Original form In the
Catholic Church, "Tenebrae" is the name given to the celebration, with special ceremonies, of
matins and
lauds, the first two
hours of the
Divine Office of each of the last three days of
Holy Week. In the
Roman Rite of the Catholic Church Tenebrae was celebrated in all churches with a sufficient number of clergy until the
liturgical reforms of Pope Pius XII in the 1950s. The traditions regarding this service go back at least to the ninth century. Matins, originally celebrated a few hours after midnight, and lauds, originally celebrated at dawn, were anticipated by the late Middle Ages on the afternoon or evening of the preceding day, and were given the name "Tenebrae" because they concluded when darkness was setting in. The celebration of matins and lauds of these days on the previous evening in the form referred to as Tenebrae in churches with a sufficient number of clergy was universal in the
Roman Rite until the
reform of the Holy Week ceremonies by
Pope Pius XII in 1955. He restored the
Easter Vigil as a night office, moving that Easter liturgy from Holy Saturday morning to the following night and likewise moved the principal liturgies of
Holy Thursday and
Good Friday from morning to afternoon or evening. Thus matins and lauds of Good Friday and
Holy Saturday could no longer be anticipated on the preceding evening, and even matins and lauds of Holy Thursday was allowed to be anticipated only in the case of cathedral churches in which the
Chrism Mass was held on Holy Thursday morning. The 1960
Code of Rubrics, which was incorporated in the next typical edition of the Roman Breviary, published on 5 April 1961, a year ahead of the publication of the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, allowed no anticipation whatever of lauds, though matins alone could still be anticipated to the day before, later than the hour of vespers. In sum: • Until 1955 the three consecutive Tenebrae services for Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday, including the typical ceremonies such as the extinguishing of candles, with each of these three services anticipated on the previous evening, were widely celebrated as an integral part of the liturgy of Holy Week in churches with a sufficient number of clergy wherever the Roman Rite was followed. A rich tradition of music composed for these central occasions had developed. • From 1956 to 1970 the practice largely declined: • The 1955 papal document restored the celebration of matins and lauds of Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday to their original timing as morning services, with only a little allowance for anticipating any of them on the evening before. On these three days attention shifted from what became morning services to the services that were now to be held in the afternoon or evening. Communal celebration of matins and lauds became limited generally to communities that observed the full Divine Office in congregational form. Matins and lauds, having lost their exceptional character, provided composers with little incentive to produce new music for them and there was no demand for grand performances of the existing music earlier composed for Tenebrae. • The Roman Breviary, as updated in 1961, did not mention any specific Tenebrae ceremonies to accompany the no longer anticipated matins and lauds of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. • Finally, in the wake of the
Second Vatican Council, matins and lauds throughout the year were completely reformed. Matins, for instance, no longer had the nine
psalms and lauds the five psalms that determined the number of candles extinguished in the Tenebrae celebration.
Structure of the original Tenebrae The structure is the same for all three days. The first part of the service is
matins, which in its pre-1970 form is composed of three
nocturns, each consisting of three psalms, a
versicle, a silent
Pater noster, and three readings, each followed by a
responsory. The pre-1970
lauds consists of five psalms, a short versicle and response, and the
Benedictus Gospel
canticle, followed by
Christus factus est, a silent Pater Noster, and the appointed
collect. The
Gloria Patri is not said after each psalm. The principal Tenebrae ceremony is the gradual extinguishing of
candles upon a stand in the sanctuary called a hearse. Eventually, the Roman Rite settled on fifteen candles, one of which is extinguished after each of the nine psalms of matins and the five of lauds. The six altar candles are put out during the Benedictus, gradually reducing also the lighting in the church throughout the chanting of the canticle. Then any remaining lights in the church are extinguished and the last candle on the hearse is hidden behind the altar (if the altar is such as does not hide the light, the candle, still lit, is put inside a
candle lantern), ending the service in total darkness. The
strepitus (Latin for "great noise"), made by slamming a book shut, banging a
hymnal or
breviary against the pew, or stomping on the floor, symbolizes the earthquake that followed Christ's death, although it may have originated as a simple signal to depart.
Table illustrating the contents of the service The 1 November 1911
reform of the Roman Breviary by Pope Pius X radically reorganized the weekly recitation of the Psalter. In the Tridentine
Roman Breviary of
Pope Pius V (1568), Psalms 62/63 and 66/67 (treated as a single unit) and Psalms 148–150 (again treated as a single unit) were recited at lauds every day of the week. Pius X eliminated such repetitions and provided a quite different choice of psalms for lauds. The situation before the 1911 reform is illustrated in 19th-century publications such as
Prosper Guéranger's
Passiontide and Holy Week, (Dublin 1870) The 1961 edition, with English rubrics and explanations, is available on more than one site.
Music of the Prophet Jeremiah The lessons of the first
nocturn at
matins are taken on all three days from the
Book of Lamentations and are sung to a specific
Gregorian reciting tone, which has been called "the saddest melody within the whole range of music". The
Lamentations of Jeremiah the Prophet have been set to polyphonic music by many composers, including
Palestrina,
Tallis and
Lassus. Such High-Renaissance polyphonic choral settings of Lamentations at Tenebrae, culminating in those of Lassus (1584), share the same texts with, but in musical idiom are to be distinguished from, the French Baroque genre of
Leçons de ténèbres, as composed by
Marc-Antoine Charpentier (54 settings, H.91 - H.144),
Michel Lambert, and
François Couperin. In the 20th century
Ernst Krenek wrote a
Lamentatio Jeremiae prophetae, Op. 93 (1941–1942), and
Igor Stravinsky composed
Threni (1957–1958). Each day, the lessons of the second nocturn are from writings of
St. Augustine, and the lessons of the third nocturn from two
New Testament epistles. These are chanted to the ordinary
lesson tone and have been relatively neglected by composers, though there are a few settings by
Manuel Cardoso, and an accompanying melody set in form of recitative attributed to Manoel Dias de Oliveira, used in a few brazilian cities. The
Tenebrae responsories have been set by, among others,
Lassus,
Gesualdo,
Victoria,
Marc-Antoine Charpentier,
Francesco Antonio Vallotti,
Jan Dismas Zelenka, and
José Maria Xavier.
Gregorio Allegri's
setting of the Miserere psalm, to be sung at the Tenebrae Lauds, is one of the best known compositions for the service. Also Gesualdo includes a setting of that psalm in his
Responsoria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae spectantia, along with a setting of the
Benedictus.
Roman Rite since 1970 in
Streetsboro, Ohio, 2019. It has been adapted, for instance, by replacing the 15-candle hearse with individual candlesticks for a much smaller number of candles and omitting the six altar candles. After the 1970 revision of the
Roman Breviary, now called the
Liturgy of the Hours, a 1988 circular letter from the
Congregation for Divine Worship recommended communal celebration of the
Office of Readings and Morning Prayer − which were formerly called matins and lauds − on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, and remarked that this office was "formerly called 'Tenebrae. The
General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours says: "Before morning Lauds on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, the Office of Readings is, if possible, to be celebrated publicly and with the people taking part." The
Ceremonial of Bishops (1984) says: "It is also desirable that, if at all possible, the bishop take part with the clergy and people in the office of readings and morning prayer on Good Friday and Holy Saturday." The Office of Readings and Morning Prayer have only 6 psalms (3 in either hour), not the older form's 14, after each of which a candle was extinguished. The readings are no longer 3, divided into 9 sections, but 2 longer readings, and there is provision for extending the Office of Readings on more solemn occasions. In the older form, liturgical practice on those days differed from that on other days, even those of Lent: for instance,
Gloria Patri was not included at the end of psalms and responsories. The office of Tenebrae was abandoned at the
Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem only in 1977 − although the rule against anticipation of Matins and Lauds to the previous evening was already in effect there − because the times of Catholic Holy Week services had to remain unchanged due to the established rights of other churches.
Summorum Pontificum (2007) permits clerics bound to recitation of the Divine Office to use the 1961 Roman Breviary. Several religious and secular institutes and societies of apostolic life have availed themselves of this permission. The 1955 and 1960 changes incorporated into that edition of the Breviary continue to exclude anticipation of matins and lauds to the previous evening, whether celebrated with or without the Tenebrae ceremonies. Services called Tenebrae, differing in several respects from the original form and not necessarily connected with
Holy Week, are held even where the pre-Vatican II 1961 Roman Breviary is not used: • The Jesuit Institute provides a service, denominated Tenebrae, without psalms and not necessarily in darkness, in which a candle is extinguished after the reading of each of seven Scripture passages related to the
Passion of Jesus. • A modified Tenebrae service that leaves the church in darkness is done by the
Canons Regular of Saint John Cantius in Chicago. • Several Catholic cathedrals and other churches arrange one-off services with Gregorian chant and polyphonic music from the traditional Tenebrae service, sometimes as an evening concert. Unlike the original well-attended Tenebrae, these modern adaptations have attracted little attention on the part of musical composers. ==Other Western Christian Churches==