The service of the Word proper contains two musical interludes to complement the reading of the Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel. The first of which is the Gradual, the second, the Alleluia and Verse.
I.
Similar to the Introit and Offertory, the Gradual supplies another use of psalmody within the Divine Service. Unlike the Introit and the Offertory, however, the Gradual does not merely function as travelling music to cover the movement or preparation of the presiding minister. The psalmody of the Gradual is intended to biblically complement the Lesson that it accompanies, expressing similar language and themes, and thus functions much like a Lesson. It keys the audience into the grammar of the psalter and thus also how the church has historically prayed and sung the theological content of the Lessons at hand. That said, the Gradual does also serve the practical function of breaking up back to back readings with singing, however, this is in a sense incidental to its nature.
In its earliest history, entire psalms were chanted responsively with the congregation as the Gradual, although as time wore on, the responsive part of the congregation was sometimes taken up by a choir. Sometime between the 5th and 6th centuries, the traditional use of an entire psalm was limited to only one or two verses. During this same time period, the name “Gradual” also came into popular use to describe this part of the service. The title likely comes from the Latin, "gradus” which can be translated either as “step” or “degree.” In the early centuries of the church, the “step” in question would be the step below the ambo (where the Lessons were read) from which the kantor would chant the Gradual. In later centuries when the ambo was replaced by the altar as the location of reading, the “step” was the step from the southern to the northern horn of the altar from which the Old Testament/Epistle and Gospel were read respectively.
About the same time that the Gradual was shortened is also when the First Lesson (Old Testament) was dropped. When this lesson was lost, so was the Gradual’s original purpose. However, because the Gradual had curried such favor among the populus, the chanting of the Gradual didn’t pass away, but was combined with the singing of the Alleluia, such that the congregation would chant the Gradual with the Alleluia as bookends around it. In Luther’s reforms of the mass he maintained the Gradual in the Formula Missae, but in the Deutsche Messe he replaced the Gradual with a Graduallied, a Gradual hymn in the vernacular. The Graduallied’s of the German Mass are the origin for our modern practice of having a “Hymn of the Day” before the sermon. Later Lutherans substituted choral pieces in place of the Gradual, for which many of Johann Sebastian Bach’s famous cantatas were written.
Lutheran Service Book provides a full complement of Graduals for both the one-year and three-year lectionaries. The Graduals for the one-year lectionary are based on the historic texts that were handed down from the Reformation and demonstrate a high degree of correspondence to the given Sunday Lessons. The Graduals for the three-year lectionary are repeated seasonally and bear a greater correspondence to the theme of the season than the individual Sundays.
Practically speaking, the Gradual ought to be chanted or sung as with all the other usages of the psalms. Minimally it can be chanted responsively between the Kantor and congregation, however, maximally it can be sung by a choir to a much more dynamic choral setting. Especially for feast days and festivals, the choral settings are to be preferred to highlight the festal nature of the day.
II.
The acclamation “Alleluia” in the Divine Service is one of the most unique portions of the service in that throughout the church’s history, regardless of what language the mass is conducted in, Alleluia is always alleluia. It is one of only a handful of words that has remained untranslated and universally used. In Hebrew “Alleluia” means, “Praise, ye, the LORD,” and thus in our Divine Service it is always an acclamation of celebration and praise. In the Old Testament, this acclamation appears 23 times and serves as something of an antiphon for a number of liturgical psalms (Pss. 104-106, 111-113, 115-117, 135, 146-150) which find their home in the Temple service of Israel. In the New Testament, “Alleluia” appears only four times, but always on the lips of the heavenly hosts worshipping before the throne of God (Rev 19:1-6). In this connection, St. Augustine preaches in an Eastertide sermon, “Yet after the toil of this world the Alleluia will be repeated continuously. And now what, my brothers and sisters? May we sing it as vigorously as we can so that we might sing it forever. Then the Alleluia… will be our food… our drink…our repast…and our total joy.” In contrast to other liturgical and biblical acclamations like the “Kyrie Eleison,” which will pass away on the Last Day, the “Alleluia” of the church will never pass away eternally.
The use of the Alleluias as a preparation for the reading of the Gospel lesson is a practice that probably originated with the church in Rome and their Easter celebrations which was then expanded to include all the Sundays of the year. Its pride of place in Easter is evident in the overwhelming inclusion of the Alleluia in Eastertide hymnody, both ancient and modern. In the Middle Ages by common consensus the Alleluia came to be omitted during the season of Lent to reflect the somber, penitential, and reserved nature of the season. During this same period, the Alleluia garnered much artistic attention. Choral settings of the Alleluia increased in number, variety, and extravagance. It came into vogue to extend the final syllable of the Alleluia into a very ornate “melisma” such that the -ia of Alleluia encompassed several or more notes, comparable in style to the word “Gloria” in “Angels We Have Heard on High” (LSB 368) which makes use of 16 notes for the first syllable of “Gloria.” In order to learn these highly elaborate melismas, it was the habit to set them to religious texts so that the notes were distributed into distinct words instead of a single vowel sound. Over time these texts or “sequences” became so popular that they grew into an art form in their own right. As Lutherans we are inheritors and appreciators of these sequences as they were the inspiration for many of Luther’s most popular hymns like “Christ Jesus Lay in Death’s Strong Bands,” “Come, Holy Ghost, God and Lord,” etc. Furthermore, in his reforms of the mass, Luther retains the traditional use of the Alleluia as the proper acclamation before the reading of the Gospel, even during the season of Lent (!), following the comments of Augustine that the Alleluia is the eternal anthem of the church.
Lutheran Service Book includes a number of settings of the Alleluia in our various settings of the Divine Service. Settings three and four provide for the opportunity to make use of the historic Proper Verses which are chanted with the Alleluia forming an inclusio round about it (i.e. alleluia, verse, alleluia). Settings one and two, and setting four include a Common Verse from John 6:68 and John 20:31 respectively which can be used regardless of Sunday or season. In addition to these, the liturgical music section of Lutheran Service Book provides two settings of the Alleluia, LSB 951 from the Taize community which allows for the verse to be sung, and LSB 951 which does not provide for a verse. The Verses provided for the one-year lectionary are typically from the psalter, whereas the Verses provided for the three-year lectionary are typically drawn from the text of the Gospel as a sort of theme or key verse. For feast days and festivals, much like the Gradual, choral settings of the Verses are available and encouraged.
Rev. Philip Bartelt
Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd
Rorate Coeli, 2024
