Video
Posted on 11/29/2008 6:23:16 AM PST by GonzoII
— Tom McFeely
The last Daily Blog post focused on the ancient institution of the human family.
This one deals with something not quite so ancient, but still a venerable and honored tradition: Gregorian chant.
But it’s not just your grandfather’s Gregorian chant.
“Gregorian chant holds a place in popular imagination as the province of hooded monks intoning monotonous melodies along dim stone corridors,” according to this article published by McClatchey Newspapers. “It’s not like that.”
“At St. Stephen’s Catholic Church in Sacramento, the ancient musical form is sung by children and young men and women, a multiethnic choir of multicolored voices,” the article reports. “Teens sing wearing Vans or boots poking out from beneath cassocks. They sing at Masses where toddlers babble and babies wail and adults walk in and out during services.”
Another sign of chant’s increasing popularity is the Youtube video posted at the start of this entry. Universal Music signed a recording contract with the Cistercian monks at the Heiligenkreuz monastery in Austria, after they posted the video on the Internet as an entry in a contest organized by the music studio.
The McClatchey Newspapers article notes that use of Gregorian chant is experiencing a resurgence in the Mass, after a period following the Second Vatican Council when some liturgical reformers erroneously concluded it no longer held pride of place as a form of liturgical music.
“Gregorian chant should have the first place in musical liturgy,” William Mahrt, the president of the Church Music Association of America, told McClatchey Newspapers. “[It’s] the fundamental music, the basic music.”
Father Robert Novokowsky, the pastor of St. Stephen’s Church, comments in the article about the meditative and mystical dimensions that chant draws forth at Mass:
“During the liturgy, the chant is meditative,” he said. It’s one thing to have a short psalm read. It’s quite another to experience it sung.
“It takes four minutes to sing that one line,” Novokowsky said.
“It’s a way of experiencing the mystery of God.”
Now, that’s penance!!
beautiful music. thanks for sharing that article.
Beats 50 lashes with a wet noodle.
My pleasure!
Does anyone know of a good book on the history of Gregorian chant?
I listen to a CD of
Gregorian every night.It’s a way of saying, ‘the busyness of the day is over, reflect and say a prayer, let go of worries, leave them to God’.
I know St. Augustine mentioned them as ‘the eastern chant’. I would like to know more of the history.
My sainted Mother, a convert to Catholicism, always deplored the post Vatican II chuch music. She said if young people needed musical entertainment to attend Mass they gained nothing from being there.
WOW!, That was a class act!! =Views: 1,078,791; no wonder.
lol!
Ever so slowly, things are looking up.
The church, during eras of its power, has always used the Book of Psalms as its hymnbook. The monks who civilized barbarian Europe chanted through the entire book of Psalms once a month. The Puritans who built holy commonwealths around the world used the Geneva (and other) psalters. From time to time, I've used the Book of Common Prayer psalter for my own devotional life -- but would love to get my hands on the Gregorian psalter, complete with musical notation.
They’re a group called “Gregorian; Masters of Chant” and they’ve put out a bunch of albums.
Some are “normal” chant but they’ve done as many pop/rock tunes as will fit the tonal requirements for Gregorian chant.
Here’s more if you liked that:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Masters+of+Chant&search_type=
[though I find them doing R.E.M.S’ “Losing My Religion” to be a little quirky]....:))
Very welcome....:)
Try ebay or Amazon:
It’s a rainy Saturday morning; while reading this thread I started a CD of Canto Gregoriano and now the house is filled with sacred music and a renewed sense of the Lord’s infinite wisdom and love.
It has taken the day onto a different course. Thanks for posting.
Viva Gregorian!
Good to see more interest in this.
I have 6 CDs of Gregorian Chants in my collection (plus John Micheal Talbot’s album of Chants with sparse instrumental accompaniment).
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