Johannes Paul Chavanne, a monk at Heiligenkreuz Abbey, said there were concerns about how the CD would be marketed.
Posted on 01/14/2009 8:59:58 PM PST by Coleus
HEILIGENKREUZ, Austria — Working to reach No. 1 on the charts? Try praying.
That's how the monks of Heiligenkreuz Abbey found fame. Their compilation of Gregorian chants, a form of sung prayer, has stormed pop music charts worldwide. The debut CD, "Chant: Music for Paradise," was first released in Europe in May and spent 15 weeks at No. 1 on Britain's classical charts. The album made it to No. 7 on the country's pop charts. It was also the top classical album in the United States and Canada, where it was released as "Chant: Music for the Soul." It led the pop charts in Belgium and Poland and reached No. 1 in the album charts in Austria. A special edition was recently released that includes chants sung during the Christmas season. "I get the sense this music is able to fill a vacuum within a lot of people," said the Rev. Karl Wallner, one of the Cistercian abbey's 74 monks. "It has a basic melody that obviously speaks to people in this world who suffer from stress, aggression, lack of confidence."
As a result of the CD's success, the 875-year-old abbey, located in a sleepy hamlet about half an hour's drive from the Austrian capital, is drawing more visitors. It was already a popular tourist attraction before the CD release, and fans are now sending e-mails saying the album helped them through hard times or changed their lives. Reservation requests at the monastery's modest guest house have shot up. "When the monks sing, the chant opens
(Excerpt) Read more at northjersey.com ...
Bump for Gregorian Chant!
Oh yeah! :-).
We were just working on "O Sacrum Convivium" last night at choir practice.
It's hard to discipline oneself to chant properly. VERY different from modern singing, less so than Renaissance polyphony, but still a different style and tone production. When you get the hang of it, though, it just sings itself. Very cool.
Hardly surprising for a country where the best-selling artist of the last 10 years has been Xavier Naidoo, whose songs include lyrics about building roads for God’s armies etc..
Souls in need of comfort although their minds deny it.
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