- Composer: Gregorian Chant
- Period: Medieval (1-1449)
Review
As the Catholic Church slowly evolved its worship music over many centuries, different parts of the liturgy often developed different characteristics. A chant known as the gradual was a special type of "responsory" chant, a kind of chant that itself betrays deep roots in the early Church and the Jewish synagogue. A "respond," or lyrical introduction, is followed by an equally extensive "verse" (originally from the Psalms). The gradual most likely takes its particular name from an early performance practice in which a soloist sang the opening on the Gradus, or step, of the pulpit, onto which a celebrant would be rising to sing the Gospel shortly thereafter. With the Alleluia that immediately follows it if present, the gradual chants became among the most extended and florid in all the Gregorian chant repertory. Christus factus est pro nobis, the gradual for Maundy Thursday, is no exception.Maundy Thursday commemorates the Last Supper of Christ and begins the celebration of the highest holy days in the Christian calendar, culminating in Easter Sunday. The Mass for that feast for a long time was the only one sung specifically in honor of the Holy Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (in 1264, the feast of Corpus Christi was added to the calendar). Many of the chants in the Maundy Thursday Mass thus celebrate the Eucharistic Presence. The text of the Maundy Thursday gradual Christus factus est does so simply and directly, beginning with the respond "Christ was for us made obedient unto death, even death upon a cross." The choral verse answers with "For this God has exalted Him, and given Him the name which is above all names." The chant melody appropriately enough adopts a powerful key, the fifth of the church modes. Though based on the octave beginning with F, this colorful and emotional mode freely alternates between B flat and B natural. As with several similar festal fifth-mode graduals, the respond section describes a graceful first arch, and the verse echoes it with an even more powerful arch through an entire octave. Several passages of the verse begin with apparently simple recitation on a single pitch, but all quickly expand into intensely drawn-out melismas. Often the very length of a melisma is mitigated, however, by small, repeated melodic cells: not only do these allow for easier memorization by the singers, but they also provide audible organization and unity within the melody. ~ Timothy Dickey, All Music Guide
