No fewer than four stichic settings of the Justus ut palma verse are found in the original Gregorian
corpus of “Mass propers,” the psalmodic chants for the yearly round of feasts, recorded formulary by
formulary in the early Carolingian antiphoners. Like the Office chants, they are more or less elaborate
depending on the occasion and the liturgical function they accompany. All of the examples from the Mass
are given in square notation, as they are found in the Liber usualis, an anthology of the basic chants for
Mass and Office, issued by the Benedictine monks of Solesmes for the use of Catholic congregations
following the official adoption of their restored version by Papal decree in 1903.
The Justus ut palma verse, being an encomium (that is, an expression of praise), is particularly
suitable for Mass formularies honoring saints. As an Introit antiphon (Ex. 1-4) it is sung in tandem with
the next verse in its parent psalm at Masses commemorating saints who were priests but not bishops (or
confessors but not martyrs). Then comes “Bonum est,” the opening verse of Psalm 91 (plus the obligatory
doxology, given in a space-saving abbreviation), sung to an accentus tone—the vestigial remains of full
cursive psalmody such as now survives only in the Office. Being Mass chants, though, both the antiphon
and the vestigial verse are considerably more elaborate, indeed rhetorical, than their Office counterparts.
The antiphon has a few compound neumes verging on the melismatic style. The very first syllable is
set to a seven-note complex that ends with a long drawn-out, throbbing triple note (tristropha). Over
palma there is a three-note ascent (salicus), immediately followed by a climacus (cf. “climax”), a three-
note descent from a high note (virga, meaning “staff” or “walking stick” after its shape), the latter being
sung twice for additional emphasis (bivirga). The highest note, a full octave above the lowest note (on
ut), is reached in the middle of a torculus on -ca-, which is then coupled with a clivis to produce a five-
note complex. The final phrase of the antiphon, Dei nostri, returns three times to the lowest note before
cadencing on D. Overall, the antiphon thus describes the same graceful, characteristic arclike shape we
have already observed in microcosm in the Office psalm tones. Meanwhile, the psalm tone used here, in a
festal Mass, is almost as pneumatically ornate as the Office antiphons already examined.
The pair of “alleluia” exclamations that comes between the antiphon and the verse is sung when the
saint’s commemoration happens to fall during the fifty-day period after Easter known as Paschal Time, the
gladdest season of the church year.
EX. 1-4 Justus ut palma as IntroitThe Offertory and the Communion, the psalmodic chants of the Eucharist, have by now been entirely
shorn of their psalm verses, which in the case of the Offertory were once very elaborate indeed. They are
sung as free-standing antiphons amounting to autonomous stichic “arias” for the choir. The Offertory on
Justus ut palma is sung at a Mass commemorating a saint who was a “Doctor of the Church,” especially
distinguished for wisdom and learning. (Many of the early Church Fathers whose pronouncements have
been quoted in this chapter belong to this category.)
The setting (Ex. 1-5) is even more ornate than the foregoing example: each of the words set to