R.-J. Hesbert: Antiphonale missarum sextuplex (Brussels, 1935/R)
H. Schmidt: ‘Die Tractus des zweiten Tones in gregorianischer und stadtrömischer Überlieferung’, Festschrift Joseph Schmidt-Görg zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. D. Weise (Bonn, 1957), 283–302
W. Apel: Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, IN, 1958, 2/1990)
H. Hucke: ‘Tractsstudien’, Festschrift Bruno Stäblein zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967), 116–20
L. Treitler: ‘Homer and Gregory: the Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainchant’, MQ, lx (1974), 333–72
E. Nowacki: ‘Text Declamation as a Determinant of Melodic Form in the Old Roman Eighth-Mode Tracts’, EMH, vi (1986), 193–226
O. Cullin: ‘La répertoire de la psalmodie in directum dans les traditions liturgiques latines, I: La tradition hispanique’, EG, xxiii (1989), 99–139
R. Crocker: ‘Chants of the Roman Mass’, NOHM, ii (2/1990), 209–14
O. Cullin: ‘L'office de Pâques comme miroir du chant grégorien: du concept liturgique à la réalisation musicale’, Analyse musicale, no.18 (1990), 19–25
O. Cullin: ‘De la psalmodie sans refrain à la psalmodie responsoriale: transformation et conservation dans les répertoires liturgiques latins’, RdM, lxxvii (1991), 5–24
D. Hiley: Western Plainchant: a Handbook (Oxford, 1993), 76–82
J. Boe: ‘Chant Notation in Eleventh-Century Roman Manuscripts’, Essays on Medieval Music: in Honor of David G. Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 43–57
J. McKinnon: ‘The Gregorian Canticle-Tracts of the Old Roman Easter Vigil’, Festschrift Walter Wiora zum 90. Geburtstag, ed. C.-H. Mahling and R. Seiberts (Tutzing, 1997), 254–69
T. Karp: Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gregorian Chant (Evanston, IL, 1998)
O. Cullin: Le trait dans les répertoires vieux-romain et grégorien: un témoin de la psalmodie sans refrain (forthcoming)