The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper (review)

The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper. By James McKinnon. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. [xiv, 466 p. ISBN 0-520-22198-2. $50.]

The circumstances surrounding the origin of Gregorian chant have long been shrouded in mystery. James McKinnon's The Advent Project, the final achievement of his career, takes a great step toward removing this veil. Through a critical examination of patristic sources, liturgical documents, and the repertory itself, McKinnon constructs a unified and compelling chronology of the Mass Proper. Contrary to the traditional view that Gregorian chant evolved gradually during the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, he proposes that most of the repertory took shape in the later seventh century, in a concentrated effort by the Roman schola cantorum to create Proper chants for each day of the year. Because liturgical and repertorial evidence suggests that the schola began with chants assigned to Advent, he terms this undertaking the Advent Project. This remarkable work challenges received views on some central issues of chant scholarship and presents a new paradigm that promises to shape the field for years to come.

The Advent Project is divided into three sections. In part 1, "The Prehistory," McKinnon investigates primary sources for clues to the nature and extent of psalmody in the pre-seventh-century Mass. These chapters lay the foundation for his theory of seventh-century origin for the Mass Proper. Although references to singing at Mass are common, particularly in the fourth century, he concludes that a yearly cycle of chants with fixed liturgical assignments was not yet in existence. The sources indicate that the typical fourth-century Mass included two psalms, one as a reading in the Fore-Mass and one at communion. As the ancestor of the gradual, the Fore-Mass psalm was often explicitly musical in delivery, even though its formal status was that of a reading. The writings of Augustine, Ambrose, and others, which single out for comment congregational responses, suggest a responsorial performance for both psalms. On the basis of these references, McKinnon challenges the theory that the responsorial psalmody of the gradual developed from the direct psalmody of the tract. He sees responsorial and direct psalmody as contemporaneous developments, with responsorial performance becoming more prominent in the fourth century. Although certain psalms were associated with particular festivals, the sources offer no evidence of specific liturgical assignments.

After the fourth century, witnesses to liturgical practice are sparse. In chapters 3 and 4, McKinnon considers the limited fifth- and sixth-century evidence from Gaul, Rome, and England. Here he draws a distinction central to his theory of late origin for the Mass Proper: "lector chant" versus "schola chant." The difference is one of repertory and organization. In the absence of set repertory and liturgical assignments, Mass psalmody was an individual offering sung by a lector. Schola chant, by contrast, involved the creation and maintenance of specifically assigned cycles of chants for the entire liturgical year. Such an undertaking, McKinnon argues, would require a body of full-time musicians who could devote the requisite time to it, relative economic prosperity, and ecclesiastical support, circumstances largely absent before the seventh century. Although the sources suggest that psalmody was introduced into the Roman Mass in the fifth century, McKinnon proposes that schola chant did not emerge until the founding of the Roman schola cantorum in the early- or mid-seventh century.

Part 2, "The Seventh-Century Roman Background," presents the evidence for the chronology and date of the Mass Proper. This complex argument is based upon a masterful synthesis of historical, liturgical, and repertorial evidence. As McKinnon demonstrates, the chant manuscripts stand out in stark contrast to liturgical sources such as the sacramentary and lectionary. With numerous Frankish and Roman recensions spanning a chronological spectrum, the liturgical sources present a picture of gradual evolution. The Mass antiphoner, by contrast, is complete in its first appearance, and the Roman...