The Roman Gradual is an official liturgical book of the Roman Rite

Roman Rite

The Roman Rite is the liturgical rite used in the Diocese of Rome in the Catholic Church. It is by far the most widespread of the Latin liturgical rites used within the Western or Latin autonomous particular Church, the particular Church that itself is also called the Latin Rite, and that is one of...

 containing chants, including the Gradual

Gradual

The Gradual is a chant or hymn in the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations. In the Tridentine Mass it was and is sung after the reading or chanting of the Epistle and before the Alleluia, or, during penitential seasons, before the Tract. In the Mass of Paul VI...

 but many more as well, for use at Mass

Mass (liturgy)

"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...

The latest edition, that of 1974, takes account of the 1970 revision

Mass of Paul VI

The Mass of Pope Paul VI is the liturgy of the Catholic Mass of the Roman Rite promulgated by Paul VI in 1969, after the Second Vatican Council...

 of the Roman Missal

Roman Missal

The Roman Missal is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.-Situation before the Council of Trent:...

.

In 1979, the Graduale Triplex: The Roman Gradual With the Addition of Neums from Ancient Manuscripts (ISBN 978-2852740440 in English; ISBN 978-2852740945 in Latin) was published. It adds reproductions of the neume

Neume

A neume is the basic element of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation. The word is a Middle English corruption of the ultimately Ancient Greek word for breath ....

s from ancient manuscripts placed above and below the later notation.

Description

The Roman Gradual includes the Introit (entrance chant: antiphon with verses), the gradual psalm (now usually replaced by the responsorial psalm), the sequence (now for only two obligatory days in the year), the Gospel acclamation, the offertory chant, and the Communion antiphon. It includes chants that are also published as the Kyriale

Kyriale

The Kyriale is a collection of Gregorian chant settings for the Ordinary of the Mass. It contains eighteen Masses , six Credos, and several ad libitum chants...

, a collection of chants for the Order of Mass

Order of Mass

The Order of Mass , also called the Ordinary of the Mass, is the set of texts of the Roman Rite Mass that are generally invariable. This contrasts with the proper, which are items of the Mass that change with the feast or following the Liturgical Year...

: Asperges chant, Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei.

There have been and are other Graduals, apart from the Roman Gradual. For instance, the Dominican Order had its own rite of Mass and its own Gradual: "Graduale juxta ritum sacri ordinis praedicatorum" (Gradual according to the rite of the Sacred Order of Preachers).

Structure of the 1974 edition

The 1974 Roman Gradual is arranged into 8 major sections:

1. Praenotanda (Rubrics)
2. Proprium de Tempore (Proper of Seasons)
3. Communia (Commons)
4. Proprium de Sanctis (Proper of Saints)
5. Missae Rituales ad Diversa et Votivae (Ritual and Votive Masses)
6. Cantus in Ordine Missae Occurrentes (Chants Occurring in Order of Mass, including the Kyriale
   Kyriale
   The Kyriale is a collection of Gregorian chant settings for the Ordinary of the Mass. It contains eighteen Masses , six Credos, and several ad libitum chants...
   
   ).
7. Appendix (Containing hymns and litanies)
8. Missae Propriae Ordinis Sancti Benedicti (Mass Propers of the Order of Saint Benedict)

History

Originally the book was called an antiphonale missarum ("Antiphonal of the Mass"). Graduals, like the later Cantatory, may have originally included only the responsorial items, the Gradual, Alleluia

Alleluia

The word "Alleluia" or "Hallelujah" , which at its most literal means "Praise Yah", is used in different ways in Christian liturgies....

, and Tract

Tract (liturgy)

The tract is part of the proper of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations, which is used instead of the Alleluia during Lenten or pre-Lenten seasons, in a Requiem Mass, and on a few other penitential occasions, when the joyousness of an Alleluia is deemed...

.

In 1908 a revised edition of the Roman Gradual was published. In it Pope Pius X

Pope Pius X

Pope Saint Pius X , born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto, was the 257th Pope of the Catholic Church, serving from 1903 to 1914. He was the first pope since Pope Pius V to be canonized. Pius X rejected modernist interpretations of Catholic doctrine, promoting traditional devotional practices and orthodox...

 gave official approval to the work of the monastery of Solesmes, founded in the 1830s by Dom Guéranger, was done by Dom Pothier in restoring Gregorian chant to its purity by removing the alterations it had undergone, not really for the better, in the centuries immediately preceding. The work had involved much research and study.

That edition of the Roman Gradual was the basis also of a more general compilation of chants known as the Liber Usualis

Liber Usualis

The Liber Usualis is a book of commonly used Gregorian chants in the Catholic tradition, compiled by the monks of the Abbey of Solesmes in France....

. This was not an official liturgical book, but it contained all the chants of the Roman Gradual, as well as other chants and hymns and instructions on the proper way to sing them.

In 1974, after the Second Vatican Council

Second Vatican Council

The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...

 an edition of the Roman Gradual based on that of 1908 was issued. While the melodies remained unchanged, there was a relocation of pieces to fit the revised Roman Missal

Roman Missal

The Roman Missal is the liturgical book that contains the texts and rubrics for the celebration of the Mass in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church.-Situation before the Council of Trent:...

and calendar. Some chants were replaced by ancient ones rediscovered after 1908.