Alleluia

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''For other uses, see Hallelujah (disambiguation).

The word was used in many ways in early liturgies. It was especially favored in Paschal time, the time between Easter and Pentecost, perhaps because of the association of the Alleluia psalms with passover. During this time, the word is sung at the end of every chant, and an Alleluia replaces the Gradual in the mass, so that there are two of them in the service. The word, however, is omitted at penitential times, most notably Lent; at these times the chant Alleluia is replaced by a Tract.

The Alleluia is one of the responsorial chants in the Mass. It opens with the cantor singing "Alleluia," after which the choir repeats it, and adds a long melisma on the final vowel (called a "jubilus"). (The repeat is notated in the Liber Usualis with the Roman numeral "ij," and then continues with the jubilus.) The cantor then sings the main part of the verse, and the choir joins in on the final line. At the end, the opening Alleluia is repeated, but instead of the choir repeating the word, they repeat only the jubilus. When a Sequence follows the Alleluia, this final repeat is omitted, as it was in other cases in the Middle Ages.

The musical style of the Alleluia is generally ornate, but often within a narrow range. The Alleluia for Christmas Eve, for instance, has an ambitus of only a perfect fifth. Alleluias were frequenly troped, both with added music and text. It is believed that some early Sequences derived from syllabic text being added to the jubilus, and may be named after the opening words of the Alleluia verse. Alleluias were also among the more frequently used chants to create early organa, such as in the Winchester Troper.

Reference

• Hoppin, Richard. Medieval Music. New York: Norton, 1978.

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