Tomorrow we celebrate the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. To celebrate this Sunday, we have chosen in Neumz the Introit Protector noster. The text is taken from Psalm 83:10-11 and it is a plea to the Lord for his help to live in the faith as if we proclaim it: Our protector, O God, look with love upon your people who are consecrated to you, with Christ and his members united in the Mystical Body, and protect them so that they may live more and more with you in faith.  But at the same time, the psalmist expresses the happiness that he experiences in His presence, for one day in the atrium of the beatitude of the Lord, which is one's life shared in the unity of the Spirit, is worth more than a thousand days.  

As for the melody, it is composed in mode IV.  It is full of great expressive force in all the details of the text. There is an interiority of the soul expressed in this Introit, interior, contemplative but also lyrical, expressive, and enthusiastic in the high range of the mode.

This Introit begins with an invocation to God built from the modal scheme of the piece, which is the tetrachord Mi-Fa-Sol-La (in the restored version of the Graduale Novum this chant begins in Mi). The tristropha amplifies in the accent of the word this very special qualifier: Protector, built around the fundamental, the Mi, and then the melody ascends delicately towards the dominant, the La which sounds twice, underlining the possessive noster, our. With this name, the prayer reaches the Lord with great sensitivity, asking Him to respond: He is our protector. 

This delicate ascent prepares the leap of a fourth, Sol-Do, in the accent of aspice, look, which presents its first supplication: aspice Deus, look, Oh God. The Do resounds with strength, amplified by a virga with episema, but that strong clamor subsides in a gentle descent from the La to the fundamental, with a beautiful La-Fa swing in the Deus accent, marking the supplicatory character that then extends to the Fa-Mi in the last cadences, Fa-Mi-Fa Fa Mi, conferring even more strength to that plea with the semitonal relationship, as well as a sense of intimacy and closeness with God. With this reverent melodic descent, the prayerful singer seeks to obtain an answer from Him, relying more on the humility of the supplication of this tone.

But the phrase continues because the supplication continues, and now it is made explicit. Using a similar verb, aspice - respice, and using the same imperative form, God is asked with the intimacy and softness of the tetrachord Mi-Fa-Sol-La to look upon the face of The Anointed One. The prayerful one does not ask for favors for himself, instead, he asks God to look upon his Anointed One, and all his trust is in God to look upon the face of Jesus. To present this supplication, the melodic development fluctuates between the Sol and La, the accent of faciem is highlighted with three long notes, and then descends briefly to the Fa, at the end of faciem, the face. The intensity is slightly increasing and with the impulse of the salicus, Fa-Sol-La, the melody prepares the sudden ascent to Do, underlined with a bivirga, coming to adopt a strong clamor in Christi touching even the high Re in this keyword of the Introit. This intensity is prolonged in the possessive tui, your Anointed One, which is reinforced by the quilismatic movement around the La in the final cadence of the phrase. Throughout this first phrase the soul is already expressing, at the same time as in her prayer, the pride and happiness she has in being one with Christ, besieged in the same loving gaze of the Father.

In the first incise of the second phrase: quia melior est, because it is better, the melodic turn around the La of the previous cadence is utilized again and repeated in melior. The B-flat appears for the first and only time, confers an even more expressive, tender, and delicate character to this melodic motif: There is nothing like a day in your presence, Father! From the La, the melody descends reverently on the final syllable of melior to settle on the Fa and from there begin an agile ascent to the Do, again, on the accent of una, reinforced by the quilismatic movement. From the Do to the end of the incise there is a broad descent, full of reverent fervor.

In the following incise, in atriis tuis, in your atriums, from the La to the Re, already in the low register of the piece, continues this wide descent in which the soul ends up prostrating itself before God, with immense reverence. This Introit concludes with a magnificent melodic development in the accent of milia, miles, as opposed to dies una, one day, highlighting them, but this does not cease from singing the joy of the house of God. Indeed, in milia, the soul delights in the joy of dwelling in the presence of the Lord, a kind of musical expression of the length of time in the House of God. Thus, tracing a most beautiful melodic arc that begins with a vigorous four-note salicus, Re-Sol, in super, the melody then settles in the dominant to become exalted from there for the last time to the Do, the cusp and then descends again with grace and reverence to the low Re. After this articulation on the Re, the melodic movement proceeds with a certain prolonged focus towards the final cadence, oscillating between Fa-La, until it finally rests on the Mi of the final cadence, confident of enjoying eternal happiness in the atrium of the beatitude of God.