Chorale |

German Choral, Late Lat. cantus choralis – choral chant

The general name of the traditional (canonized) monophonic chants of the Western Christian Church (sometimes also their polyphonic arrangements). Unlike various kinds of spiritual songs, X. is performed in the church and is an important part of the service, which determines the aesthetic. quality X. There are 2 main. type X. – Gregorian (see Gregorian chant), which took shape in the first centuries of the existence of the Catholic. churches (German Gregorianischer Choral, English chant gregorian, plain song, plain chant, French chant grégorien, plain-chant, Italian canto gregoriano, Spanish canto piano), and a Protestant chant developed during the Reformation era (German Choral , English chorale, hymn, French choral, Italian corale, Spanish coral protestante). The term “X.” became widespread much later than the appearance of the phenomena defined by it. Initially (from about the 14th century) this is only an adjective indicating the performer. composition (choral – choral). Gradually, the term becomes more universal, and from the 15th century. in Italy and Germany, the expression cantus choralis is found, which means one-headed. unmetrized music as opposed to polygonal. mensural (musica mensurabilis, cantus mensurabilis), also called figurative (cantus figuratus). Along with it, however, early definitions are also preserved: musica plana, cantus planus, cantus gregorianus, cantus firmus. Applied to polygonal processing of Gregorian X. the term has been used since the 16th century. (e.g., choralis Constantinus X. Isaac). The first leaders of the Reformation did not name Protestant chants X. (Luther called them korrekt canticum, psalmus, German songs; in other countries the names chant ecclésiastique, Calvin cantique, etc. were common); in relation to Protestant singing, the term is used with con. 16th century (Osiander, 1586); with con. 17th century X. is called a polygon. arrangements of Protestant melodies.

Historical the role of X. is enormous: with X. and choral arrangements in the mean. least associated with the development of Europe. composer’s art, including the evolution of mode, the emergence and development of counterpoint, harmony, music. forms. Gregorian X. absorbed or relegated to the background chronologically close and aesthetically related phenomena: Ambrosian singing, Mozarabic (it was accepted before the 11th century in Spain; the surviving source – Leon antiphonary of the 10th century cannot be deciphered by music) and Gallican singing, the few samples read testify to the relatively greater freedom of music from the text, which was favored by certain features of the Gallican liturgy. Gregorian X. is distinguished by its extreme objectivity, impersonal character (equally essential for the entire religious community). According to the teachings of the Catholic church, the invisible “divine truth” is revealed in “spiritual vision”, which implies the absence in X. of any subjectivity, human individuality; it manifests itself in the “God’s word”, therefore X.’s melody is subordinate to the liturgical text, and X. is static in the same way as “invariably once uttered by God the word.” X. – monodic lawsuit (“truth is one”), designed to isolate a person from everyday reality, to neutralize the feeling of energy of a “muscular” movement, manifested in rhythmic. regularity.

The melody of the Gregorian X. is initially contradictory: the fluidity, the continuity of the melodic whole are in unity with the relative. the independence of the sounds that make up the melody; X. is a linear phenomenon: each sound (continuous, self-sufficient at the moment) “overflows” without a trace into another, and functionally logical. the dependence between them is manifested only in the melodic whole; see Tenor (1), Tuba (4), Repercussion (2), Medianta (2), Finalis. At the same time, the unity of discontinuity (the melody consists of sounds-stops) and continuity (the deployment of the line “horizontally”) is the natural basis of X.’s predisposition to polyphony, if it is understood as the inseparability of melodic. currents (“horizontal”) and harmonic. filling (“vertical”). Without reducing the origin of polyphony to choral culture, it can be argued that X. is the substance of prof. counterpoint. The need to strengthen, condense the sound of X. not by elementary addition (for example, intensification of dynamics), but more radically – by multiplication (doubling, tripling in one interval or another), leads to going beyond the limits of monody (see Organum, Gimel, Faubourdon). The desire to maximize the volume of X.’s sound space makes it necessary to layer melodic. lines (see counterpoint), introduce imitations (similar to perspective in painting). Historically, a centuries-old union of X. and the art of polyphony has developed, manifesting itself not only in the form of various choral arrangements, but also (in a much broader sense) in the form of a special warehouse of muses. thinking: in polyphony. music (including music not associated with X.), the formation of an image is a process of renewal that does not lead to a new quality (the phenomenon remains identical to itself, since deployment involves the interpretation of the thesis, but not its negation). Just as X. is made up of a variation of a certain. melodic figures, polyphonic forms (including the later fugue) also have a variational and variant basis. The polyphony of a strict style, unthinkable outside the atmosphere of X., was the result to which the music of Zap led. European Gregorian X.

New phenomena in the field of X. were due to the onset of the Reformation, which to one degree or another covered all the countries of the West. Europe. The postulates of Protestantism are significantly different from Catholic ones, and this is directly related to the peculiarities of Protestant X. language and the conscious, active assimilation of folk song melody (see Luther M.) immeasurably strengthened the emotional and personal moment in X. (the community directly, without an intermediary priest, prays to God). Syllabic. the principle of organization, in which there is one sound per syllable, in the conditions of the predominance of poetic texts, determined the regularity of meter and the dissection of phrasing. Under the influence of everyday music, where earlier and more actively than in professional music, homophonic-harmonic sounds appeared. tendencies, the choral melody received a simple chord design. Installation for the performance of X. by the whole community, excluding complex polyphonic. presentation, favored the realization of this potency: the practice of 4-goal was widely spread. harmonizations of X., which contributed to the establishment of homophony. This did not rule out the application to the Protestant X. of the vast experience of polyphonic. processing, accumulated in the previous era, in the developed forms of Protestant music (choral prelude, cantata, “passions”). Protestant X. became the basis of the nat. prof. art-va Germany, the Czech Republic (the harbinger of Protestant X. were Hussite songs), contributed to the development of music. cultures of the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Great Britain, Poland, Hungary and other countries.

Starting from ser. 18th century major masters almost did not turn to X., and if it was used, then, as a rule, in traditions. genres (for example, in Mozart’s requiem). The reason (apart from the well-known fact that J. S. Bach brought the art of processing X. to the highest perfection) is that the aesthetics of X. (essentially, the worldview expressed in X.) has become obsolete. Having deep societies. the roots of the change that occurred in music in the middle. 18th century (see Baroque, Classicism), in the most general form manifested itself in the dominance of the idea of ​​development. The development of a theme as a violation of its integrity (i.e., symphonic-developmental, and not choral-variational), the ability to qualities. a change in the original image (the phenomenon does not remain identical to itself) – these properties distinguish new music and thereby negate the method of thinking inherent in the art of the previous time and embodied primarily in the contemplative, metaphysical X. In the music of the 19th century. the appeal to X., as a rule, was determined by the program (“Reformation Symphony” by Mendelssohn) or by the plot (opera “Huguenots” by Meyerbeer). Choral quotations, primarily the Gregorian sequent Dies irae, have been used as a symbol with a well-established semantics; X. was used often and in a variety of ways as an object of stylization (the beginning of the 1st act of the opera The Nuremberg Mastersingers by Wagner). The concept of chorality developed, which generalized the genre features of X. — chordal warehouse, unhurried, measured movement, and seriousness of character. At the same time, the specific figurative content varied widely: the chorality served as the personification of rock (the overture-fantasy “Romeo and Juliet” by Tchaikovsky), a means of embodying the sublime (fp. Prelude, chorale and fugue by Frank) or a detached and mournful state (2nd part of the symphony No 4 Bruckner), sometimes, being an expression of the spiritual, holiness, was opposed to the sensual, sinful, recreated by other means, forming a beloved romantic. antithesis (the operas Tannhäuser, Parsifal by Wagner), occasionally became the basis of grotesque images – romantic (the finale of Berlioz’s Fantastic Symphony) or satirical (the singing of the Jesuits in the “Scene under Kromy” from Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”). Romanticism opened up great expressive possibilities in combinations of X. with signs of decomp. genres (X. and fanfare in the side part of Liszt’s sonata in h-moll, X. and lullaby in g-moll nocturne op. 15 No 3 by Chopin, etc.).

In the music of the 20th century X. and chorality continue to be a means of translating Ch. arr. severe asceticism (the Gregorian in spirit, the 1st movement of Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms), spirituality (the ideally sublime concluding chorus from Mahler’s 8th symphony) and contemplation (“Es sungen drei Engel” in the 1st movement and “Lauda Sion Salvatorem” in the finale of Hindemith’s symphony “The Painter Mathis”. The ambiguity of X., outlined by the suit of the romantics, turns into a 20th century. into semantic universality: X. as a mysterious and colorful characteristic of the time and place of action (fp. prelude “The Sunken Cathedral” by Debussy), X. as the basis of music. an image expressing cruelty, ruthlessness (“The Crusaders in Pskov” from the cantata “Alexander Nevsky” by Prokofiev). X. can become an object of parody (4th variation from the symphonic poem “Don Quixote” by R. Strauss; “The Story of a Soldier” by Stravinsky), included in Op. as a collage (X. “Es ist genung, Herr, wenn es dir gefällt” from Bach’s Cantata No. 60 in the finale of Berg’s Violin Concerto).

References: see at Art. Ambrosian chant, Gregorian chant, Protestant chant.

TS Kyuregyan