Metric chant
St Augustine's writing provides evidence of durational links between the longs and shorts of
classical poetic metre and the longs and shorts of musical rhythm, in 2:1 ratio. In the classical
poetic metres, the pattern of the longs and shorts in the musical 'feet' apparently matched the
pattern of the long and short syllables of the feet of the poetry to which the melody is
attached. That this is not the case for all song is shown by a passage in de Arte Metrica,
written c.701AD by the Venerable Bede.
Patrologia Latina, Vol 90, pp173-174
English: Gregorian Rhythm in the Gregorian Centuries, Dom Gregory Murray, 1957
*{On the Construction of Anglo-Saxon and Northern Poetry, J Burtt
The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol XCII, Part 2, July 1822, p5}
By using the words 'plerumque ... casu quodam' (generally/often ... on a certain occasion),
this text makes clear that common use was made of song in which melodic longs and shorts
did not match the syllabic longs and shorts of the poetic text and that this followed secular
practice. Instead, such music formed rhythmical patterns of its own which could contradict the
lengths of the textual syllables, so that the only poetic factor taken into account musically was
the number of syllables, as per the hymn O rex aeterne Domine: its musical rhythm is the
same as iambic dimeter but the syllabic quantities of its words are not necessarily regular.
The text also makes it clear that songs existed in which pitch durations matched the patterns
of syllabic lengths of the poetic metre. Three phrases are particularly important here:
ratio cum modulatione - [poetic] ratio with [melodic] modulation
modulatione sine ratione - [melodic] modulation without [poetic] ratio
ratio in rhythmo ... servatam - [melodic but poetry-like] ratio maintained in [melodic] rhythm
The first phrase 'ratio cum modulatione' describes metric melody for metric text, where the
melodic rhythm is yoked to the pattern of syllabic lengths inherent in the feet of a formal
classical metre.
The next phrases 'modulatione sine ratione' and 'ratio in rhythmo ... servatam' could describe
melody where a formal number of syllables matches the length of the tune, and where the
longs and shorts of the tune form a regular musical metre or pattern but do not always match
the irregularly patterned long and short syllables of the text, as with O rex aeterne Domine.
Guido d'Arezzo called this 'metricos cantus' (metric chant).
'Modulatione sine ratione' could also describe what Guido d'Arezzo might term 'quasi prosaic
song' where the text itself contains no formal metre or number of syllables and where the tune
itself reflects this lack of formal metre or structure, as per sequences such as Rex caeli
Domine, or antiphons and 'prose hymns' such as the Te Deum or the Gloria. Such ametrical
compositions do not demonstrate the classical technique of patterning long and short poetic
syllables, as this was no longer common practice; consequently, the only durations expressed
would have been those of long and short melody notes which we find notated in a number of
the most ancient sources.
Nowhere is there any clear reference to the 'rhythmic nuancing' promoted by most chant
specialists today, a technique which repeatedly compromises the simple 2:1 ratio between
classical longs and shorts.
The implication could be taken from Bede that contemporary secular song commonly ignored
the technique demonstrated in the hymns by Ambrose in which short and long syllables
matched short and long note lengths. Bede also appears to say that, with respect to rhythm
and metre, religious song was performed in ways similar to both contemporary secular
practice and ancient classical practice, the latter of which was certainly pagan.
It seems that [musical] rhythm is in every way
like [poetic] metres, for it is a modulated [ie,
melodic] composition [ie, setting] of words, not
by [poetic] metrical rule [of longs and shorts]
but tested by the number of the [verbal]
syllables according to the judgement of the ear,
like the songs of the secular poets. And
indeed there can be rhythm without [poetic]
metre, but never [poetic] metre without rhythm.
This can be more clearly defined as follows:
[poetic] metre is [poetic] regularity with
[melodic] modulation: rhythm is [melodic]
modulation without [poetic] regularity. ...
you will very often find on occasion a
[poetry-like] regularity maintained in [the
musical] rhythm not by the restraint of artifice,
but [through] the music itself producing it by its
own modulation {the vulgar poets effect this
rustically; the skilful attain it by their skill}*
just as in the manner of iambic metre [the
music of] the following famous hymn was
beautifully written:
(0) rex aeterne Domine,
Rerum creator omnium,
Qui eras ante saecula
Semper cum Patre Filius.
And also not a few other Ambrosians.
Videtur autem rhythmus metris esse
consimilis, quae est verborum modulata
compositio non metrica ratione, sed
numero syllabarum ad judicium aurium
examinata, ut sunt carmina vulgarium
poetarum. Et quidem rhythmus sine
metro esse potest, metrum vero sine
rhythmo esse non potest: quod liquidius
ita definitur: metrum est ratio cum
modulatione; rhythmus modulatio
sine ratione: plerumque tamen casu
quodam invenies etiam rationem, in
rhythmo non artificis moderatione
servatam, sed sono et ipsa modulatione
ducente, quem vulgares poetae
necesse est rustice, docti faciant
docte; quomodo et ad instar iambici
metri pulcherrime factus est hymnus ille
praeclarus:
Rex aeterne Domine,
Rerum creator omnium,
Qui eras ante!saecula
Semper cum Patre Filius.
Et alii Ambrosiani non pauci.