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Tract

(Lat. tractus: drawn out). A chant replacing the alleluia of the Mass
on a limited number of occasions.

1. Definition.

The tract is a solo chant of considerable melodic elaboration that

follows the gradual in the Masses of several penitential occasions. It
thus occupies the same position as does the alleluia on all non-
penitential dates of the liturgical year. Ordo romanus I (c700), which
has the earliest unequivocal reference to the tract, describes the
relationship of the three solo chants of the Fore-Mass as follows:
After the subdeacon has finished reading [the Epistle], a cantor
holding a cantatorium ascends [the ambo] and sings the gradual
[responsum]. If it be the season to sing the alleluia, then yes; if,
however, not, then the tract; if neither, then only the gradual. If the
tract and alleluia appear to be subject to analogous assignment
according to the liturgical season, the tract was the chant used much
more selectively; in Rome it was sung only on the Sundays of the
Lenten season, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and on an
additional handful of penitential ferias and Lenten sanctoral dates. It
thus has a much smaller repertory than other chants of the Mass
Proper.

The tract is distinguished from the gradual and alleluia in its manner
of performance, being sung neither responsorially nor antiphonally
but directly (in directum), that is, its verses, generally derived in order
from a psalm, were sung one after the other by a soloist without
intervening choral responses. AMALARIUS OF METZ (d c850) cites
this as the single characteristic that separates the tract from the
gradual: hoc differtur inter reponsorium, cui corus respondet, et
tractum, cui nemo (this is the difference between the responsory, to
which the chorus responds, and the tract, to which no-one
responds, Liber officialis, iii.12). A further distinguishing feature is its
great length; two tracts in particular, Qui habitat for Quadragesima
Sunday and Deus Deus meus for Palm Sunday are by far the longest
chants of the entire Mass Proper. They are among the five chants the
singing of which Bishop Angilram of Metz (76891) specified as
worthy of extra payment. The meaning of the word tract has given
rise to considerable discussion over the centuries, but the most
obvious conjecture is surely the most likely: the Latin
noun tractus derives from the past participle of the verb trahere, to
pull, draw or extend; tractus, then, meaning drawn out or
extended appears to be no more than a reference to the chant's
length.

Finally, the tract is noteworthy for its confinement to two Roman

finals, D and G, and two corresponding Gregorian modes, 2 and 8 (in
the following discussion the respective tracts will be referred to as D-
2 and G-8 chants). Considerable melodic relationship exists among
the tracts of each type (see 3 below).

2. Repertory.

If the core repertory is defined as those chants that were transmitted

from Rome to the Carolingian realm in the second half of the 8th
century, the core repertory of tracts comprises 16 chants, five D-2
and 11 G-8. The repertory and its Roman liturgical assignments are
given in Table 1, with certain omissions and additions. Omitted are
the assignments of the Vigil of Pentecost, which are identical to those
of the Easter Vigil, and the assignments of Laudate Dominum to
Saturday of the Pentecost week Ember Days and to the feast of the
Annunciation. Two chants are assigned twice: Laudate Dominum on
the Saturday of the Lenten Ember Week and the Easter Vigil;
and Qui habitat on Quadragesima Sunday and as a second tract on
Good Friday. The four canticles of the Easter Vigil are shown in
brackets; they appear in the Roman sources only as mode 8
Gregorian chants and would therefore seem to be Frankish additions
(see 4 below). The Franks also added one mode 2 tract, Eripe me,
using it to replace the Roman Qui habitat on Good Friday. Thus the
9th-century Frankish repertory expanded to a total of 21 tracts, six
mode 2 and 15 mode 8. Three of the mode 2 tracts, De
necessitatibus, Domine exaudi and Domine audivi, are treated as
graduals in the Frankish sources (see 4).
The 9th-century Frankish assignments extend to only a handful of
liturgical occasions beyond those of Rome, but in subsequent
centuries both the Gregorian repertory and its assignments
expanded considerably. Most notably Domine non secundum was
sung on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent and a number of
new sanctoral tracts were fashioned for post-Septuagesimal
dates. Effuderunt sanguinem came to be sung on the feast of the
Holy Innocents and Absolve Domine at the Requiem Mass (the
Roman Mass for the Dead simply adopted De profundis). An 11th- or
12th-century Aquitanian or Italian gradual might have about 30 tracts
and a late medieval gradual several more. The majority of later tracts
were of the mode 2 type.

3. The D-2 and G-8 melody types.

Melismatic passages occur less frequently in tracts than in graduals,

and the melismas are on average not quite so long. The tonal range
of tracts is also narrower than that of graduals, particularly the
gradual verses with their high tessitura; the D-2 tracts confine
themselves for the most part to the hexachord c-a with occasional
extensions downwards to A and upwards to b , while the G-8 tracts
generally stay within the pentachord f-c, with fairly frequent inclusion
of d and, less often, e above.

The melodic feature of tracts most often singled out in the

musicological literature is their formulaic character, a trait that has
tempted some scholars to think in terms of variation technique or of
an elaborated psalm tone. However, the inclusion of 9th- and 10th-
century additions to the original repertory within most of the
published systems of analysis has resulted in somewhat exaggerated
estimates of the tract's melodic homogeneity, because later tracts are
generally more stereotyped in their formulaic usage. Nevertheless,
even if observations are confined to the 16 core repertory chants,
much remains to be said about the musical interrelatedness of tracts,
both in their Roman and Gregorian versions.
The most remarkable trait of the D-2 tracts is the succession of
phrases cadencing on D, C, F and D. Of the 41 verses of the five D-2
tracts the series is present in no less than 28. Yet the clarity of the
pattern is frequently obscured by additional cadences; there are just
16 verses where the DCFD pattern exists in its pure four-phrase
form. More significant perhaps is the persistence of the C cadence
(ex.1), which generally serves to divide the verse into two half-
phrases; it is missing from only two of the 41 verses. The figures
given here are taken from the Gregorian tracts, but the Roman and
Gregorian versions consistently maintain the same cadential points
within the D-2 tracts.

Ex.1 C cadences in D-2 tracts

If the placement of cadences is the most regular musical

characteristic of D-2 tracts, the melodic homogeneity of the cadential
figures is also considerably more consistent than that of the complete
phrases. The final D phrase of all five tracts, however, is nearly
invariable. As for the opening phrases (ex.2), the Gregorian use of
the distinctive figure at the beginning of all five tracts might create an
initial impression of uniformity, but the continuation of the phrase
differs significantly, except in the two tracts that open with the word
Domine. The Roman opening phrases, on the other hand, while
appearing to vary because of adjustments made to accommodate
differing syllabification, have the same closing melisma, except in the
case of De necessitatibus. For phrases other than those that open
and close an entire chant there is much melodic variety. There is an
especially large number of opening phrases for the verses, no less
than ten, and at least five for the closing phrases; the interior phrase
cadencing on F, however, is considerably more regular. It should be
noted that De necessitatibus has little in common melodically with the
other tracts apart from its opening figure (see ex.2) and concluding
phrase.

Ex.2 F cadences in 6 8 tracts

The 11 G-8 tracts of the core repertory, generally shorter than D-2
tracts, have a total of 36 verses. These verses fail to display a
cadential pattern comparable to the DCFD series of their D-2
counterparts, but 23 of them have an interior F cadence (ex.3) which
is melodically similar to the C cadence of the D-2 tract (see above,
ex.1) and frequently plays a similar role in defining the structural mid-
point of the verse.

Ex.3 opening phrases of Laudate and Jubilate

As for melodic formulae, all 11 G-8 tracts conclude with the same G
phrase, but five different G phrases are used to begin the chants. At
least nine other G phrases are employed throughout the verses, but
one of them is used six times to open verses, thus contributing to an
impression of melodic homogeneity. The fact that there are only four
different F phrases, one of which is used 12 times, strengthens this
impression. The Roman and Gregorian versions generally cadence
at the same points in the text and on the same pitches, but on first
examination it would seem that the Gregorian melodic formulae are
maintained with more regularity than the Roman. An obvious
instance of this is the G phrase used to open five of the Gregorian
tracts. If, for example, the Gregorian Laudate Dominum and Jubilate
Dominum are compared with their Roman counterparts (ex.4), the
two Gregorian phrases appear to be melodically identical while the
Roman ones vary noticeably from each other. However, if differences
of syllabification are taken into account, it will be seen that the
melodic formulae of Roman G-8 tracts are used with remarkable
regularity (Nowacki, 1986). Thus certain portions of a melodic
formula are omitted to accommodate a lesser number of syllables in
the text and others are added to match extra syllables. The Frankish
cantors, however, appear to have forced the text into conformity with
the melodic formula. (The conclusions reached above in connection
with ex.2 suggest that Nowacki's findings for the G-8 tracts may also
apply to the D-2 chants.)
Ex.4 opening phrases

Those scholars who see an elaborated psalm tone in the verses of

the tract compare the quadripartite phrase structure of the verses to
an intonation, mediation, continuation formula and termination.
However, an alternative explanation (Hiley, 1993) is equally
plausible: the conventions of articulation (starting phrases, terminal
melismas) are a natural response to the need to mark off major
breaks in the text, found in very many chant genres and not
necessarily deriving from simple psalmody. It should be added, too,
that only a minority of tract verses have precisely four phrases, some
29 of 77 in the Gregorian versification (which differs occasionally
from the Roman). Yet there remains the persistence of the C
cadence in the D-2 tracts and the F cadence in the G-8 tracts. Not
only do these cadences frequently create the feel of a bipartite
structure, but they occur generally at the mediating point of the psalm
verse. It is wholly reasonable to suppose that the chants melodic
characteristics were an essential part of the tract from the start
(Hiley, 1993), yet it is still possible to imagine that the psalm tone
model might somehow have figured in the creation of the genre.

4. Historical considerations.

A number of exceptional features about the tract, both musical and

liturgical, have prompted a variety of fascinating and controversial
positions on the history of the genre. (However, no attempt has been
made to pass definitive judgement on the views outlined in the
following discussion.)

It is not surprising that the tract, with its tendency towards an

underlying cadential structure and a variety of differing but related
melodic formulae, played a part in the thinking of Leo Treitler (1974)
when he advanced the notion of a cantor reconstructing a chant from
year to year, changing its melodic detail while maintaining the broad
melodic conventions and characteristic formal features of the genre
to which it belonged. Nor is it surprising that Cullin (198996) has
seen the multiple verses of the tract, with their psalm-like structure
and broad melodic similarity, as one of several indices for the view
that the tract represents a later manifestation of the original mode of
psalmody psalmody in directum which predated the responsorial
psalmody of the late 4th century. The gradual, according to this view,
evolved from the tract, and evidence of the original tract can still be
seen in the multiple verses of the Easter week Haec dies.

Conversely, a number of scholars, including Peter Wagner (1901)

and Apel (1958) maintain that all mode 2 tracts are in reality
graduals. The view stems from the fact that three of these tracts, De
necessitatibus, Domine audivi and Domine exaudi, are labelled
Resp.Grad. in the early Frankish graduals. Hucke (1967) concluded
that at least two of them, Domine audivi and Domine exaudi, shared
the same musical characteristics as the other mode 2 tracts, and that
these characteristics, moreover, were peculiar to tracts and not to
graduals. The one exception he allowed was De necessitatibus, a
chant consisting of three verses, of which the second and third
(closely related to each other melodically) arguably partake of the
special musical character of the gradual verse. There are liturgical
arguments suggesting that all five D-2 tracts were indeed originally
looked upon as such at Rome: they maintain the normal placement
of the tract after the gradual (save for Domine exaudi in Good
Friday's generally exceptional liturgical configuration), and they are
called tracts in the Roman manuscripts, suggesting that the labelling
of the three Resp.Grad. in the Frankish manuscripts might have
been done so mistakenly.

Perhaps the most intriguing question involves the four Easter Vigil
canticles, Cantemus Domino (Exodus xv.12), Vinea
facta (Isaiah v.12), Attende caelum (Deuteronomy xxxii.14)
and Sicut cervus (Psalm xli.24). The first three are in fact
canticles, figuring in each case as a final verse of three Old
Testament readings, while the fourth consists of three verses of
Psalm xli sung in directum during the procession to the baptismal
font. The texts of all four appear in the early unnotated Frankish
graduals, and the mode 8 tract melody appears with all four in the
earliest notated Gregorian graduals. However, in the Roman
graduals the four are not set in the Roman version of the G mode
melody, as might be expected, but in the Gregorian version. Actually,
the earliest Roman appearance of the chants is not in the Roman
graduals but in a mid-11th-century lectionary (see Boe, 1995), which
also gives the Gregorian melodic version. This, together with the fact
that neither the earliest Roman lectionaries or ordines romani make
reference to the four chants, suggests that it was the Franks who
singled out these four texts and treated them as discrete solo chants,
applying to them the mode 8 melody of the Easter Vigil tract Laudate
Dominum. The putative status of the four in 8th-century Rome calls
for somewhat more venture some speculation: perhaps the three
canticles were simply recited by the lector as conclusion to their
respective readings, and perhaps Sicut cervus (chanted in its
entirety) was a psalm associated for so long a time with the
baptismal rite of the Easter Vigil that there was no need to make
mention of it in the earliest documents. Augustine had already
cited Sicut cervus in connection with baptism (In psalmo xli, 1).

A final controversial question on the history of the tract involves its

antiquity. Chant scholars since Wagner (1901) have assumed it to be
among the most ancient of Mass Proper items, a view that Hucke
(Grove6) was one of the first to dispute, no doubt persuaded by the
obviously incomplete state of the tract's 8th-century Roman
repertory.

Bibliography

Grove6 (H. Hucke)

P. Wagner: Einfhrung in die gregorianischen Melodien: ein

Handbuch der Choralwissenschaft, i: Ursprung und Entwicklung
der liturgischen Gesangsformen bis zum Ausgang des
Mittelalters (Leipzig, 2/1901, 3/1911/R); (Eng. trans., 1901/R), 868

M. Andrieu: Rglement d'Angilramme de Metz (76891) fixant les

horaires de quelques fonctions liturgiques, Revue des sciences
religieuses, x (1930), 34969

R.-J. Hesbert: Antiphonale missarum sextuplex (Brussels, 1935/R)

H. Schmidt: Die Tractus des zweiten Tones in gregorianischer und

stadtrmischer berlieferung, Festschrift Joseph Schmidt-Grg
zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. D. Weise (Bonn, 1957), 283302
W. Apel: Gregorian Chant (Bloomington, IN, 1958, 2/1990)

H. Hucke: Tractsstudien, Festschrift Bruno Stblein zum 70.

Geburtstag, ed. M. Ruhnke (Kassel, 1967), 11620

L. Treitler: Homer and Gregory: the Transmission of Epic Poetry

and Plainchant, MQ, lx (1974), 33372

E. Nowacki: Text Declamation as a Determinant of Melodic Form in

the Old Roman Eighth-Mode Tracts, EMH, vi (1986), 193226

O. Cullin: La rpertoire de la psalmodie in directum dans les

traditions liturgiques latines, I: La tradition
hispanique, EG, xxiii (1989), 99139

R. Crocker: Chants of the Roman Mass, NOHM, ii (2/1990), 209

14

O. Cullin: L'office de Pques comme miroir du chant grgorien: du

concept liturgique la ralisation musicale, Analyse
musicale, no.18 (1990), 1925

O. Cullin: De la psalmodie sans refrain la psalmodie

responsoriale: transformation et conservation dans les rpertoires
liturgiques latins, RdM, lxxvii (1991), 524

D. Hiley: Western Plainchant: a Handbook (Oxford, 1993), 7682

J. Boe: Chant Notation in Eleventh-Century Roman

Manuscripts, Essays on Medieval Music: in Honor of David G.
Hughes, ed. G.M. Boone (Cambridge, MA, 1995), 4357

J. McKinnon: The Gregorian Canticle-Tracts of the Old Roman

Easter Vigil, Festschrift Walter Wiora zum 90. Geburtstag, ed. C.-
H. Mahling and R. Seiberts (Tutzing, 1997), 25469

T. Karp: Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gregorian

Chant (Evanston, IL, 1998)
O. Cullin: Le trait dans les rpertoires vieux-romain et grgorien: un
tmoin de la psalmodie sans refrain (forthcoming)

James W. McKinnon