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It has been suggested that Authentic mode be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) |
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It has been suggested that Plagal mode be merged into this article or section. (Discuss) |
A Gregorian mode (or church mode) is one of the eight systems of pitch organization used to describe Gregorian chant.
The name of Pope Gregory I was attached to the variety of chant that was to become the dominant variety in medieval western and central Europe (the diocese of Milan was the sole significant exception) by the Frankish cantors reworking Roman ecclesiastical song during the Carolingian period (McKinnon 2001). The theoretical framework of modes arose later to describe the tonal structure of this chant repertory, and is not necessarily applicable to the other European chant dialects (Old Roman, Mozarabic, Ambrosian, etc.).
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Tonality
Two characteristic notes or pitches in a modal melody are the final and cofinal. These are the primary degrees (often l, 5) on which the melody is conceived and on which it most often comes to rest, in graduated stages of finality.[1] The final is the pitch in which the chant usually ends; it may be approximately regarded as analogous (but not identical) to the tonic in the Western classical tradition. Likewise the cofinal is an additional resting point in the chant; it may be regarded as having some analogy to the more recent dominant, but its interval from the tonic may not be a fifth.
The eight modes are grouped into four pairs, each pair comprising an authentic mode and a plagal mode.
An authentic mode has its final as the lowest note of the scale (it may occasionally go one note below). These four modes correspond to the modern modal scales starting on D (Dorian), E (Phrygian), F (Lydian), and G (Mixolydian).
A plagal mode (from Greek πλάγιος 'oblique, sideways, athwart')[2] has a range that includes the octave from the fourth below the final to the fifth above. The plagal modes are the even-numbered modes, 2, 4, 6 and 8, and each takes its name from the corresponding odd-numbered authentic mode with the addition of the prefix "hypo-": Hypodorian, Hypophrygian, Hypolydian, and Hypomixolydian.[3]
Given the confusion between ancient, medieval, and modern terminology, "today it is more consistent and practical to use the traditional designation of the modes with numbers one to eight".[4]
See also
Notes
- ^ Berry, Wallace (1987). Structural functions in music. New York: Dover. ISBN 0486253848.
- ^ Merriam Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary (1963); Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. and augm. throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie (Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). ISBN 0198642261
- ^ Harold S. Powers, "Plagal mode", in Grove Music Online (Oxford Music Online, accessed February 19, 2009) (Subscription access).
- ^ Knighton, Tess; Fallows, David (1998). Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music. University of California Press. ISBN 0520210816.
References
- McKinnon, James W. 2001. "Gregorian Chant". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
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