From the earliest times the Catholic Church showed an interest in singing as a means of prayer and worship, an important part of the liturgy. This interest, and the need to coordinate and unify liturgical chants culminated in the dedicated work of Pope St. Gregory the Great.

The term Gregorian Chant takes its name from this Pope, not because he invented this form of sacred music; not because he composed any chants; but simply because he held this form of prayer in high esteem and sought to promote its use in liturgy as the highest form of sacred music.

The tradition of chant originated in the practice of proclaiming the Scriptures within the context of worship services. The practice itself dates to the origins of the Church, and even earlier, since the writings in the Old Testament were written before the advent of Christ, and were already read as Scripture in ancient Judaism.

Pope St. Gregory organized the Roman liturgy and its chants and instituted the Schola Cantorum in Rome for the teaching and preservation of Church music. From the 8^th to the 11^th century, the period in which chant was refined to a near-perfect musical art form, the authority of the Roman Schola—which came to be known as the Papal Choir—dominated the Christian musical world. The head of the Papal Choir, called the maestro, was held in such honor that he was considered almost an equal of a Cardinal.

The maestro was not, however, the man who directed the music of the choir. He was a bishop or an abbot in charge of the discipline and spiritual direction of the Choir. He was more like a headmaster or dean than a modern day maestro because the Papal Choir was organized like a college. The Choir School took care of their own property as monks would take care of a monastery, they fined and punished their colleagues for any transgressions of the disciplinary code, and they admitted new members only after the toughest examinations were passed successfully.

The Renaissance Schola
Throughout the Renaissance, music formed a central element in the activities of Vatican religious and artistic life. The singers and composers of the Papal Choir—recruited at first from northern Europe, but in the 16^th century chiefly from Spain and Italy—appeared at daily services in the Vatican Palace and on greater occasions in the Sistine Chapel. They performed both the traditional chants of the Middle Ages, using splendid chant manuscripts and modern, polyphonic music of great complexity and difficulty.

Prior to the Council of Trent the general state of music in the liturgy was seen as deteriorating. The sacred music, because it began to imitate popular forms of music, was robbed of all its spiritual meaning. When the Council of Trent began in A.D. 1545 to consider various matters affecting the Catholic Church, the relationship of music to the liturgy was among the many subjects discussed. Much of the Council’s final year was devoted to studying sacred forms of music.

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, who was known as the greatest composer of sacred music during the Renaissance, was commissioned to revise the Gregorian chants. His new versions provided the music that popes heard every day for centuries. Before his death in A.D. 1594, he composed more than 100 Masses, 35 Magnificats, 46 hymns, and 68 offertories.

The original Roman schola cantorum provided an excellent model for schools of Church music throughout Europe. Several other choir schools were founded in Rome—most notably the Julian Choir which performs at St. Peter’s Basilica, and the Sistine Choir, which performs in the Sistine Chapel—and many others in France, Spain and northern Europe, most of which still exist today.

Other music article from Volume VI (1997-98) of St. Joseph Messenger:

God & Gustav Mahler
Kyrie Eleison: the earliest chant of the Church
The Piano Throughout History