Litany

Among the sound forms in which speech and music still seem very close to a possible primitive unity, the litany has a special place. It is here that we can undoubtedly best understand the cultural gesture that goes beyond simple compulsive repetition to invest it with various meanings. It is difficult at first to say whether it is a musical or literary genre, or an inseparable combination of the two. Most of the time, the sung formula is unchanging, while the lyrics change in part, while obeying a constant pattern of the same duration as the melodic-rhythmic ostinato. In the most common form, musical monotony is thus set against the relative invention of the words.