The Propers (that is, the Introit, Gradual, Tract, Alleluia, Sequence, Offertory, and Communion) are an integral part of the Divine Service. More than any other part of the liturgy, they give shape and life to the rhythm of the liturgical year. Unfortunately, the Propers frequently are misunderstood textually, musically, and liturgically. This series of articles will explain the significance of the Propers, giving the sense of their history, structure, and purpose both generally and specifically, and will explain how to sing them such that they best fulfill their liturgical function. What follows in this introductory article is a discussion of various aspects of the Proper texts, both on their own and within the context of the liturgy.

Language

The Propers use archaic language. This is intentional for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Propers are sung texts, and archaic language simply sings better than modern language. The vowel shapes and the progression of the verbiage flows better in archaic English than in contemporary English. In particular the archaic familiar singular pronouns (“thee,” “thou,” “thy”) are more pleasing than their modern equivalents (“you,” “your”). It is inexplicable, and yet it is bare truth. To quote but a single example, let us examine the second stanza of the hymn Shepherd of Tender Youth as it appears in TLH and LSB:

TLH 628, st. 2	LSB 864, st. 2
Thou art our holy Lord, O all-subduing Word, Healer of strife. Thou didst Thyself abase That from sin’s deep disgrace Thou mightest save our race And give us life.	You are the holy Lord, O all-subduing Word, Healer of strife. Yourself You did abase That from sin’s deep disgrace You so might save our race And give us life.

The superior rendering is self-evident, and the inferior rendering is pathetic by comparison. When the music is applied to these texts, incredibly, the aesthetic chasm between the two grows.

Furthermore, the Propers largely consist of psalmody, and the Church has always used archaic language to chant the Psalter. The early Church sang out of the Hebrew psalter or the Septuagint, both of which would have qualified as archaic or “high” speech even in the first few centuries. In the fifth century, when the readings were updated from the vetus Latina to Jerome’s Vulgate, the missals retained the vetus Latina Propers through the Middle Ages alongside the Vulgate readings. In the sixteenth century, the Anglicans retained the Coverdale Psalter and canticles, even when the Authorized Version replaced the rest of the Coverdale Bible in the early seventeenth century. It is likely that nobody ever sang out of a modern-language Psalter from the beginning of the Christian era until the second half of the twentieth century. Using contemporary language in the Psalms is therefore a modern trend, which is at variance with the historic trend to use archaic language.

Finally, singing the Propers in archaic language underscores their importance, for important things are best rendered in a heightened tongue. We see this today in secular ceremonies like graduations and presidential inaugurations: the vulgar tongue has no place in view of such important occasions. How much more should this be so when we are dealing with the sacred liturgy! We will now continue on to explain in greater detail why the Propers are important and thus merit this treatment.

Function and Content

Though the various evidences are beyond the scope of this article, from the time of the Edict of Milan in 313 and likely before, the Mass was sung throughout, as opposed to being spoken. The Propers post-date this time, and so when they were added to the Mass, they were naturally sung because they were being inserted into a preexisting musical context. The following quotation from a lecture given by Fr. Mark Daniel Kirby best explains the significance of this situation:

Originally Mass was always sung. Not until the eighth or ninth century did the so called Low Mass or missa privata come to be celebrated at the lateral altars and private chapels of abbatial and collegiate churches. The Chants of the Proper of the Mass were not omitted at these Low Masses; they were recited by the priest alone. This fact, of itself, suggests that well before the eighth century, the Proper Chants were, in effect, considered to be constitutive elements of the Mass, deemed indispensable to the very shape of the liturgy. (https://www.chantcafe.com/2011/10/the-propers-of-the-mass-then-and-now/)

So the Propers were considered integral to the Mass, so much so that if they were to be omitted, the Mass would have been at the very least illicit, if not invalid. What function do the Propers supply that is so crucial to the shape of the liturgy? Briefly, the Propers provide the liturgical and theological context for the readings, sermon, and Eucharist. They fulfill their roles to the fullest extent because the Propers are helping them to do so. This will become progressively evident as we examine further the role of the Propers.

Most of the Propers accompany something: the Introit accompanies the procession into the chancel; the Offertory accompanies the preparation of the altar; the Communion accompanies the distribution of the Sacrament; the Alleluia accompanies the procession of the Gospel. The Gradual does not accompany anything, but rather comments on the readings, about which more will be said later.

Historically, the Gradual and Alleluia were a single musical-textual unit. As there was no Old Testament reading before the twentieth century, the Gradual and Alleluia were glued together between the Epistle and Gospel. Thus, by the seventh century, the shape of the first part of the liturgy was: Introit—Kyrie—Gloria—Collect—Epistle—Gradual/Alleluia—Gospel. In fact TLH has the Gradual and Alleluia written this way, and this structure is also reflected in the musical settings of the Propers from that time like Healey Willan and Paul Bunjes.

The majority of the Proper texts consist of verses from the Psalms. Occasionally the texts include bits from the prophets, Gospels, or the Apocrypha. The LSB propers give Biblical references for all the Propers, excepting those from the Apocrypha, which are denoted merely as “Liturgical Text.” This apparent fear of referencing the deuterocanon is unfounded, as the Apocrypha was printed in Luther’s translation of the Bible, as well as the King James Version until the end of the 19th century, and even appears in Bibles published by Concordia Publishing House. Nevertheless there are some Propers that are legitimate Liturgical Texts; that is, composed texts that reflect Biblical language but are not direct quotations or paraphrases from Scripture, of which two examples will suffice at the moment:

But it behooveth us to glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ: in Whom is our salvation, life, and resurrection, by whom we are saved and set at liberty. (Nos autem gloriari, Introit for Maundy Thursday)

The Good Shepherd is risen, Who laid down His life for His sheep: and for His flock was pleased to die. (Surrexit pastor bonus, Second Alleluia for the Second Sunday after Easter)

The Propers are rarely more than a couple verses in length. They are sometimes referred to as the “minor” Propers for this reason, which separates them taxonomically from the readings (the “major” Propers). The primary exceptions to this brevity are the Tracts and the Sequences, which will be discussed in their appropriate articles.

Local Traditions

A brief word must be said about local traditions. While the Propers and especially the lections are incredibly consistent throughout the Middle Ages and across Europe, particularly in the temporale, there are regional patterns and local traditions that emerge. These local traditions are beyond the scope of these articles, but they must be mentioned lest the reader gain the erroneous assumption that all dioceses have been in lockstep uniformity in all aspects of liturgical use and practice in all times. The fact that there were diverging local customs and minority traditions does not at all undercut the remarkable consistency in liturgical use. The foregoing notwithstanding, in order to promote simplicity and clarity, and to remain true to the overarching purpose of this series of articles, the lessons and Propers as compiled by the Lutheran Missal Project will be treated as normative.

Connections With the Lections

The Propers draw out connections between the lessons of the day and the seasons of the liturgical year—they “connect the dots,” so to speak. That the Propers are rendered as music makes them a unique vehicle for this purpose, because music makes use of the same rhetorical techniques as exhortatory speech (i.e. a sermon). The music can convey additional significance and meaning that would require additional speech to unpack. One example of this would be a musical illustration of the parable of the Pharisee and the publican (Lk 18:9–14). Whereas a straightforward reading aloud of the text places the Pharisee’s words prior to those of the publican’s, a musical setting of the text (such as this setting by Heinrich Schütz, SWV 444) can present them simultaneously, without compromising intelligibility. Indeed in such a situation the prayers would be occurring simultaneously, and so the musical presentation is in some ways a better approximation of the situation described than a mere reading of the text.

The way in which the Propers “connect the dots” may be illustrated by several examples. Let us begin with the Communion for Palmarum:

O My Father, if this cup may not pass away from Me, except I drink it, Thy will be done. (Mt 26:42)
℣ I will take the cup of salvation: and call upon the name of the Lord. (Ps 116:13)

This text combines verses from Matthew 26 and Psalm 116. It reinterprets the cup of the Father’s wrath drunk by Jesus in His Passion as the cup of salvation from Psalm 116. This naturally draws a connection with the Cup of Salvation that those present for the liturgical celebration are receiving in the Eucharist, even as the choir is singing this text, which Salvation was earned for us by Christ taking up the cup of His Father’s wrath, which itself is the cup of Salvation. Furthermore, that this text is sung in this way on Palm Sunday is significant, because the Gospel lesson, such as it is, for the day is the entire Matthew passion, which begins with the Last Supper in Matthew 26, featuring Jesus consecrating the Cup for the first time. All of this is being communicated as this text is being chanted.

The Communion for the Fourth Sunday in Advent provides a similar connection:

Behold, a Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son: and shall call His name Immanuel. (Is 7:14)
℣ Which rejoiceth as a strong Man to run a race: His going forth is from the end of heaven. (Ps 19:5b–6a)

This text combines verses from Isaiah 7 and Psalm 19. It is assumed that the hearer understands the surrounding context of Psalm 19, namely:

The heavens declare the glory of God… in [which] he hath set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of heaven, and his circuit is unto the end of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. (Ps 19:1a, 4b–6; emphasis added)

Psalm 19 is only superficially about the sun, of course; it is actually about Christ, as are all the Psalms. Unexpectedly using verses 5b–6a of the Psalm in the context of the Fourth Sunday in Advent underscores the Incarnation, which feast is but a few days away. It connects to the Isaiah prophecy via third-party references to the sun (as in the Sun of Righteousness, cf. Malachi 3) and the Bridegroom (cf. Matthew 25), and “nothing being hidden from His heat:” as indeed the Logos is that by which all of creation was created, and is that which permeates and upholds it all—even the wilderness, where John cries out “prepare ye the way of the Lord” (Isaiah 40:3; Luke 3:4), which, in the historic lectionary, he did the day prior, on Ember Saturday in Advent. Furthermore, the verbiage of the “strong Man” recalls Luke 11:14–28, the Gospel for the Third Sunday in Lent: the strong man who guards his palace is attacked by the stronger Man, Jesus, who then divides up the spoil. This in turn points us to the second Alleluia for the Ascension, Dominus in Sina:

The LORD is in Sinai, in the holy place. Ascending on high, He hath led captivity captive, giving gifts to men. (Ps 68:17b–18)

Another fine example of the integration of the Propers and the liturgical year is found on December 24, the Vigil of the Nativity. Note that this is not the same as Christmas Midnight, the first mass of Christmas, but is a proper mass for the day before the Nativity. While the Propers for the Fourth Sunday in Advent continued that season’s theme of penitent waiting for the Savior, the Christmas Vigil Propers focus with potency on the impending coming of the Christ Child. The Introit reminds us that He is coming literally tomorrow:

Today ye shall know that the LORD will come and save us: and in the morning ye shall behold His glory. (Ex 16:6b, 7a)
℣ The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof: the world, and they that dwell therein. (Ps 24:1)

This text adapts God’s words concerning His provision of manna in Exodus 16 to an unexpected context: the appearance of the glory of God as a newborn Child. And one of the minority Alleluias for the day, Crastina die, which also appears in the daily office, echoes the sentiment:

℣ Tomorrow the iniquity of the earth shall be done away: and the Savior of the world shall reign over us. (Liturgical Text)

It is worth exploring the less-obvious connections as well. The Offertory for the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity provides such an opportunity. To fully appreciate what is going on, we need to have the entire occasion’s Propers in mind:

Proper	Citation
Introit	Ps 70:1–2a, 2b
Epistle	2 Cor 3:4–11
Gradual	Ps 34:1–2
Alleluia	Ps 90:1
Gospel	Mk 7:31–37
Offertory	Ex 32:11a, 12b, 13a, 14
Communion	Ps 104:13b, 14c–15, 1

The Epistle concerns the ministry of death and the ministry of glory:

“[I]f the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?” (2 Cor 3:7–8)

The Gospel is the “Ephphatha” narrative, in which Christ opens the ears of the deaf to hear the Word, that is, the Law and the Gospel, thus giving him life. The connection to the Epistle is clear: both aspects of the Word are glorious, yet the Gospel predominates. As the Epistle says, “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life“ (verse 6). With this in mind we can turn to the Offertory, Precatus est Moyses:

Moses besought the LORD his God, and said, LORD, why doth Thy wrath wax hot against Thy people? Turn from Thy fierce wrath. Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom Thou swarest to give a land flowing with milk and honey. And the LORD repented of the evil which He thought to do unto His people. (Ex 32:11a, 12b, 13a, 14)

On its face this selection is confusing. What does this have to do with the “Ephphatha” narrative, or the ministry of glory? It depicts the two glories of the Law and the Gospel in juxtaposition: the Law glorious in its perfection and its justice, and the Gospel glorious in its breadth, sufficient to cover every sin. On another level, it connects Moses’ intercession on behalf of Israel with Jesus’ opening the ears of the deaf man: not that God was ever deaf, of course, but the theme of conversation is there. This is next-level exegesis, accomplished by the liturgy and its music. This exegesis extends to the following Proper, the Communion:

The earth is satisfied with the fruit of Thy works, O Lord. Thou bringest forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart. (Ps 104:13b, 14c–15)

Whereas the Introit and Offertory are requests and pleas for salvation, the Communion rejoices that God has given us that very salvation in His glorious Gospel via the Sacraments. The text mentions wine and bread, which should always bring to mind the Sacrament of the Altar; and the oil recalls the anointing of Baptism, which “makes [our] face to shine,“ just as Moses’ face shone in the Epistle. The Propers for Trinity 12 illustrate that, even in the midst of the so-called “boring” green season, the Propers bring life to the liturgy and shape the celebration.

The First Sunday of Lent is one day on which the Propers create an especial unity. It is one of the few days of the year on which all the Propers come from the same Psalm; in this case, Psalm 91:

Proper	Citation
Introit	Ps 91:15a, c–16a
Gradual	Ps 91:11–12
Tract	Ps 91:1–7, 11–16
Offertory	Ps 91:4
Communion	Ps 91:4, 11

The reason for Psalm 91’s use on this day is clear: it is the Psalm quoted by Satan in verse 6 of the Gospel text (Matthew 4:1–11). The Introit antiphon is taken from the very end of the Psalm:

He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him: I will deliver him, and honor him: with long life will I satisfy him. (Ps 91:15ac–16a)

God’s answer to our cry from the wilderness of sin is the “long life” of salvation given to us in the Sacrament of the Altar. The Offertory and Communion are both the same snippet of the Psalm, albeit sung to different melodies and covering different liturgical actions:

“He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” (Ps 91:4)

The Tract for the First Sunday in Lent is known as the “Great Tract,” for it is the longest minor Proper text in the entire calendar, featuring almost the entirety of Psalm 91 with merely three verses omitted in the middle. Thus by the end of the Divine Service we have heard almost the entirety of Psalm 91, several verses twice, and a few verses even three times. Such repetition is not superfluous but intentional, for in receiving communion on the first Sunday of the Lenten fast, it is salutary to hear that God’s truth, the very Word made flesh that delivers His long life of salvation into our mouths, “shall be [our] shield and buckler.”

Though we could treat every occasion of the liturgical year in such a manner, let us restrain our discussion to but one more brief example, the Introit for the First Sunday in Advent:

Unto Thee do I lift up my soul: O my God, I trust in Thee. Let me not be ashamed: let not mine enemies triumph over me. Yea, let none that wait on Thee be ashamed.
℣ Show me Thy ways, O LORD: teach me Thy paths. (Ps 25:1–3a, 4)

At the beginning of the season that focuses on our wait for the Savior, we hear the beginning of Psalm 25, through which Psalm the connections to waiting run deeply. Connections like these are all over the Propers, and they are endless. Congregations that do not experience the Propers are missing out on the majority of what the liturgy is designed to give them, and these gifts become increasingly evident over time. As a congregation is exposed to the particular texts of a particular day consistently and repeatedly year after year, the connections they illuminate click subliminally and begin to bear fruit. The Propers are the true “Easter eggs” of the liturgy. The connections are sometimes difficult to discover, but they are as rewarding as they are difficult.

The Value of the Propers

The value of the Propers is in these connections which they draw within the liturgy. These connections were designed by our fathers in the Church, who appointed the readings and Propers for a purpose. Far from being bumbling neanderthals from the dark ages, they had substantial portions of Scripture committed to heart, including the entire Psalter. See this quote from the Rule of Benedict:

“[M]onks show themselves exceedingly lax in the service that they have vowed if, during the course of a week, they sing less than the entire Psalter with the usual canticles, since we read that our holy fathers briskly accomplished in a single day what we lukewarm monks hope to achieve only in an entire week.” (Rule of Benedict 18:24–25)

By comparison with the ancients, who had a command of language and memory to an astounding degree, we are the bumbling neanderthals (after all, we have to have our phones remind us what day it is). The ancients knew the Scriptures far better than we do, and we should give serious consideration to the way they read the Bible, to the way they set up the lectionary, and to the connections they drew when they did so.

These connections are illustrated well in the Propers for the Trinity season. In this season, the Introits, Alleluias, Offertories, and Communions each progress sequentially through the Psalter, with few exceptions, which increase towards the end of the season. This scheme is illustrated in the following chart, where deviations from the pattern are colored red (N.B.: the pericope references are simplified for the sake of readability). As is evident, the Communion deviates from the scheme between about Trinity 9 and Trinity 15, but continues it from then until Trinity 22; the Offertory does so only on two days; and the Introit and Alleluia maintain it with consistency for 17 and 18 solid weeks, respectively:

	Introit	Alleluia	Offertory	Communion
Trinity 1	Ps 13:5–6	Ps 7:1	Ps 5:3–4	Ps 9:2–3
Trinity 2	Ps 18:18–19	Ps 7:2	Ps 6:4	Ps 13:6
Trinity 3	Ps 25:16, 18	Ps 18:1	Ps 9:10–12	Ps 17:6
Trinity 4	Ps 27:1–2	Ps 21:1	Ps 13:13–14	Ps 18:2
Trinity 5	Ps 27:7–9	Ps 31:1	Ps 16:7–8	Ps 27:4
Trinity 6	Ps 28:8–9	Ps 31:1–2	Ps 17:5–7	Ps 27:6
Trinity 7	Ps 47:3	Ps 47:1	Azar 1:17	Ps 31:2
Trinity 8	Ps 48:9–10	Ps 78:1	Ps 18:27, 31	Ps 34:8
Trinity 9	Ps 54:4–5	Ps 112:1	Ps 19:8, 10–11	Mt 6:33
Trinity 10	Ps 551a, 16a, 19a, 22a	Ps 88:1	Ps 25:1–3	Ps 51:19
Trinity 11	Ps 68:5–6, 35	Ps 90:1	Ps 30:1–2	Prov 3:9–10
Trinity 12	Ps 70:1–2	Ps 81:1	Ex 32:11–14	Ps 104:13–15
Trinity 13	Ps 74:20–23	Ps 88:1	Ps 31:14–15	Wis 16:20
Trinity 14	Ps 84:9–10	Ps 65:1	Ps 34:7–8	Jn 6:51
Trinity 15	Ps 86:1–4	Ps 108:1	Ps 40:1–3	Jn 6:56
Trinity 16	Ps 86:3, 5	Ps 115:11	Ps 40:13–14	Ps 71:16–18
Trinity 17	Ps 119:137, 124a	Ps 118:16	Dan 9:17–19	Ps 76:11–12
Trinity 18	Sir 36:16–17	Ps 122:1, 7	Ex 24:4–5	Ps 96:8–9
Trinity 19	Ps 35:3; 34:17, 48:14	Ps 98:1	Ps 138:7	Ps 119:4–5
Trinity 20	Dan 9:14b, 3:43b, 42b	Ps 130:1–2	Ps 137:1	Ps 119:49–50
Trinity 21	Esth 13:9–11	Ps 125:1	Job 1–2	Ps 119:81, 84, 86
Trinity 22	Ps 130:3–4	Ps 147:3	Esth 14:12–13	Lk 15:10
Trinity 23	Jer 29:11–12, 14	Ps 115:11	Ps 130:1–2	Mk 11:24

N.B.: This chart extends only through Trinity 23 because that is where the Propers historically conclude. In the few years where one would ever need more than 23 Sundays’ worth of Propers, the Propers from Trinity 23 would be repeated until the beginning of Advent. Suffice it to say that our custom of “skipping” to the end of the Trinity season is a modern one.

This sequential progression is referenced obliquely in other literature (i.e., “and as we all know, the Propers after Pentecost progress sequentially…”), but the original research has eluded the author. Such a scheme would be difficult for the modern mind to conceive and to execute, but for the ancient mind it would have been child’s play. The fact that everything in this scheme lines up testifies to the unity of the Psalter, and the unity of the paschal mystery as encapsulated in every Psalm.

The Unique Case of the Graduals

Notably, the Graduals do not participate in this sequential walk through the Psalter. This is because of the relative age of the Graduals with respect to the other Propers. The Graduals are relatively old, dating from the sixth century. They had already been assigned for hundreds of years by the time the propers were being put together for Trinitytide. And the Graduals are so closely keyed to the themes of the day that it would damage the established connections to rearrange the Graduals to progress sequentially through the Psalter.

The fact that the Graduals do not progress sequentially through the Psalter establishes that the Graduals were regarded by the Church of the Middle Ages to have a special weight within the Liturgy of the Word. Let us demonstrate this weight via a worked example, hewing to the older form of the Mass with only one reading plus the Gospel. The Epistle and Gospel are, on average, perhaps 15 verses in length, these verses taking maybe 90 seconds each to read at the appropriate (deliberate) pace.

Between these two readings are the Gradual/Alleluia/Tract, depending on the season. Again, the Gradual is never longer than a couple of Psalm verses. If we sing the Gradual to an LSB Psalm tone, it will take maybe 20 seconds. In this situation the Graduals are basically insignificant, because they’re so short: they’re merely a bit of text that connects one thing to the next. You could omit it and nobody would notice. But remember, the Graduals are not insignificant! They are historically deeply intertwined with the readings. Rather, the Graduals are rendered rhetorically insignificant by the modern practice of chanting them to a congregational psalm tone. No one who chants the Gradual this way is getting the intended deep connection out of that experience, because he is sightreading a text at the speed of speech while applying to it a melodic formula, without any rehearsals or mulligans. Such an approach does not foster a deep meditation on the text.

Now let us contrast this foregoing approach with the chant melodies for the Gradual, which have been handed down to us by the Western Church. Of all the Gregorian plainsong melodies, the Graduals are the most melismatic, ornate, elaborate, and virtuosic. Why is this? It is what we would call today a “positive feedback loop.” The Graduals were sung by professionals, not by the congregation. In fact, they had to be sung by professionals because the Gradual texts are proper to the day, not to the season. Thus, they couldn’t be made available to the congregation in a way that the congregation could sing them at any time in history before the desktop publishing revolution of the 1980s. Even if it had been possible to get the texts to the congregation, they would have been no use since the congregation was likely illiterate. And for centuries the melodies themselves weren’t written down, because musical notation was still hundreds of years in the future when these melodies were composed. So the Graduals (and all of the Propers) were sung by professionals out of necessity. Because of this, the melodies naturally became more elaborate, suiting the abilities of the professionals who were singing them.

Returning to our worked example, not only does the content of the Graduals make them significant, but the way in which they’re sung and handed down to us makes them significant. Therefore, they ought to be temporally significant, i.e. not 20 seconds long. If one chants the Gradual using the historic plainsong melodies, the length of the Gradual starts to approach that of one of the readings. At this point we have a structure that makes rhetorical sense: an Epistle, Gradual, Alleluia, and Gospel that each last about 90 seconds. The Gradual now has a rhetorical weight associated with it, parallel to that of the readings. The longer texts of the readings go by faster than the Proper chants, but they take the same amount of time. The short Gradual text, stretched out by the music to a very long time, invites a different kind of interaction. It begs the hearer to meditate deeply on the meaning of the text and its connection to the day, to really pray the text, to chew on it—to “inwardly digest” it, to quote Thomas Cranmer. Therefore, it is not ideal for the congregation to sing the Propers itself. The Propers are designed to be inwardly digested, and when one is fighting just to get the text out one is not receiving the benefit of the digestion.

More will be said about this aspect of the Propers in later articles. But first, having examined the sense of the Proper texts, we will turn in the next article to a similar examination of the historic melodies associated with the Propers: Gregorian chant, the de facto music of the Western Church.