This psalm is a response to the First Reading (thus its name)

I think that's inaccurate. The RP is "responsorial" because of its structure, not its location.

I also am a little concerned about implying divisions between schola, congregation, faithful, etc. The members of the schola singing the Gradual are definitely part of the congregation and the faithful. They just have a distinctive singing role.

I like "active listening." While the schola sings, the role of the rest of the congregation is to follow along and think about the text being sung, and ideally to reflect on how the music is conveying it. That's active, interior participation.

.02

I'll track down my sources for the "response -> Responsorial" connect. One of them is the GIRM: "After the first reading comes the responsorial Psalm, which is an integral part of the Liturgy of the Word and holds great liturgical and pastoral importance, because it fosters meditation on the word of God. The responsorial Psalm should correspond to each reading and should, as a rule, be taken from the Lectionary." (GIRM 61)

James McKinnon, in THE ADVENT PROJECT, presents convincing evidence that the psalm entered the Liturgy of the Word not as a response to a lesson but as a lesson in its own right.

The Responsorial Psalm is called "responsorial" because the verses are sung by a cantor and the people (or schola) sing a response. The proper Graduals are also responsorial in form.

The tract, which also follows a lesson, is not responsorial. It is "direct" psalmody because the verses are sung "tractim"--straight through without a response.

The graduals are abbreviated responsorial psalms, in which only one verse remains. They are musical gems. Whether one psalm verse is sufficient is, of course, open to debate.

The proper Graduals are also responsorial in form.

How so?

Perhaps "active and conscious listening"?

Every once in a while I notice a member of the congregation whose participation is something less than conscious.

David Andrew wrote: " 'The proper Graduals are also responsorial in form.'
How so?"

Their responsorial structure becomes apparent when the choir takes advantage of permission, given in the Ordo Cantus Missae, to repeat the "respond" after the verse has been sung, making it an actual response. NOT repeating the "respond" is a late and decadent practice. Sometimes the texts make little sense when it is not repeated. See the gradual for St. John the Baptist Day.

Some (Ferreetti?) have suggested that the texts of the graduals of Easter week (which all have the same response) may all have originally been part of a single responsorial psalm.

M. Jackson Osborn wrote: And, another related aside: one of the good aspects of the Novus Ordo is its restoration of the Lesson from the Old Testament - does anyone know at what point in time this Lesson had been dropped?

We have no clear evidence that the Roman order of Mass EVER regularly included an Old Testament lesson. Jungmann surmised that it did; but underlying his surmise was an assumption that the graduals and alleluias were RESPONSES to lessons, and that the gradual must originally have been a response to one lesson and the alleluia a response to another.

McKinnon, in discrediting this assumption, draws the conclusion that the Roman Mass never (regularly) included three lessons. Proving that it did not is, of course, nigh unto impossible.

Sacrosanctum Concilium directed that more scripture should be read at Mass to "open the treasures of the Bible" to the faithful. The addition of an O.T. Lesson to the Roman Mass strikes me as an entirely justifiable enrichment, even if it is unprecedented.

Jackson Osborn reports that he has heard the "Vatican II" intended that the psalm in the renewed Liturgy of the Word should be rendered in directum. Sacrosanctum Concilium says nothing about the way in which this psalm is to be rendered. GIRM presupposes that it will be sung responsorially. Responsorial rendition of this psalm was introduced very early in various places and survived up to the time of the Council in the form of the gradual. I don't understand why in directum rendering would have been preferred.

I am also at a loss to understand the vehement distaste for responsorial psalmody among certain church musicians--both Roman and Anglican. They deride this venerable form of psalmody as if it were a gimmick.

McKinnon offers that conjecture that the psalms, introduced to the liturgy as lessons, were because of their lyrical character, sung to more elaborate lesson tones than the other lessons, and that refrains were first added as a festal adornment. Eventually in directum rendition was reserved to penitential days--whence the evolution of the tract.

Pes quotes William Mahrt's view on the function of the gradual and Alleluia. Certainly the Alleluia looks forward to the Gospel. According to McKinnon, Rome imported the alleluiatic "Gospel Acclamation" from Byzantium.

Whether the gradual looks forward to anything is less obvious. Mahrt (in the passage you quoted) merely states his contention. He does not offer any argument in its defense. Perhaps he feels that in the old Roman rite, where the Alleluia follows the gradual immediately, the Alleluia draws the gradual into its "sweep."

The First Alleluia, used in Eastertide in place of the gradual, is probably the descendent of the alleluiatic psalm--a responsorial psalm in which "Alleluia" was sung as the refrain.

Jackson reports that he has heard the "Vatican II" intended that the psalm in the renewed Liturgy of the Word should be rendered in directum. Sacrosanctum Concilium says nothing about the way in which this psalm is to be rendered. GIRM presupposes that it will be sung responsorially. Responsorial rendition of this psalm was introduced very early in various places and survived up to the time of the Council in the form of the gradual. I don't understand why in directum rendering would have been introduced after the Council.

I am also at a loss to understand the vehement distaste for responsorial psalmody among certain church musicians--both Roman and Anglican. They deride this venerable form of psalmody as if it were a gimmick.

McKinnon offers the conjecture that the psalms, introduced to the liturgy as lessons, were, because of their lyrical character, sung to more elaborate lesson tones than the other lessons, and that refrains were initially added as a festal adornment. Eventually in directum rendition was reserved to penitential days--whence the evolution of the tract. This is, of course, conjecture.

Bruce -
Thanks for the references. As for in directum singing of the gradual psalm - I was not stating a preference, nor, certainly, implying that there is anything at all wrong with responsorial psalmody: only that I had heard this from several 'sources'. I do not share the disdain which some have for this quite ancient style of psalmody. In fact, I have written the psalms for several great feasts for SATB choir singing the verses with an adaptation of the plainsong for the congregational respond. It seems to me that this is quite consistent with western liturgical tradition. And, as you have pointed out, the pre-Conciliar gradual is the remains of a 'responsorial psalm'. Obection to it, it seems to me, is just more thought-less objection to anything related to the Novus Ordo. The only thing wrong here is the trite musical settings which seem to predominate.

My sources about the purpose of the Responsorial Psalm...

"Loving and Living the Mass" (Fr. Thomas Kocik), p. 50: "This psalm ... is meant to be a meditative response to the message of the First Reading."

"The Mass and the Bible" (Fr. Peter Stravinskas), p. 35: "This psalm is intended to be a meditative response to the message of the First Reading."

"The How-to Book of the Mass" (Michael Dubruiel), p. 106: "[T]he Responsorial Psalm ... responds to the First Reading. This connection should help us continue our meditation on what God is telling us through His Word."

Pes - From my time spent at NLM and WDTPRS and from what I've read of Dobszay's "The Bugnini-Liturgy", I too have come to the conclusion that the Consilium basically had its way with the liturgy. Until such time as their reforms are reformed, the Ordinary Form is what it is.

Now, the quality of the reform is one thing, but the reform itself is another. It seems, from your quote from Bugnini's book, that the Responsorial Psalm in the Ordinary Form is indeed intended to be a response to the First Reading. (Perhaps it is not always as clear as at other times?) So then, is it improper or incorrect for me to say in my book that, in the Ordinary Form as it stands today, the Responsorial Psalm is MEANT to be a response to the First Reading, while the Gradual is not?

CR, I think the evidence is decisive that the RP was designed in theory to react in some way to the first reading and to involve the congregation in singing. To some extent, this represented a departure from the design and practice of the Gradual, but not entirely. The major difference seems to be that the Gradual was presented as something worth its own level of attention, and of course it was part of the ascent in floridity toward the holy Gospel.

In my opinion, the creation of the RP's for the new three-year lectionary was, to put it mildly, less than optimal. The very fact of the lectionary's being tripled in size necessitated new creations. That much is understandable. In my opinion, the grating thing about all this was the sheer scale of all the Council attempted. It was clearly a "seized moment" for introducing wide-scale changes all at once, and this had two easily predictable effects: shoddiness, and demoralization.

Basically, in terms of common practice, the RP is easily perceived as a throwaway. I would predict that if it were suddenly to disappear, congregations would breathe a sigh of relief.

Does this sound any better? Any further suggestions for revision?

Following the First Reading is a psalm, either the Responsorial Psalm or the Gradual. The Responsorial Psalm is generally thematically related to the First Reading and involves the vocal participation of the whole congregation in singing or saying at least the antiphon (the verse repeated in between the other verses), whereas the Gradual is more of a meditative piece of its own requiring vocal participation from the choir and conscious and attentive listening from the rest of the congregation.

Ah, right, sorry! :)

M. Jackson Osborn wrote:

"If it [i.e., the psalm response] were an 'antiphon', the performance would 'antiphonal' = verses alternatiing between opposing groups & the antiphon by all."

In recent times we have referred to psalmody in which the VERSES are sung antiphonally as "antiphonal psalmody." The ANTIPHONS are, however, what was originally sung antiphonally. In the original form of antiphonal psalmody the verses (as in responsorial psalmody) were sung by a cantor, but the responses were sung by alternating groups. One group or choir responded to one verse, the other group or choir responded responded to the next verse, etc. See Robert Taft, BEYOND EAST AND WEST: ESSAYS IN LITURGICAL UNDERSTANDING. (I can't find the book; so I can't give you a page citation. If you get hold of the book, you'll find the article).

I surmise that with the development of the monastic office, in which the whole psalter was recited every week, the original procedure became too time-consuming and was replaced by antiphonal performance of the verses.

Bruce Ford's mention of a book caused me to do a search and I found this interesting resource place:

http://www.librarything.com/work/1594438

Felipe asked:

Also, does any official liturgical book give melodic formulas for singing the responsorial psalm? If not, then this is an incredibly large collection of texts that are meant for singing but that have no prescribed melodies in the official books. “Even” the lessons have the Prophecy/Epistle/Gospel tones....

Years ago, when I was first beginning my work on an English version of the Graduale Simplex, I made a study of all the melodic schemes used for the responsorial psalms and alleluia psalms in the book, based on pages 440–445 of the book (attached). These pages appear to be based on the work of Dom Raymond Le Roux, a monk of Solesmes, who was an authority on the responsorial forms.

It’s my sense that these pages were meant to provide the formulas Felipe is asking for. My work is in blue and this is my rough translation.

What do you all think?

Just a short THANK YOU for the excellent information you all post here. I wanted to know the difference between the Gradual and Responsorial Psalm, et voila! Thanks you!