ecstatic, these are dynamic, strongly etched, and therefore highly memorable (as congregational songs
need to be). The influence of “theory” on them was in no way an inhibition. Quite the contrary; it seems to
have been an enormous spur to the Frankish musical imagination, leading to a great burst of indigenous
musical composition in the north of Europe, contributing a new (and lasting) kind of musical beauty.
To savor this new Frankish style at its best and most characteristic, let us have a look at a melody
composed around 1100, after mode theory had a century or more in which to establish itself in singers’
consciousness: Kyrie IX, which bears the subtitle Cum jubilo (“with a shout”) after its perhaps original
texted form (Ex. 3-5). Never yet have we seen a melody that, by so clearly parsing itself into the
“principal parts” of its mode, advertises the fact that the mode, as a concept, preceded and conditioned
the composition of the melody.
EX. 3-5 Kyrie IX, Cum jubiloConsider first the opening threefold acclamation. The first eight notes of the opening “Kyrie” exactly
stake out the modal pentachord. The rest of the phrase decorates the final with the characteristic “Dorian”
lower neighbor. The second acclamation begins by staking out the lower tetrachord just as the first had
staked out the pentachord. It then proceeds like the first. The third is a full repetition of the first. Summing
up the pattern of repetitions, we find that the opening threefold litany mirrors in melodic microcosm the
shape of the entire ninefold text: a melodic ABA or “sandwich” form nested within a textual ABA
(threefold Kyrie/threefold Christe/threefold Kyrie). At the same time, the melisma on “-e,” plus the
“eleison” (into which the melisma flows smoothly by vowel elision), are the same every time, reflecting
the old practice of choral refrains. Hence, the overall shape of the opening threefold acclamation could be
represented as A(x) B(x) A(x). So far the melody conforms closely to the principal parts of mode 2, the
Hypodorian (with the refrain dwelling significantly on F, the tuba).
The first “Christe,” consisting for the most part of turn figures around A, substitutes the tuba of the
authentic Dorian for that of the plagal and similarly emphasizes it; this gives us an inkling that the chant is
going to encompass a commixed mode. As to overall shape, the threefold Christe is also cast, like the
previous threefold acclamation, in an ABA design that mirrors in melodic microcosm the overall form of
the text. But note one playful detail: what fills the Christe sandwich is a variant of what was the “bread”
in the Kyrie sandwich.
The concluding threefold acclamation begins by confirming the impression that this will be a modus
commixtus chant. Compare the new intonation on “Kyrie” with the “filling” of the first Kyrie sandwich. It
is the same motive an octave higher, now staking out the upper tetrachord and completing the authentic
Dorian scale. (Because of the many repetitions this motive will receive in the higher octave, the complete
melody is classified as a mode 1 chant.) And now notice that the continuation on “eleison” is a variant of