Mode - Plainchant - Encyclopedia Britannica

The eight modes

Melodically, Gregorian chants are based on eight different modes, often called church modes. Seven of them were given names identical with those used in the musical theory of ancient Greece: Dorian, Hypodorian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, Hypolydian, and Mixolydian, while the name of the eighth mode, Hypomixolydian, was adapted from the Greek. Each mode comprises a diatonic scale with the compass of one octave. The modes are classified by their finalis, the usual final note of a melody in that mode. Each of the four notes of the tetrachord D–E–F–G serves as the finalis of an “authentic” mode (see chart below).

An authentic mode consists of a pentachord (a succession of five diatonic notes) followed by a conjunct tetrachord, for example:

D E F G A B C D.

But the tetrachord may be added below rather than above the pentachord, thus generating a “plagal” mode:

A B C D E F G A.

In either case the finalis falls on the lowest note of its pentachord. Each authentic mode has a correlated plagal mode, which is identified by the prefix Hypo. In the following chart of the eight church modes, the finalis is marked by a capital letter:

The tones of the Hypomixolydian mode are identical with those of the Dorian, but the two modes differ in the location of their finalis. The character of the church modes was further determined by a number of distinctive melodic formulas, and sometimes a particular ethos was attributed to the different modes.

Contrary to the Byzantine classification, which lists first the four authentic and then the four plagal modes, the Roman classification alternates the authentic and plagal modes, so modes with the same finalis follow each other. This principle underlies the medieval fourfold system of the so-called maneriae (Latin: “manners”), a division of the modes into four pairs. The first pair, or protus maneria, includes the Dorian and Hypodorian modes; the second, or deuterus, the Phrygian and Hypophrygian; the third, or tritus, the Lydian and Hypolydian; and the fourth, or tetrardus, the Mixolydian and Hypomixolydian.

Although Greek names were sometimes applied to the church modes and the principle of diatonic octave scales is found in both systems, certain significant discrepancies seem to belie any direct historical connection. Most conspicuous is the different meaning attributed to the names of the Greek octave species and of the church modes. Comparing the two systems provides a plausible explanation: medieval theorists apparently assumed wrongly that the Greek octave species were named in ascending rather than descending order. The Greek octave species Dorian (E–E), Phrygian (D–D), Lydian (C–C), and Mixolydian (B–B) thus appeared in the church modes as Dorian (D–D), Phrygian (E–E), Lydian (F–F), and Mixolydian (G–G).