Sitting during Gradual and Alleluia
  • Anhaga
    Posts: 55
    I have traveled quite a few TLM parishes and I noticed that many of them, even churches with competent cantors, chose to sing simplified psalm tone gradual and alleluia. I guessed, other than the difficulties of the chant, it was related with trying to shorten kneeling time -- for some it might be physically challenging -- as much as possible in-between epistle and gospel.

    Is it a good idea a celebrant and congregation sitting when full-fledged Gregorian gradual and alleluia are sung?
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    Our ladies schola often sing the full gradual and alleluia chants, the men's schola sing the Introit, offertory and communion full chant propers. I believe the priest and congregation are suppose to sit. This is the one Proper of the Mass where the priest actually sits and listens instead of performing an action.
  • Anhaga
    Posts: 55
    I believe the priest and congregation are suppose to sit. This is the one Proper of the Mass where the priest actually sits and listens instead of performing an action.


    I do not know what rubric says about this, but more common practice I have seen is congregation keeps kneeling while cantors hurriedly sing psalm-tone gradual and alleluia.
  • Aidan
    Posts: 8
    I believe the congregation are free to do what they want: there are no rubrics for them, only for the liturgical choir and ministers.
  • ClemensRomanusClemensRomanus
    Posts: 1,023
    My experience has been that the congregation sits during both.
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    Your are undoubtedly correct Anhaga, I should have said, may sit. The tradition is to listen to the psalm.
  • Adam Schwend
    Posts: 203
    Generally I have seen everyone sit until the reprisal of the Alleluia after its verse. The people generally stand when the priest stands. When a tract is sung, the priest simply stands when he feels there is just about enough time left in the tract to accompany the liturgical action.

    With that said, I don't believe there is a rubric that states WHEN during the Alleluia/Tract the priest is supposed to stand....and, as it has been mentioned here, there are very few, if any, rubrics for the faithful....the Missal addresses those in the sanctuary only.
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    Dr. Mahrt (CMAA president) addresses this issue in the current issue of Sacred Music (Spring 2011). In a tour de force article entitled "Active Participation and Listening to Gregorian Chant," there is a footnote (#18) in which he speaks specifically about the Alleluia. I should hasten to mention that Dr. Mahrt is considering this in the context of an ordinary form Mass, but I think the principles here are still worth noting. (Adam S., you'll see that he seems to endorse the approach that you described.)

    I've retyped it here in its entirety. I've broken the footnote into three paragraphs, just for clarity.
    There are some contradictions between the general principle that, on one hand, Gregorian chant has first place, and on the other hand, the rubric in the GIRM prescribes that the alleluia "is sung by all while standing (¶62)." This rubric is evidently aimed at a rather simple, non-Gregorian antiphon (like the little three-fold alleluia from Holy Saturday) and a short verse, which is the usual practice in the parishes. The congregation is not capable of singing the entire Gregorian alleluia, yet these melodies are the summit of that art and reflect their own exquisite liturgical function; to rule them out absolutely would be a contradiction of Sacrosanctum concilium, which is a more authoritative document than the GIRM. Moreover, the Gregorian alleluias appear in the Gregorian Missal (1990 and still in print), which is a book prepared for parish choirs.

    The liturgical function of the Gregorian alleluia is more complex than the GIRM prescribes (the congregation welcomes the Lord in the gospel and expresses their faith); it is at once a meditation chant which reflects on the reading just heard and an anticipation of the singing of the gospel. Likewise the duration of the alleluia is considerably longer than a simple gospel procession takes (except at Westminster Cathedral, where at the Pope's Mass the entire Gregorian alleluia was sung, and it lasted exactly the same time as the procession, which went about a third of the distance from the nave to the great pulpit); if people stand at the beginning of the singing of a Gregorian alleluia, they are left standing for quite a while, apparently for no purpose. If the alleluia is a meditation chant reflecting on the previous lesson, then it is more appropriate for them to remain seated.

    In my own practice, the gospel procession begins toward the end of the alleluia verse, and the people stand approximately at the repeat of the alleluia. This fulfills the status of the Gregorian alleluia as one of the highest of the Gregorian forms, but it is in technical violation of the GIRM, since the congregation does not sing any of it. I have proposed a solution for those who wish to observe the GIRM strictly, that the congregation sing the repeat of the intonation of the Gregorian alleluia, after which the choir sings the jubilus. Congregations are able to repeat most Gregorian alleluia intonations without difficulty, and in doing so, they sing almost as much music as the little antiphon seen above [i.e., the Holy Saturday "triple" alleluia], and they listen to quite a bit more.
  • Dove
    Posts: 16
    In our EF Mass, after the priest sings the Epistle we begin to sing the gradual, tract, sequence (Requiem Mass). The priest cannot go on with the Mass until we are finished so he goes and sits down and so does everyone else. Of course we, the choir, continue to stand. As mentioned above, the priest stands when we are almost finished, the book gets moved to the Gospel side, etc.
    Similarly, the priest sits as we finish the Gloria and Credo.
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