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Chants for the Mass |
The gradual contains the sung portions of the mass, particularly the chants for feasts, Sundays, and the common of saints. In each mass several chants were "proper" to the occasion (introit, gradal, sequence, alleluia replaced by a Tract in penitential seasons, offertory, and communion). The ordinary chants were those sung at every mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and Ite Missa Est). While the melodies of the ordinary chants varied, their texts did not, except through the addition of tropes (poetic interpolations). graduals from the high and late Middle Ages may incorporate material that earlier was contained in separate books or sections: the kyriale (containing choir chants of the Ordinary of the Mass), the cantatorium (a book for soloists, containing the gradual and Alleluia, the solo chants of the Proper), the earlier type of gradual (containing choral chants of the Proper), the sequentiary or proser (containing sequences, also called proses) and the troper (containing troped versions of various chants).
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