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Ennis Fruhauf
Plainchant Hymn Tunes
Settings for Organ
Méditation
on Adoro Te Devote (2 pages)Notes (2 pages)
Méditation on Adoro Te Devote sets one of the more recently composed plainchant hymn tunes from the existing body of repertoire; although its roots might extend further back in time, it first appeared in the Paris Processionale in 1697. It is one of a newer genre of chant melodies that arose in France, characterized by a measured sense of rhythm, even though unmetered, and one that makes use of the modern major and minor modes, instead of the traditional church modes. Méditation exaggerates the metric qualities of the chant, with its canonic imitation of phrases of the melody between voices, over a steady syncopated two-voice pedal line. After a briefly contrasted episodic interpolation, the hymn tune returns in its original key for a complete solo statement that alternates between the soprano and tenor voices.
Pr
élude on Adoro Te Devote similarly exploits the measured qualities of this plainchant tune, with a canonic presentation of the entire melody between two voices, the upper voice sounding in actual note values, and the lower voice in augmentation (i.e., in note values that are doubled and moving at half the speed of the upper voice). Following a rhapsodically developmental and modulatory episode, the plainchant appears in the tenor, accompanied in the right hand by rocking triads and pedalpoints. After a brief retransition to the original key, a variant of the opening canonic treatment returns, this time between the left hand and pedal, with the addition of a rich chordal accompaniment in the right hand. For the last phrase, the texture thins back again and diminishes to a tranquilly imitative ending.Fantaisie on Conditor Alme Siderum offers an extraordinarily rhapsodic treatment of the traditional Mode IV plainsong associated with the text from which the tune title is derived. Each of the four phrases of the chant are introduced by brief unison statments and followed by running eighth note passages in the left hand, harmonized in the right hand, all above the slow-moving augmented cantus firmus presentation of the plainchant in the pedal. In the treatment of the second phrase, the left hand divides into two freely imitative voices. Following a brief episode, the third phrase introduces an insistently imitative and phrased motiv in the left hand that intensifies the textures of the setting and is again episodically extended. The fourth phrase returns to the textures of the first phrase, with the left hand reduced again to a single-voice line until the concluding pedalpoint, where it breaks into two voices and is accompanied by harmonically dramatic turns. In contrast to the conservative modal nature of the plainsong, Fantaisie displays significant tonal instabilities, beginning as it does in D major, with the chant stated in the key of A major in the pedal; it concludes with a final cadence on a C-sharp major chord, adding a final surprise to the unusually rich tonal drama of the setting.
Prélude et Choral Fugué sur le chant grégorien Conditor Alme Siderum is an extended composition that offers multiple treatments of the plainchant melody. The prelude is a loosely imitative motet setting in which the four phrases of the chant are sounded in augmentation in the soprano, above points of imitation that occur in the lower voices. The Choral Fugué opens each successive section of the four phrases of the chant with a declamatory statement in which the tune appears in its original temporal note values in the left hand, accompanied in the right hand by bold chords moving in parallel motion, stating the melody in augmentation, all over a sustained tonic pedalpoint. Each of the four declamations concludes with imitative repetitions of its chant phrase in multiple voices, and is followed in turn by a contrastingly light and dancing three-voice fugato treatment of the notes of the appropriate melodic phrase. A brief and dramatic coda returns to the declamatory textures of the opening of the Choral Fugué, pealing forth with a boldly imitative ‘Amen .’
Pr
éambule on Divinum Mysterium presents the planchant tune of a Sanctus Trope dating from the 11th century that subsequently appeared in Piae Cantione Ecclesiasticae et Scholasticae, published in 1582 by Theodoricis Petri of Finland. In the middle of the 19th century, it was adapted by Thomas Helmore as a setting of the now familiar text, "Of the Father’s love begotten." Préambule presents a single statement of the melody, phrase by phrase. Starting in the soprano, the tune is harmonized in the left hand over an extended tonic pedalpoint; at a midpoint, the melody migrates to the tenor voice for two phrases, returning to the soprano for the final phrase and a brief cadential extension.Pr
élude en canon on Divinum Mysterium provides a quasi-canonic treatment of the plainchant melody between the soprano and alto voices of the right hand, accompanied by two-voice points of imitation in the left hand. The canon appears at unfixed harmonic intervals, tonalities, and temporal intervals, and at two points the voices do not even overlap. The flowing textures and rich harmonies continue to the end, with only occasional use of the organ pedal for slower-moving sustained pitches.Acclamation on Pange Lingua Gloriosi, a chant which first appeared in the 14th century Zisterzienser Hymnar, sets a relatively unaltered form of the original Mode III plainsong melody in a dramatic manner. Alternating between declamatory octave statements and bold chordal interpolations of successive phrases, an imitative midsection presents two more phrases. A return of the opening treatment is concluded by a final ‘Amen.’
Improvisation on Pange Lingua sets a more contemporary version of the Mode III plainchant, one that has been adapted for use with later poetic translations of the original Latin text. In pairs of two phrases that are each punctuated by brief cadential pauses, the melody is presented in successive points of imitation from one voice to the next. A stirring plainsong ‘Amen’ draws this gently rambling setting to a muted conclusion.
Copyright © 2005 Ennis Fruhauf
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