Gregorian chant is usually associated with monks in monasteries, but it's being heard more often now in regular services. Posted on 11/13/2007 12:00:30 PM PST by Pyro7480
One of the world's oldest styles of religious music is attracting a host of new enthusiasts.
Gregorian chant is usually associated with monks in monasteries, but it's being heard more often now in regular services.
Its growing popularity brought 70 representatives of choirs from Northern Ireland to a chanting workshop in the Dominican Convent in west Belfast.
The college chapel became a study for a day as experts passed on advice on how best to perform the ancient melodies.
Principal tutor Donal McCrisken said Gregorian chant was an excellent medium for vocal training.
"You have to sing it very purely - very accurately," said Mr McCrisken.
"You have to have an absolute ear for unanimity. It has to be exactly together."
Mr McCrisken, who is head of music at St Malachy's College in Belfast, said the music's origins lay in the ancient chants of the Jewish church which were adopted by the early Christian church.
Gregory the Great
Its first major champion was the 6th century Pope Gregory I, known as Gregory the Great.
Nearly 1,400 years later, Gregorian chant is again being encouraged by Gregory's successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
He described the music as "a great tradition."
Mr McCrisken said the music wasn't simply a relic of the past.
"It continues to have a major effect," he said.
"Composers writing liturgical music today - the great composers like John Tavener, Henryk Gorecki and Arvo Part - they are all referring back to that purity of line that you find in Gregorian chant."
The Gregorian workshop was arranged by Schola Gregoriana, a choir formed two years ago by Queen's University students who share a love of the music and its history.
One of the choir founders, Eamonn Manning, welcomed Pope Benedict's encouragement for the music.
"It has always been advocated in the documents of the church," he said.
"We're lucky Pope Benedict has recently highlighted the significance of this music.
"He's known for having a great love of very good music and he sees it as being very important for the liturgy in the modern age."
Eamonn Manning is certain the music will become more popular with modern congregations.
He said: "When it's taught well and promoted properly, with sensitivity to parish clergy and parish choirs, it can really take off and be extremely beautiful."
Donal McCrisken agreed that, to the musical novice, Gregorian chant has a strange appearance, with square notes and only four lines instead of the usual five.
"It is strange-looking music if you haven't grown up with it," he said.
"But it's not as difficult to sing as some people imagine. If you haven't grown up with it, an introduction as we've had in this workshop goes a long way towards removing the mysteries."
Catholic ping!
The interviewee is correct that "composers writing liturgical music today - the great composers like John Tavener" have a good grounding in chant. I don't know if I agree that Tavener is "great" - he's certainly very, very good, but I'm not sure he's as good as his press. Anyhow, we just sang Tavener's "The Lamb" - and it's very chantlike (it branches out into bizarre polyphony before it finally resolves into a conventional harmony in E minor, but the chant sound is in there.)
I can vouch for the fact that anyone with a modicum of sense and a decent grounding in conventional notation can learn Gregorian notation rapidly and thoroughly.
Anglicans don't do Gregorian notation, it's all transliterated into conventional 5-line staff notation. So I never read this system until I got into the Catholic Church in the spring of 2004. Our new choirmaster didn't come on until 2005, and I caught on pretty quickly. I'm perfectly comfortable with the notation now.
Of course, NOW he's teaching us seven-character solfeggio (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do). . . and I already knew the four-character Southern (Sacred Harp) solfeggio (fa-so-la-fa-so-la-mi-fa) . . . so now I am totally confused again. This too shall pass . . . . .
I have a CD of Gregorian Chants for Christmas, it is some of the most soothing, beautiful and meditative music I have ever listened to.
it's one of my most prized possessions.
Don-o and I have been singing Shape Note of the 7-shape denomination (Christian Harmony and New Harp of Columbia books) for a couple of years now. It is so tremendous. And we live here in Upper East Tennessee, so we get together with the Western North Carolina people regularly, and the all-day sings draw shape-noters from Georgia, Virginia, Alabama and beyond. Not church-sponsored: just us wild enthusiasts...
Thanks to your help, we are s-l-o-w-l-y getting our parish music director modestly interested in Gregorian. We'll do a little bit, Santus and Agnus Dei, this Advent.
Here's a joke I think is hilarious, though nobody gets it but Don-o:
You know about the 5-point Calvinists with their 5 solas, right? Did you know there's a Japanese shape-note version? It's called So-la mi-so.
:^P
From Rome to Metz
Gregorian chant is the oldest form of music still in use in Western Europe. But it did not just appear out of the blue. The christian sacred music has its roots in Jewish, Greek and Latin liturgical music. When the early church was free to come out of the catacombs after Emperor Constantine had granted them religious freedom in 313, this had serious consequences for the forms of worship. The Christian church was declared state church of the Roman Empire in 391, and professional singers made sure the religious melodies spread throughout the new church. By the 5th-6th century, an oral tradition had been built up in autonomous liturgical areas. Thus for instance the Roman tradition as opposed to the Beneventan or Ambrosian systems. Other examples are the Gallican, Celtic and Mozarabic rites. Pope Gregory I (590-604) brought unity in the texts that were used throughout the empire. He did not touch the melodies, but nevertheless his name will always be linked to the music.
KB Brussel, Ms.9916-7-f.1 v.
It's straight-ahead fortissimo singing, but the tuning is surprisingly good. Wish some of our little old lady sopranos could hold a note like that . . .
I'm glad that your choir director is warming up to the idea of chant. Slowly is no problem - at least he didn't reject it out of hand. "Link by link is chain mail made," as one of Kipling's characters said.
Mi-so as in miso soup, ja? (my daughter is a big fan of all things Japanese, especially anime', but I am clueless except that I really like to read Lafcadio Hearn.)
BTTT!
Yeah, miso soup. I’m not into Japanese so much. but miso soup is a good diabetic-friendly diet pick-me-up, and for some reason I am a fan of real groaner puns.
Sola Miso!
I just saw this thread. Thanks for the ping.
I think this article is good for a Classical Music Ping List ping.
Ping!
If you want on or off the Classical Music Ping List, let me know via FR e-mail.
Thanks,
sitetest
I agree. We listen to them every Christmas.
There is a monastery near the Aspen, Colorado resort called Snowmass.
All the monks have taken a vow of silence. They rarely speak. Each day begins with morning worship. The service starts when the head abbot comes in and chants, 'Good morning.'
The monks chant in reply, 'Good morning.'
They say not another word until evening vespers, when the head abbot comes in and chants, 'Good evening.'
The monks all reply in unison, 'Good evening.'
Not another word is spoken until the next morning. Several years ago one of the monks decided he had to break up the boredom of this routine. The next morning when the head abbot chanted, 'Good morning,' all the other monks responded, 'Good morning', except the one bored monk who, hiding his identity from the other monks, chanted, 'Good evening.'
Quickly, the head abbot sang in reply: 'Some-one chanted evening. He must be a stranger.'
It was just a small part of one song but it got me exploring the genre and pretty soon I had a couple dozen CDs of nothing but plainchant.
I like the eerie feeling of playing this music on cold, winter nights with all the lights out except candles and maybe the fireplace. It feels like those monks are traveling across six centuries to sing in my house.
Puts me in the mood for strong ale and dark bread.
Thank you for the links.
You’re welcome.
I keep a few links to streaming music sites on my desktop, and that station is one of my favorites.
|
|
|||
Gods |
Note: this topic is from November 2007! |
||
|
· Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists · |
|||
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
