Chant

Chant, in Music, is the name applied to the short tunes used in the English Church since the Reformation for the psalms and, less properly, the canticles. The adaptation of the form to the structure of the psalms is obvious. Its distinguishing point is that each section is composed of a reciting note of indefinite length, according to the number of words sung to it, followed by a few notes in regular time, called the Mediation or Termination. The tunes were originally derived, as the name indicates, from the Canto Fermo, or Plain Song of the Roman Church, also called Gregorian Tones. These Gregorian tones were preceded by a still earlier form, the Ambrosian Chant, which was the first attempt to systematise the traditional music of the Christian church, carried out by Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, in the 4th century. Of this, next to nothing is now known, the statements of musical historians being founded on slender authority, and curiously at variance. If any fragments still remain in the services of the Roman Church, they cannot be distinguished from the later Gregorian music (see PLAIN SONG, INTONING). There has been a revival in the present day of the old Gregorian chants, which are all 'single,' that is, composed of only two sections, and adapted to a single verse, and have the additional feature of an introductory 'intonation' of two notes before the first reciting note; but many consider these of mainly antiquarian interest. The double chant, adapted to a couple of verses, and hence more suitable for antiphonal singing, dates from the time of the Restoration; and in later days there have been added quadruple chants. The repertory has been enriched by almost every English composer of the last three centuries, famous or obscure. The objectionable 'florid' style has now happily gone out. On the subject of 'pointing' the psalms—i.e. indicating the division of the verses to accord with the chant, there is great diversity of usage, and no authoritative system. The best treatment of the subject, theoretic and practical, will be found in Helmore's Psalter Noted and Plain Song, the Cathedral Psalter, and Onseley and Monk's and Oakeley's Psalters. Chanting is gaining ground in the Presbyterian and other churches.