The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gregorian \Gre*go"ri*an\, a. [NL. Gregorianus, fr. Gregorius Gregory, Gr. ?: cf. F. gr['e]gorien.] Pertaining to, or originated by, some person named Gregory, especially one of the popes of that name.
Gregorian calendar, the calendar as reformed by Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582, including the method of adjusting the leap years so as to harmonize the civil year with the solar, and also the regulation of the time of Easter and the movable feasts by means of epochs. See Gregorian year (below).
Gregorian chant (Mus.), plain song, or canto fermo, a kind of unisonous music, according to the eight celebrated church modes, as arranged and prescribed by Pope Gregory I. (called ``the Great'') in the 6th century.
Gregorian modes, the musical scales ordained by Pope Gregory the Great, and named after the ancient Greek scales, as Dorian, Lydian, etc.
Gregorian telescope (Opt.), a form of reflecting telescope, named from Prof. James Gregory, of Edinburgh, who perfected it in 1663. A small concave mirror in the axis of this telescope, having its focus coincident with that of the large reflector, transmits the light received from the latter back through a hole in its center to the eyepiece placed behind it.
Gregorian year, the year as now reckoned according to the Gregorian calendar. Thus, every year, of the current reckoning, which is divisible by 4, except those divisible by 100 and not by 400, has 366 days; all other years have 365 days. See Bissextile, and Note under Style, n., 7.
Chant \Chant\, n. [F. chant, fr. L. cantus singing, song, fr. canere to sing. See Chant, v. t.]
Song; melody.
(Mus.) A short and simple melody, divided into two parts by double bars, to which unmetrical psalms, etc., are sung or recited. It is the most ancient form of choral music.
A psalm, etc., arranged for chanting.
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Twang; manner of speaking; a canting tone. [R.]
His strange face, his strange chant.
--Macaulay.Ambrosian chant, See under Ambrosian.
Chant royal [F.], in old French poetry, a poem containing five strophes of eleven lines each, and a concluding stanza. -- each of these six parts ending with a common refrain.
Gregorian chant. See under Gregorian. [1913 Webster] ||
Wikipedia
Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic, unaccompanied sacred song of the western Roman Catholic Church. Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. Although popular legend credits Pope St. Gregory the Great with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman chant and Gallican chant.
Gregorian chants were organized initially into four, then eight, and finally 12 modes. Typical melodic features include a characteristic ambitus, and also characteristic intervallic patterns relative to a referential mode final, incipits and cadences, the use of reciting tones at a particular distance from the final, around which the other notes of the melody revolve, and a vocabulary of musical motifs woven together through a process called centonization to create families of related chants. The scale patterns are organized against a background pattern formed of conjunct and disjunct tetrachords, producing a larger pitch system called the gamut. The chants can be sung by using six- note patterns called hexachords. Gregorian melodies are traditionally written using neumes, an early form of musical notation from which the modern four-line and five-line staff developed. Multi-voice elaborations of Gregorian chant, known as organum, were an early stage in the development of Western polyphony.
Gregorian chant was traditionally sung by choirs of men and boys in churches, or by men and women of religious orders in their chapels. It is the music of the Roman Rite, performed in the Mass and the monastic Office. Although Gregorian chant supplanted or marginalized the other indigenous plainchant traditions of the Christian West to become the official music of the Christian liturgy, Ambrosian chant still continues in use in Milan, and there are musicologists exploring both that and the Mozarabic chant of Christian Spain. Although Gregorian chant is no longer obligatory, the Roman Catholic Church still officially considers it the music most suitable for worship. During the 20th century, Gregorian chant underwent a musicological and popular resurgence.
Usage examples of "gregorian chant".
The exhaustive overview by Gustave Reese had been on the shelf, likewise the study of Gregorian Chant by Willi Apel, but little else.
Sunlight streamed through the transparent webbing and was split into soft, shimmering azures and indigos and golds and greens that cycled through the spectrum, over and over, endlessly, like a Gregorian chant.
Till the last days of his life, he officiated in the canon of the mass, which continued above three hours: the Gregorian chant ^70 has preserved the vocal and instrumental music of the theatre, and the rough voices of the Barbarians attempted to imitate the melody of the Roman school.
Someone had started the CD-player again, and Gregorian chant once more whispered in the background.
Cardinal Baronius, who says he was an eye-witness of the miracle, relates, that the book of the Gregorian chant was no sooner laid upon the fire, than it leaped out uninjured, visibly, and with a great noise.
Finally the Gregorian chant was begun and the sonorous solemn sounds quieted the waiting audience.
The choir begins a Gregorian chant and Henry loses himself in the bliss of spiritual euphoria.
It sounded as if some sort of service were going on, except that instead of hymns, the sound of the choir reminded him of a Gregorian chant.
The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga, cloistered fifty years ago at Petit-Picpus, chant the offices to a solemn psalmody, a pure Gregorian chant, and always with full voice during the whole course of the office.
The Gregorian chant echoed against the courtyard walls, swelling louder and louder and louder.