The Chant And Service Book

This is a new release of the original 1941 edition.

Willi Apel's classic study of Gregorian chant is now in paperback. This extensive survey describes the evolutionary processes of its long history as well as its definition and terminology, the structure of the liturgy, the texts, the notation, the rhythm, the tonality, and the methods and forms of psalmody.

The Tropologion is considered the earliest known extant chant book from the early Christian world which was in use until the twelfth century. The study of this book is still in its infancy. It has generally been believed that the book has survived in Georgian translation under the name ‘ladgari’ but similar books have been discovered in Greek, Syriac and Armenian. All the copies clearly show that the spread and the use of the book were much greater than we had previously assumed and the Georgian ladgari is only one of its many versions. The study of these issues unquestionably confirms the earliest stage of the compilation of the book, in Jerusalem or its environs, and shows its uninterrupted development from Jerusalem to the Stoudios monastery, the most important monastery of Constantinople. Over time many new pieces and new authors were added to the Tropologion. It is almost certain that it was the Stoudios school of poet-composers that divided the content of the Tropologion and compiled separate collections of books, each one containing a major liturgical cycle. In the beginning all of the volumes kept the old title but in the tenth century the copies of the book were renamed, probably according to the liturgical repertory included, and by the thirteenth century the title ‘Tropologion’ is no longer found in the Greek sources as it became superfluous, and fell out of use.

Richard L. Crocker offers in this book and its accompanying compact disc an introduction to the history and meaning of the Gregorian chant. He explains how Gregorian chant began, what functions and meanings it had over time, who heard it and where, and how it was composed, learned, written down and handed on. Crocker explains Gregorian chant and its functions within modern catholic liturgy as well as its position outside this liturgy, where the modern listener may hear it just as music. He describes the origins of the chant in the early Middle Ages, details its medieval development and use, and considers how it survived without, and later with, musical notation. The author probes the paradoxical position of the chant in monastic life -- serving as an expression of liturgical fellowship on the one hand and as the medium of solitary mystic ascent on the other. The book also includes a detailed commentary on each of twenty-six complete chants performed by the Orlando Consort and by the author on the accompanying compact disc. --From publisher's description.