Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 4.djvu/673

GREGORIAN TONES. Third Tone, divided into its five proper sections:&mdash;

(a) The last notes of the Antiphon, as sung before the Psalm. (b) The Intonation, leading to (c) The First Reciting-Note. (d) The Mediation. (e) The Second Reciting-Note. (f) The Ending. (g) The first notes of the Antiphon, as resumed, after the Psalm.

The following Table shows the Tones, with their various endings, in the form now formally authorised by the Congregation of Rites. The Festal and Ferial Mediations are common to all the Endings of their respective Tones.

The above forms, believed to approach more nearly to the primitive purity of the Psalm-Tones than any other version now known to be in existence, differ considerably, both from those given in the Mechlin Office-Books, which are, for the most part, more elaborate, and from those found in the Sarum Psalter, and adapted to the English 'Psalter Noted,' by theRev. T. Helmore, some few of which are a little less complex. For many centuries, most of the great Dioceses on the Continent vaunted a special 'Use' of their own; and in France, especially, the practice of Machicotage led to the indefinite multiplication of forms peculiarly ornate and impure, yet none the less, in certain cases, extremely beautiful. Some of these, vulgarly known in England as 'Parisian Gregorians,' though more frequently taken from the 'Use' of Rouen, are extremely popular in London Churches; they are all, howver, more or less corrupt, and differ materially in style from the true Gregorian Tones.