De Profundis 7
Today we celebrate the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. We have chosen at Neumz the alleluia chant De profundis to celebrate this Sunday. The text is taken from Psalm 129:1-2. It is a plea full of longing and expectation from the depths of our human condition. Let us remember that we are on the Sunday preceding the Solemnity of Christ the King, the end of time when in the judgment of the King and Judge our individual and social "depths" will be revealed before Him. They are the existential depths of humanity, the physical, moral, and spiritual depths of a wounded humanity that lacks the essential: Love and Mercy. In effect, the sin that makes it so heavy in our life that pulls us down into the depths of an abyss, and from which we can only escape by the hand of God. But these depths involve a purification in love and hope; The prayerful one finds in his affliction the strength to turn to God and to cry out through prayer for his mercy. This strength is a grace, a gift of God.
As for the melody, it is composed in mode VII. Here the composer adopts the mode which the ancients called angelic. Indeed, the prayerful one sings with immense joy in the depths, something logical for Christians who know that these depths have already been visited by our Redeemer and sin has been defeated. Even while suffering tribulation, our heart lifts its prayer with joy, the joy of this alleluia comes at the end of the liturgical year: the prospect of the end of time gladdens the heart of the prayerful being, who longs to meet God, his Saviour. On the other hand, it should be noted that melodically there is a connection between this alleluia and the gradual responsory Liberasti nos, which is sung just before it. The intonation of the alleluia repeats a melodic motif that is presented twice towards the end of the gradual, in the words confitebimur and saecula. Moreover, this motif appears again at the beginning of the bible verse and of the second phrase in Domine.
This alleluia has one of the longest jubilus in the repertoire. Its structure is seen very clearly: the initial motif which, as we have just said, is repeated twice in the verse; another motif which is repeated three times, with a sort of coda in the third repetition; and another motif which closes the jubilus and which is also repeated with another coda in the final cadence.
The melodic movement begins in the depths of the mode, the Sol, the fundamental. In the alleluia accent, with a graceful and slight leap of a fourth the melody rises towards the dominant, the Re, a degree further underlined by a neumatic cut.
The brief musical ornament in the Mi note helps to articulate the change of syllable and closes this first incise on the Re. In the following incise, the beautiful motif appears, full of enthusiasm and joy, which is repeated three times: it is the voice of supplication, vocem meam, my voice, of the versicle. A close analysis of this motif reveals a flowing and lively movement towards the high Fa emphazising by the neumatic notation. A melodic descent leading the melody to the Re which closes the pressus maior and acts as a sort of axis, a transmission belt for the rhythmic-melodic movement; and a torculus resupinus flexus which leads the melodic movement back to the high Fa to end up settling it on the Re. With this motif's repetition, the melody's dynamic is evident: this confident supplication increases, with more enthusiasm, with greater joy, in crescendo. Then the motif is repeated a third time, at least at the beginning, because instead of the pressus functioning as an axis, here the melody rushes into the low range, and settles on the Do with a beautiful ornamentation on the La. The prayerful one in his overflowing enthusiasm, in his joy, is gradually appeased in this descent to the low range, and the virga with episema that closes the do incisus. The last two incise are much more moderate, but with great fervor: the rhythm is amplified, and the neumatic graphics are clear in this sense. The second incise is a developed variation of the first, as mentioned above. The motif is made up of two beautiful curves, ascending and descending, which lead the melody peacefully towards the final cadence in Sol. The prayerful person looks up to heaven, seeks the Father's mercy, and then bows with great reverence and devotion until he kneels in the Sol. In the last incise, the quilisma confers even more amplitude, more solemnity to this gaze of adoration in search of the Father in the heights of the mode. The prayerful one also kneels in the pes subbipunctis, but this time he even prostrates himself in the pes quassus and the pressus maior of the final coda.
From the lowest register of the piece, from the depths of the heart of men, the verse starts and presents the plea: De profundis clamavi, from the depths I cried out. The motif that begins the jubilus, as we have already stated, is heard again. In the accent of clamavi, the prayerful one cries out to Heaven with a fiery and expressive ascent from the dominant, amplified by the quilisma. In effect, the melodic movement rises powerfully to the high Sol, then settles on the Fa to descend reverently to the Re from where it subsides with a graceful turn around the Re on the posttonic syllable.
The word closes on a Do-Si cadence, which invites us to continue but also gives this plea a much more expressive nuance because of the semitonal relationship. The last incise of this first phrase, ad te Domine, to you Lord, begins with a majestic interval of a fourth, underlined by a pes quadratus: like lifting the hands in supplication towards the Lord. The soul delights in the pronoun te with great devotion, and slowly there is a wide and reverent descent, reinforced by the quilisma, from the dominant to the fundamental of the mode that resounds in the vocative Domine, in the depths of the mode. The prayerful person, once again prostrated before the Lord, sings with humility and loving tenderness.
In the second phrase, the vocative Domine reappears, and from it rises an almost vehement prayer of supplication. It is the same motif as at the beginning of the piece, as we have already indicated, starting from the same depths, but here it preludes the climax of the piece, in exaudi. The supplication to be heard, exaudi, listen, receives all the weight and musical load of the clamor. A salicus of four notes, leads the melody with great firmness from the Re to the high Sol, and in the accent of the imperative exaudi a pes quadratus crowns the word on the high La. A masterful leap of a fifth, La-Re, returns the melodic movement to the range of the dominant where the rhythm is extended again with an elongated torculus, a quilismatic movement: all this prolongs the supplication. The melody undoubtedly gives the text a singular expressiveness. Until the end of this imperative, the tension is constant. It is the cry of the soul, almost a cry of anguish, the cry from the depths mentioned above, the cry that echoes all the sufferings of humanity. This is masterfully united with the voice of supplication, vocem meam, my voice, which closes the versicle. The motif of the beginning of the piece and the versicle is repeated, with great similarity (the Graduale Novum restores the torculus of vocem Sol-Do-Si, identical to those of the other melodic motifs), from the depths. After that, the jubilus’ melody unfolds again at the end of meam, and that confident, enthusiastic supplication, my supplication, and everyone's supplication, is prolonged by the repetition of the jubilus of this sublime alleluia chant.