Spirituality Studies 9-2 Fall 2023 41 Carmen Ramírez-Hurtado, Victoria Cavia-Naya themselves to the composition of plainchant melodies centuries after the first compilation made by Pope Gregory I. The first of those women was Kassia, who lived in the Eastern Roman Empire in the ninth century. She was born between 805 and 810 in Constantinople and her compositions reveal her deep spirituality. Her works, in addition to fulfilling the liturgical function of her community that gathered to sing the Divine Office, are likely to form part of the pre-contemplative phase and preparation for individual contemplative prayer, due to their poetic richness and strong symbolism. They were written in classical Greek and in a compositional style that combines – in parallel or in contrast words and music, creating musical motifs that symbolize and reflect the text. Most of their music can be placed in the category of the sticheron, with melodic and metrical structures similar to those of the sequence known in the West. Others, such as the short prayer hymns or troparia, are still part of the liturgy of the Orthodox Church. This is the case of the troparion of Mary Magdalene which is sung in the morning office on Spy Wednesday (Touliatos-Miles 2004, 6). When trying to establish connections between Gregorian chant and contemplation in the Middle Ages, the most prominent figure is Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179), abbess and counselor to popes and monarchs. She is well known for her writings on natural history and medicine, but above all for the book recounting her mystical visions. Her musical compositions are written in a very personal style, following late medieval plainchant norms, and are the result of moments of rapturous divine inspiration. She herself commented that her words were dictated directly by heaven, a common claim in those who undergo mystical experiences. This context of direct communication with the transcendent on a creative level becomes a spiritual participation through the community that performs it, the audience that actively listens to it, or even the music critic who comments on it. An example would be what happens in the sequence Columba Aspexit, where according to Kerman and Tomlinson (2008, 64) “the mystical words of the poem join the free rhythm of the melody and produce a feeling of deep and intense spirituality”. Without claiming to exhaust all the possible functions that Gregorian chant fulfills in the contemplative realm in Western spirituality, it is necessary to highlight some of the apparent paradoxes that have arisen throughout its history. This is the case in terms of how it is practiced by the Discalced Carmelites, founded by one of the great mystics, Teresa of Jesus (1515–1582). Specifically, according to the foundress of this order, a simple form of recitative monody or Gregorian chant was preferred in the liturgy of the Hours to the elaborate and prestigious polyphonic works that at the time were provided by the best music chapels and the great composers of the Spanish Golden Age. We base our argument on the fact that, in the Constitutions (1567) of her order, Teresa wrote that “singing should never be done in a point-by-point melody, but in tone, the voices equal” [15]. Therefore, we can deduce that the great mystic and doctor of the Church was more interested in the direct communication provided by Gregorian chant, as a prayer proper to contemplative meditation, than in the technical procedures, aesthetic results, or purely emotional effects of the polyphony of her time. Consequently, we can also point out that, in that era, and especially from the mystical point of view, Gregorian chant was emphasized as a means of accessing the divinity from bareness, simplicity, and silence, above other contemporary music that was more dramatic or spectacular. However, in addition to the reasons of historical tradition, the relevance of Gregorian chant is based on the fact that it is a simple chant (plainchant) that is practiced with a very particular attention to the breath, perceiving one’s own body and the being of the spirit within us. The fact that it is music performed a cappella also connects with the bareness necessary for abandonment, detachment, surrender. On the other hand, rhythm, which is such a perceptual and bodily aspect, is incorporated in this song only through the voice and breathing. This is not the case with music that has instrumental accompaniment, for here the question of rhythm is largely delegated to the accompanying instruments, especially percussion, which then constitute a further mediation. In Gregorian chant, this unity occurs especially in a primitive and, precisely for this reason, freer phasing: before mensural music dissociate the embodied unity of vocal musicality from vocal musicality itself. Another question to bear in mind is that Gregorian chant is modal music, composed of eight modes or scales, configured according to a specific sequence of intervals that distinguish each one of those modes. Using these scales, structural melodic patterns are formed, the centrality of which is much more watered down than the system of common-practice tonality imposed in Western culture from the 17th century onwards. The lesser centrality of the tonic and the reduced capacity of Gregorian-mode degrees of intervals to bring compositions to a conclusion, mean that the melody is perceived in a less directional and progressive fashion than is the case with tonal music. The latter is characterized by a continual forward movement due to the harmonic directionality and the predominant technical means that furnish a constant sense of tension and resolution, which causes the
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