Musical Offerings ⦁ 2024 ⦁ Volume 15 ⦁ Number 1 3 ceasing”9 which manifested in the Offices through the distribution of the Hours throughout the day. No more than four or five hours passed between daytime Hours and the regular reminders to praise the Lord. The sections of the day were divided by the Hours, essentially tying church and monastic life to the Scriptures and prayer. Continual praise and a posture of reverence were St. Benedict’s objectives as he sought to follow the commands from the Psalms to sing at all times to the Lord who is ever-watching.10 His organization of daily services never strayed far from the spirit of the Psalms. Psalmody also has formal precedent through the influence of the papacy. Roman liturgical practice was intensely focused on the Psalms as evidenced by the proclamations of multiple popes as recorded in Liber pontifacilis (The Book of Popes), a chronicle of the lives of the early popes that was first compiled in the seventh century.11 Pope Damus decreed that “the psalms should be chanted day and night in all the churches … and monasteries” and Pope Celestine I “appointed that the 150 Psalms of David should be chanted antiphonally before the sacrifice by everyone.”12 Although the Offices are primarily associated with rural monastic life, this papal attention to psalmody shows that the whole fabric of religious life, starting even from the top of the church hierarchy, was deeply concerned with the Psalms. The Benedictine Offices merely popularized a standardization of what was already a common practice, and their founder’s dedication to the Psalms was realized their content. Of the three musical elements of the Benedictine Offices, two, the antiphon and the responsory, derived most of their text from the Psalms. An antiphon is traditionally sung by two choirs alternating verses or half verses from a psalm. A prominent phrase is selected as a quasi-refrain (also called an antiphon) and could be interspersed throughout the chant.13 The text from this refrain antiphon also became the name for the antiphon as a whole. Antiphons make up the majority of elements within the Offices and are the chief means for singing through the Psalter.14 Responsories are musically more elaborate than antiphons and follow 9 Dobszay, 2. 10 St. Benedict, 164. 11 Loomis, xxi. 12 Loomis, 82–83, 92. 13 Weinmann, 20. 14 Weinmann, 19.
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