Dom Paul Benoit organ music
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    Hello Everyone,

    I recently came across the name Dom Paul Benoit for the first time three months ago. I have found some recordings of his organ pieces on YouTube. Does anyone know were I can find his organ music online?? I did a vague search for it but came up with nothing much. Most of his publications I believe were through Europe and not much here in the USA. I am a fairly young organist (later 20's) and I found his music very expressive and enjoyable prelude style music.

    I know I found a setting on YouTube of the Easter Tune Victimae..... as well as O Come Divine Messiah and Ubi Caritas.

    Anyone know where I can find these precious organ pieces that are probably not all that heard anymore throughout the US.

    Thanks for any help and advice you can offer!!
    Thanked by 1cesarfranck
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 880
    I too love the music of Dom Paul. This is a great website: http://danwebs.com/dpb/index.html

    I have re-engraved a number of his pieces and can send them to you. You can reach me at paulfford (at) stjohnsem.edu
    Thanked by 1cesarfranck
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,493
    I have all of his works, I did my dissertation on his music. Paul, I believe you wanted to see my dissertation, I will see if I can dig this up.

    All of his organ works are still under copyright by the monastery of St. Maurice and St.Maur, which is in Luxembourg.

    http://www.visitluxembourg.com/en/place/misc/benedictine-abbey-clervaux

    http://r-l-p.co.uk/+clerv2.html

    I believe this is one of the small sources of income for the monastery, otherwise I would be happy to send you scores.
    As far as ordering the scores, The monastery has a publishing entity called Art Sacre that publishes his complete works in many volumes. You might try to email or call the Abbey.

    I am hopefully planning of a series of recordings of his works this year.
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,493
    I recently released the first volume of a projected mulit volume series.
    https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/gregoryhamilton2
    Thanked by 3Paul F. Ford cesarfranck JonathanKK
  • Jmart1945
    Posts: 2
    I have recently been re-bitten by a Dom Paul Benoit bug and felt the need to throw some of his works in at my Lutheran church for preludes and postludes and I have my father's copy from the 70's and like to use my tablet to read things when I forget to bring it, but when I read the comment that this abbey is using sales of the book to support its mission, I reconsidered trying to get it for free online and buy it. However, it appears that now the book is permanently out of print, which is to say, if the book is out of print, nobody's losing money on prospective IP piracy of it, correct, cause presumably those guys aren't making new ones---otherwise, I'd be able to buy it, right? Figured I'd mention it on this forum because I feel there are folks here who might say---"No you're wrong! Susie down the block is now printing it and you should get it from her to support the Luxembourg monks!" etc. Thanks.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 261
    I purchased several volumes of his works directly from the abbey only last year, so I would recommend contacting them directly to be sure that the situation really has changed.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,879
    I don’t know why their site isn’t working on Safari but the abbey shop link is here (it’s a bit hard to find just by looking at it).
  • Allan DAllan D
    Posts: 44
    I have purchased several of his recently published works from this website: https://www.boeijengamusic.com/en/

    (Type "Dom Paul" in the search box.)
    Thanked by 1marcolinoho
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,493
    I would recommend purchasing him music from his abbey in Clervaulx, Luxembourg.
    The income from his works supports the abbey.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,879
    at least for now they get royalties at least (right?) so any sales help the abbey. It does make sense to buy from them if possible if they get more money from direct sales.
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,493
    It is one of the few sources of income the Abbey has...
    Also, consider a visit, it's a beautiful area andin their shop Art Sacre, they have all his works for sale.....and they will probably let you play the Cavaille-Coll/Maclin in the church.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,447
    It is one of the few sources of income the Abbey has...
    I am glad you said this. Tbh, the scores are expensive (though the music is lovely) and I was second guessing whether or not I should justify the expense… but if it’s keeping an abbey alive on breadcrumbs, then it’s a worthy cause.
    Thanked by 2Paul F. Ford CHGiffen
  • CGM
    Posts: 837
    I poked around a bit on the abbey website but couldn't find any sort of e-commerce interface. How does one purchase music from them? And what's available for purchase? There was no list or catalog to peruse.
  • AdteBeateJoseph3
    Posts: 96
    You have to contact the monks through email first. They should give you a catalog of his works to choose from. Then you tell them which works you want and they send an invoice.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,447
    A little update on this: I decided to write to the abbey (in my now crusty French) and ask for the list. Attached is the PDF that I was given.

    The problem is that, due to the recent tariff situation, Luxembourg mail services are no longer sending any mail to the United States. They can ship DHL, but it is "prohibitively expensive".

    So it looks like the few collections available via https://www.boeijengamusic.com/en/ might be the way to go for the time being.

    Here's a translation of the full reply that I received:

    In this PDF, you'll find a list of the scores by Dom Paul Benoît. There are not any overlaps in the scores. The 'bestsellers' are PB8, PB 15, and PB 22.

    But there is a logistical problem: because of the new tariffs imposed by the United States, starting last September, the Luxembourg post isn't sending anything to the USA any longer. It would be possible to send via DHL, but the priest is excessively high.

    Please let me know what you think.

    With my cordial salutations in Christ,
    Frère Michæl.
    DomPaul Benoit Prix 2025.pdf
    104K
    Thanked by 1Paul F. Ford
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,447
    Just an update to say that I did order multiple volumes from Boeijengamusic, and they arrived a few days ago. (I ordered early February at the time of this conversation.)

    They appear to be the official books from the monastery, simply distributed by BJM.

    While I can confirm that the music itself is quite wonderful, I'm sad to say that the EDITING of said music is, well, abysmal. It appears that when these official versions were produced by a friend of the monastery, she evidently did not have access to high-quality notation software, so there are all sorts of collisions. One setting of the pange lingua (that I rather like) was so bad I had to make my own engraving of it to play. So, buyer beware: while you CAN play from the scores, you'll have to put up with a tremendous amount of collisions (particularly stacked accidentals and slurs). On the bright side, all but one volume came comb bound, so they lay open nicely
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,879
    I assume that in fact they were typeset in the 70s or 80s so yeah, before notation software, based on the typographical choices otherwise.

    The few previews available look okay so it’s curious to me why they put up with that; it’s not like the community doesn’t have access to musical engravers (although it’s a tall order compared to the abbé Portier accompaniments from Solesmes)
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,447
    I’ve honestly contemplated offering to engrave them book by book as I have time. Some of them are really disappointing, considering how much I paid for these books.
  • LScott729
    Posts: 6
    That is unfortunate they can't send straight from the monastery. When I ordered from them two years ago, I sent the abbey a letter in Latin (I don't know French and wasn't sure if they speak English), and within a week I received an email from the Dom that was entirely in Latin. Even the invoice was in Latin! We finalized the transaction through emails all in Latin. Suffice to say, I think we both had a lot of fun with our conversation lol.

    The copies I received (I got all the volumes) all are great and are thickly comb bound. I am a great fan of Dom Paul's works! They work great for the TLM, especially his elevations.
    Thanked by 5Paul F. Ford ServiamScores CHGiffen irishtenor StimsonInRehab
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,447
    Frankly, all of the music is lovely. It seems to me to be born of a deep mystical spirituality, and while much of it is not easy, but it's worth the effort, I've found.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,689
    Even the invoice was in Latin.


    Any chance we could get a copy of this with your address and other personal info redacted? Just for entertainment purposes.

    I once tried speaking Latin (badly) with a bishop that was relatively comfortable as a Latin speaker. It didn’t go well.
    Thanked by 2ServiamScores MatthewRoth
  • probe
    Posts: 292
    There's a video on youtube where an American speaks Latin in Rome to see if people understand him. With mixed success.
  • LScott729
    Posts: 6
    My Latin consisted of me flipping through the dictionary and half-remembering conjugations and tenses for high school haha. Pater Michael's Latin was definitely better lol. I'll have to find that email thread and share it!
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