Any recordings of Pre-Solesmes chant?
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    I am wondering if anyone knows about any recordings/performances of chant pre-Solesmes? Even historical reconstructions would be good (probably better). I will be leading a day-long chant workshop in a couple of weeks, and would like to have some examples of chant prior to the Solesmes reforms to play for the attendees. (BTW, I'm not talking about what the chant sounded like at St Gall or Metz in ca 900, but what it sounded like in Paris in 1830.)
  • Protasius
    Posts: 468
    I think it was Jeff who posted a recording of Augustinians chanting the Pentecost sequence in Medicean style. It should be somewhere on the forum.
    Thanked by 1Salieri
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    You could start here: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2008/09/ratisbon-edition-of-graduale-also.html

    We have a copy in the library at the seminary in Detroit but I suspect you can get your hands on a copy, perhaps on-line.
    Thanked by 1IanW
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Last night I stumbled upon a recording of Alessandro Moreschi singing the Tenebrae Lamentations of Jeremias.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,162
    I didn't know the answer, so I asked a scholar.

    "Perhaps the most interesting recordings easily available are those of plainchant from Picardie recorded in a parish church in Vaudricourt, in 1971. This should sound close to plainchant sung in churches during the 19th c., before Solesmes' restotation of "medieval" chant. Here is one example. You could find several more on dailymotion.com.

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x52ggr_plain-chant-picard-a-vaudricourt-1_music

    There are also the baroque alternatim masses. A recording of Louis Marchand mass is available in several segments on youtube, though the interpretation of plainchant seem to me a little too "plain".

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaxAiIaOQhg&feature=related

    There might be some CD recordings by professionnal chant ensembles singing baroque plainchant. I don't realy know one in particular.

    Hope that helps,"
    Thanked by 4igneus Richard Mix Salieri IanW
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,162
    It occurs to me that at least some of the singers of the 1971 recording could have started to learn to sing as children before Tra le sollecitudini.
    Thanked by 1IanW
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,769
    I have Marcel Pérès' Plain-Chant Parisien: XVIIe et XVIIIe siecles, with some not too shabby organ improvisations to season the ancien régime chanting, and some of it is on youtube. His discography has other intriguing items as well, and the interview in Performing Early Music is worth tracking down.

    Thanks for the serpentine Marchand chant! Vaudricourt will have to wait for me to get a newer browser...
    Thanked by 1Salieri
  • bgeorge77
    Posts: 190
    I recall some post somewhere on here that spoke of a man who timed the singing of a lauds antiphon(?), and when we did the math it turned out they were taking an entire second per note. Anyone remember that thread?
  • R J StoveR J Stove
    Posts: 302
    This Marcel Pérès disc of 17th- and 18th-century Corsican chant is in my CD collection, and sounds extremely impressive to my untutored ear, although I haven't a clue as to how it would strike experts in the field:

    http://www.amazon.com/Chant-Corse-Corsican-Franciscan-Manuscripts/dp/B000025YTH
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Just sang the simple tone Salve from "The Roman Hymnal - Part Third" (Fr. Pustet & Co.) at Mass tonight, doubling the chant on the swell oboe. Very interresting... I now know first hand why the serpent/ophecleide was needed!
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    One of the things I loved about the Vaudricourt recording was the harmony added by (I think) one of the Schola. Perhaps it's an illustration of how organum began.
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