Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century

the continuations of the first and last “Christe” phrases. This brings about another playful switch of
functions between “filling” and “bread,” and it also means that the “eleison” phrases following the first
and last “Christe” phrases were another detachable refrain, alternating with the first. Wheels within
wheels!

The last threefold acclamation, like the others, is a sandwich; its filling is the same as that of the
second sandwich (namely a variant of the bread in the first). The final acclamation is augmented by an
internal melisma that repeats the melody of the entire first Kyrie; but then, in order to end on the final
rather than the tuba, the second Kyrie is recapitulated, too, so that the last word is sung to the original
“eleison” refrain. The entire subtly interwoven and integrated formal scheme looks like Table 3-2.

Thus a sort of “rondo” scheme (AbAcAcdAdA) crosscuts the trio of sandwiches, and a single
dynamic pitch trajectory, from the bottom of the Hypodorian tetrachord to the top of the authentic Dorian
tetrachord, seems to describe a progression from darkness to light (or, in terms of mood, from abjection to
rejoicing) that accords with the implied (or hoped-for) answer to the prayer, the more so as the peak of
the melodic range coincides with the peak of melismatic “jubilation.” Finally, the melody’s tonal
regularity, with its alternation of cadences on final and tuba a fifth apart, was a permanent “Western”
acquisition. It would outlast the modal system that gave rise to it.

TABLE   3-2 Structure   of  Kyrie   IX

For a final indication of the Frankish passion for formal rounding and regularity, compare the
concluding item in the Ordinary formulary initiated by Kyrie IX, the dismissal formula (Ex. 3-6). It is set
to the same melody as the opening “Kyrie eleison” in Ex. 3-5, the phrase designated “A(x)” in Table 3-2,
which recurred throughout the litany and came back out of retirement to conclude it. The whole Mass
service is thus effectively rounded off the same way the Kyrie was, with a significant melodic refrain.
The Frankish ambition to use music as a shaping and a unifying force is exercised here at the highest
possible level.

EX. 3-6 Ite/deo gratias from    Mass    IX

VERSUS

The same urge to regularize tonally and formally, and to use the two stabilizing dimensions to reinforce
one another, can be seen in late Frankish sequences as well, together with the additional regularizing