Post your examples of excellent chant
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    I would love to hear what some of you take to be excellently sung chant, by which I mean: sung in a manner that is both appropriate for worship and musically excellent.

    I'm interested both in links to actual recordings and references to recordings that are available for purchase or in libraries.

    And if you can articulate what you find praiseworthy in the singing, so much the better, but even just a reference to something would be great.
    Thanked by 1CCooze
  • Arthur Connick
    Posts: 494
    The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest has put out a handful of recordings of the seminary schola at Gricigliano. On the Sacred Music page of the US website are clips of the propers for Immaculate Conception (link).

    In my opinion, these recordings demonstrate:
    - Articulation (delamation) of the text
    - Singing skill
    - Prayerful interpretation
    Thanked by 1MichaelDickson
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    The recordings by Alberto Turco and his Schola Gregoriana are excellent.
    They are, I believe, on the Naxos label and are not to be bettered.
    Some interesting interpretations, not exactly semiological, have been recorded by the Hilliert ensemble. As exquisite specimens of intonation, diction, and blend they are beyond praise. As chant they are not of any particular school of interpretation and some may consider them decidedly arid.
    Do avoid the recordings by the Spanish monks of Silos - unless you glory in dull organ-accompanied chant.
    Thanked by 4canadash MichaelDickson CHGiffen MatthewRoth
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    No one (who knows me) will be surprised that I am a fan of Capella Romana and Ensemble Organum.
    Thanked by 5M. Jackson Osborn MichaelDickson CHGiffen MatthewRoth Salieri
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    ...I am a fan....

    Me too.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen Salieri
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,159
    Is Ensemble Organum or the recently noted Chantres du Thoronet really suitable for (today's) worship? I love the sound, and yes there is (minority) scholarship behind it, but... I'd feel I was in a movie, hearing that at church. Is it just me? Probably some people have the same reactions hearing "regular" Gregorian.

    Thanked by 1Ioannes Andreades
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    There are aspects of those performance interpretations which are probably a bit much for an average parish. But the general direction (drones, organum, treating some note groups as ornaments rather than discrete melodic pitches, quicker tempi, forward/nasal vocal production) I think makes chant both sound better and more fun (and easier) to sing.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Andrew is right.
    Such as Marcel Perez' and such would not be appropriate for but a very few parishes or liturgical situations. Perez and some others are daring to put scholarship, documents, and an historically informed imagination to work in arriving at what are very likely close approximations of very early chant. One doesn't believe that the average congregation would be but shocked at such offerings at mass. Perhaps at a scholarly gathering's mass, perhaps as a mass offering at a CMAA gathering, or a parish with a very intellectually sophisticated following, etc., it would have some legitimacy. On the other hand, it should not be written off as so much ivory tower concoction. It does have scholarly legitimacy, and may have liturgical legitimacy as well, as time goes on. I, for one, can envision churches that are at home with late mediaeval chant, Medicean chant, French plainchant musical, Pustet, not-Solesmes, semiology's restored praxis, and all. They are all respectable facets of our patrimony. If people who get upset at anything that doesn't sound like Haugen are allowed to define our musical parameters all is lost, and all are the victims.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,962
    Yes to all of the above regarding the more medieval interpretation of the chant.

    While they are aren’t perfect due to time restrictions, I think the CMAA Colloquium recordings are really what parish choirs ought to do. Some Solesmes method and chironomy, repercussion (the monks rarely repercuss, and it sounds bad), some semiology from the director... The items Adam noted can be added; my friends will drone for one of the propers, for example, when they chant in the EF.

    I tend to like the Graduale Project and Corpus Christi Watershed recordings, with the caveat that those aren’t full choirs (Matthew Curtis does most of the CCW ones) and that it’s easier if the old formula of A-V (GP) - A-V & GP-A is followed at the Introit and to use the ninefold Kyrie. Neither follows one consistent approach.

    And for fun, the chant of the Reno erat Rudolphus that floats around this time of year is actually quite excellent.
    Thanked by 2MichaelDickson Ioannes Andreades
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    Thank you all. This is exactly the sort of discussion for which I was hoping. Please continue. I'm learning...
  • davido
    Posts: 874
    Two of my favorites are:

    The World of Gregorian Chant - choir of the Carmelite Priory of London (from the cusp of the early music movement, decidedly British and mid-twentieth century in sound)

    Chant recordings by Pro Cantione Antiqua with James O'Donnell (there are a couple albums; Old Solesmes rhythmically, full, robust, dare I say "manly" choral sound)
    Thanked by 1MichaelDickson
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,184
    I do enjoy the monks at Heiligenkreuz....even if they did hit the pop charts with their "Chant" album. I want to visit there in the next couple of years but only after Solesmes.
    Thanked by 1MichaelDickson
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,185
    I am mightily impressed by the recent Norcia recording. Smooth (not rhythmically adventurous), unhurried/unrushed tempi, and tuning that far surpasses their early efforts (which may still be available online; I haven't checked).
    Thanked by 2MichaelDickson BruceL
  • CGM
    Posts: 683
    I love the group Cappella Pratensis, out of the Netherlands. Their chant and polyphony are both sublime. I wrote a piece about them here, which includes links to some of their chant-singing. I encourage you to click over and take a listen!
    Thanked by 4JulieColl M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen MichaelDickson
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,184
    Thanks Chris for posting about Capella Pratensis. That is stunning.
    Thanked by 1CGM
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    CGM -
    Many, many thanks for this: an excellent and stimulating group! As Charles W. is so often wont to point out, 'there is no such thing as "authentic"'. He is correct in a qualified sense: when one bandies that signifer 'authentic' about he must reveal to what century and decade therein to which he has reference. Authentic chant of des Prez' time is quite a different thing than that of Carolingian times, and yet again from that of mid-XXth century (French vs. German, yet!) times, or late XVIIth century French times. All are refreshing, respectable, and should have their places in the constellation of chant performance practices of which we are the heirs and caretakers. And, of course, even when we, by dint of painstaking scholarship, reconstruct an 'authentic' performance of, say, XVIth century German chant, we cannot know how a living person of that time simply performed 'off-the-cuff' what we reconstruct excruciatingly following inadequate manuscripts and treatises. And, amongst all these the so-called 'Solesmes method' takes its place, not as The Correct Way For All Time To Perform Chant, but as yet another timely, period-bound, practice which continuing scholarship has revealed to be just that - no more, nor no less.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Dr. Mary Berry and the Community of Jesus.
    Thanked by 2MichaelDickson Jeffrey Morse
  • BruceL
    Posts: 1,072
    It's worth mentioning how much the room you sing it in affects all of this. Westminster Cathedral is a good example of this. Way back there, need to belt it. Plus, a much more Romanesque/Byzantine style room, so the acoustic is diffuse.

    For those of us with mixed choirs and/or ladies' and mens' scholae, I imagine all of us read through a particular chant and envision which group would sing it best...or sing a phrase of it best.

    The Fontgombault recordings are always lovely, if as much for the tasteful harmonization of the accompaniment as anything else...and I don't prefer accompanied chant!
    Thanked by 2MichaelDickson CHGiffen
  • Simon
    Posts: 153
    How about this double CD of chant music from the masses and office of St. John the Baptist recorded by a male and female chant choir - Hartkeriana (Netherlands) and Schola Sanctae Sunnivae (Norway). Could not find working examples on YouTube. (The Norwegian women have a website with some music examples of a more recent CD by them alone. http://www.sunnivae.com/english )


    Officium Et Missae In Nativitate Sancti Ioannis Baptistae (2cd)
    ℗ 2006 Kirkelig Kulturverksted Released on: 2006-06-03

    The recording was very positively reviewed by the Journal of Plainsong and Medieval Music: “The singing of both groups, both separately and occasionally together, is excellent…….this is a remarkably complete feast day celebration".
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen MichaelDickson
  • Ioannes Andreades
    Posts: 310
    I have a couple of recordings of the monks of Munsterschwarzach directed by Pater Godehard Joppich that I quite like.
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