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[German Version] (Jan 31, 1862, Billerbeck – Apr 8, 1932, Königstein), Jesuit hymnologist and liturgist. After graduating from Stella Matutina, the Jesuit gymnasium in Feldkirch (A) (1878), he entered the Jesuit order. From 1886 to 1897 he was professor of classical languages at Stella Matutina. While in Munich from 1903 to 1909, he engaged in extensive studies of Latin hymnology; in 1909 he became professor of liturgics at the Jesuit seminary of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt. Besides many major and minor studies on theological and hymnological topics, his primary work is the edition of Ana…

[German Version] (Dec 22, 1858, Lucca – Nov 29, 1924, Brussels), was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father Michele as a church musician, but in 1880 he began studying with Amilcare Ponchielli in Milan and became an opera composer. Following his first operas, Le Villi, Edgar, and Manon Lescaut, he achieved international fame as a master of verismo with La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), and Madame Butterfly (four versions, 1904–1906). After his “horse opera” La Fanciulla del West and the operetta La Rondine, Puccini wrote three one-acters: Il Tabarro, Suor Angelica (for women’s ¶ vo…

[German Version] ( Officium tenebrarum) is the special form combining Matins and Lauds (Liturgy of the hours) on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of Passion Week which was in use until 1970. One of the 15 candles burning on a special candelabra was extinguished after each psalm (three times three in Matins and five in Lauds) or after the Benedictus, so that the end of the service took place in tenebris, in the dark. In the Middle Ages, the Tenebrae had special concluding prayers and songs, including congregational hymns; according to the Roman use Ps 51(50), the Miserere, was sung again. …

[German Version] (Aug 19, 1865, Kürenz, near Trier – Oct 17, 1931, Fribourg), musicologist. After training with Michael Hermesdorff at the cathedral in Trier, he studied in Straßburg (Strasbourg) with Gustav Jacobsthal and in Berlin with Heinrich Bellermann and P. Spitta. In 1893 he received his habilitation from Fribourg and taught there as a lecturer; he was appointed associate professor in 1897 and full professor in 1902. In 1920/1921 he served as rector. In 1901 he founded the Gregorian Academ…

[German Version] I. Term and Genre – II. Old Testament – III. New Testament – IV. Liturgical Studies I. Term and Genre The Greek word ὕμνος/ hýmnos, whose etymology is obscure, originally meant, quite unspecifically, simply “song” (the verb ὑμνεῖν/ hymneín, “ to sing”; cf. Hes. Theog. 11.33; Hom. Hym. 3.178, etc.). Yet, from the ¶ 5th/4th century bce at the latest, it meant “song for a god” (cf. Plato, Leges 700 b 1–2; Xenophanes 21 B 1.13 DK; Xenophon, Cyrupaideia 18.1.23) and thence became the general term for “religious song,” and finally for “festival song,” “song o…

[German Version] I. Liturgy – II. Music I. Liturgy 1. Catholic The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II treats Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy; other things being equal, it should have pride of place (art. 116). This status, which does not judge other forms of church music, is based on the timelessly valid manner in which Gregorian chant is part of the liturgy itself; it is a musical expression of the biblical word in the context of liturgical theology and its primary…

[German Version] I. History of the Discipline – II. Current State of Research The study of church music is a relatively new scholarly field that endeavors comprehensively to collect, investigate, interpret, transmit, and also make usable in practice our knowledge about the practical and theoretical aspects of church music. The multifaceted contexts of church music must thereby be incorporated, including liturgy and liturgical theology, similarities and differences with re…

[German Version] I. Historical Development – II. The Roman Mass – III. The Mass and Protestant Worship – IV. Music I. Historical Development The roots of the mass go back to Jewish communal meals and New Testament accounts of Jesus' table fellowship (Eucharist/Communion) with his followers from different backgrounds, including sinners and outsiders. Finally his instruction to “do this in remembrance of me” points to future consummation beyond death. The structure of remembrance ( zakar) means more than just recollection; it brings the salvation wrought through Chr…

[German Version] The oratio tone is the model for the chant of the priest’s prayers in the name of the congregation, or liturgies, especially oratios (collects/prayer of the day, super oblata/prayer over the gifts, post communionem/concluding prayer/prayer of thanksgiving), in the broader sense also cantillation formulas for eucharistic prayers (esp. the preface, verba testamenti), the Paternoster etc. with the same structure and significance as reading tones. Cantillated prayers are the oldest form of liturgical communication in words; some autho…

[German Version] conclude the daily Catholic liturgy of the hours (III); they are sung after Compline and in the German Stundenbuch also after Vespers (III). Although they were originally antiphons to psalms (IV) or the Magnificat , since the 12th/13th century they have been independent chants without psalmody – possibly resulting from the practice of commemoration – sung in praise of Mary at the time in the evening when, according to medieval belief, the archangel Gabriel spoke his χαῖρε/ chaíre (Luke 1:28): a daily memorial of the incarnation and a reference to the chris…

[German Version] is the English version of the Roman Catholic Ordo Initiationis Puerorum qui aetatem catecheticam adepti sunt, published in 1985 by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy. This special section of the Rite for the Christian Initiation of Adults must not be confused with the rite of baptism for children. Franz Karl Praßl Bibliography The Rites of the Catholic Church, publ. International Committee on English in the Liturgy, vol. I, 1990.

[German Version] The term psalmody denotes the recital manner (cantillation) of the psalms and canticles of the Old and New Testaments (psalm tones). In its basic structure and function it resembles the reading tones and oration tones. Psalm tones follow the literary structure of the psalms and serve to make their acoustic quality clear (one verse consists of two half-verses: parallelismus membrorum). In the cantillation system of the Latin West, a psalm tone consists of three elements: recitation tone (tenor, tuba), intonation formula ( initium or reintonation at the start of …

[German Version] is the English version of the Roman Catholic Ordo initiationis christianae adultorum (1972) for the admission of adults into the Church by catechumenate and initiation (baptism, confirmation, first communion), published in 1985 by the International Committee on English in the Liturgy (subsequently dissolved by Rome). Franz Karl Praßl Bibliography The Rites of the Catholic Church, publ. International Committee on English in the Liturgy, vol. I, 1990.

[German Version] I. Liturgy – II. Music I. Liturgy Historically, the German term Altargesang relates to texts that are sung only by the priest during the mass (celebrant's prayer), and in a broader sense to all sung parts of the liturgy that are led by a celebrant: collects, verses, litanies, Gospel and Epistle readings, responses between choir and congregation, blessings as well as the intoning of the Kyrie, the Gloria and the Creed. The churches of ¶ the Reformation added new compositions for the choir and the congregation. Luther's Deutsche Messe (1526) as a psalm or a hymn as I…

[German Version] I. Catholic – II. Orthodox I. Catholic 1. General Introduction and History The binding nature of its basic elements (Scripture reading, the breaking of bread [Eucharist/Communion]) notwithstanding, the liturgy was initially celebrated quite freely with improvised prayers by the presiding priest (Just. 1 Apol. 67). Later on, model texts (Hipp., Traditio Apostolica ) served as points of reference. From the 4th century onwards, the major ecclesiastical centers (Antioch, Alexandria, Rome, Jerusalem, Byzantium…

[German Version] I. Religious Studies In societies that must adapt and respond to an environment dominated by marked seasonal variations (Seasons), the rhythms of the year are fundamental to the economic and social life of the community. Each New Year festival reflects a specific social structure, which is characterized in turn by a specific perception and assessment of the natural environment. Therefore a phenomenological listing of the various religious elements of the festival does not do justice …

[German Version] I. Old Gallican Liturgy – II. New Gallican Liturgy I. Old Gallican Liturgy First attested in 416 in the letter of Pope Innocent I to Bishop Decentius of Gubbio, this liturgy was replaced by the Roman-Frankish rite after 750. It was employed throughout Gaul and in parts of Italy and had many local variants whose dissemination by and large conformed to the provincial division of the Roman Empire. Numerous influences from Spain, Syria, and Constantinople enriched its literature and theology. As…

[German Version] (Internationale Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Hymnologie, IAH). The IAH promotes and studies church singing (Singing: III). Church song, open forms of singing and the hymnal are the subjects of international, ecumenical, and interdisciplinary (theology, musicology, linguistics and literature, bibliography, folklore) scholarly study, primarily at conferences and through the promotion of hymnological projects (Hymnology) – often in cooperation with academic institutions – and also in rela…

[German Version] Even after the establishment of the “Gregorian” chant (Gregorian chant) around the year 900, samples of Gallican chant were preserved by a tradition-conscious oral transmission, and later transcribed. This repertoire is found in the Gregorian Codices, intermixed with the new chants. Gallican chants entered the Roman-Frankish liturgy where no Roman parallels were available (e.g. Introitus “Omnes gentes” for the 13th week of the year). They also serve as alternatives to standard ¶ chants (Greek/Latin Cherubic Hymn [Cherubikon] as Offertorium on Trinitatis) or r…

[German Version] I. Liturgics A tract is a psalmodically structured solo chant before the Gospel; it replaces the Alleluia during Lent and on the Ember Days. The name derives either from tractim (sung continuously) or from tractus in the sense of “extended,” or as a translation of εἰρμός/ eirmós, in the sense of a melodic type. The tract was chanted by a cantor in directum, i.e. without a respond by the congregation – as an additional lection rather than as a response. It has often been suggested that the tract is among the earliest mass chants, a remnant of…