Abstract

The Order of Preachers possesses a venerable chant tradition that dates back to the thirteenth century. This essay describes Dominican chant, showing how it developed as a consequence of the attitudes to the liturgy expressed in the Ancient Constitutions of the Order of Preachers. These constitutions stressed that the liturgy was to be performed with careful attention to bodily posture, with a succinctness and brevity that would allow time for study and preaching, and with gradations of solemnity that would express the inner hierarchy of parts of the liturgy and of the liturgical year. After the initial development of the repertoire, Dominican chant has gone through periods of decline and revival, which are briefly traced in this article together with a consideration of the place of the chant in the contemporary practice of the Order. Throughout the last eight centuries, the chant of the Order of Preachers has played an important role in the inculcation and preservation of Dominican identity within the Order and in the lives of individual friars and sisters.

Highlights

  • Dominican chant is a dialect of the Latin liturgical chant repertoire popularly known as Gregorian chant

  • 18 In the last decade, scans of most of the 19th and 20th-century editions of the Dominican chant have become available on the Internet, and new editions of the Dominican chant repertoire have been prepared for liturgical use in various provinces of the Order according to the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite

  • The fundamental characteristics of this attitude are recognition of an integral link between chant and the body, an emphasis on communal celebration of the liturgy that allows for the absence of individuals, a practice of performing chants briefly and succinctly, and a sophisticated sensitivity to gradations of solemnity. These attitudes led to the development of a distinct chant repertoire in the mid-13th century as an expression of these fundamental approaches

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Summary

Introduction

Dominican chant is a dialect of the Latin liturgical chant repertoire popularly known as Gregorian chant. When St. For a broad overview of Latin liturgical chant, see [1], especially the consideration of various repertoires and reforms of. St. Dominic instituted a mode of governance (perhaps modeled in certain respects on the Order of Cîteaux founded in the previous century) in which friars from local communities would participate in a representative form of centralized governance by means of Provincial and General Chapters and by means of visitations in which superiors of the Order could inspect the mode of life of local communities in order to ensure a flourishing of communal and apostolic life. Dominican chants often share their texts with the broader Roman rite but often feature melodic variations from the broader repertoire. Today, these variant melodies may still be sung in celebrations of the Mass and Liturgy of the Hours in the contemporary Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Brief and succinct consideration will be given to the distinctive aspects and history of the Dominican chant repertoire

Dominican Chant and the Body
The Constitutiones Antiquae and Dominican Chant
Communal Dimensions of Dominican Chant
Pauses in Dominican Chant
Gradations in Solemnity
History of the Dominican Chant Repertoire
Conclusions
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