Today being the feast of St Gregory, I thought of sharing with you some heavenly music that has been around for hundreds of years. I am referring to Gregorian Chant, a system of notation devised by Pope St. Gregory, who lived between 540-604 AD. Known also as plainchant, Gregorian chant developed mainly in western and central Europe during the 9th and 10th centuries, with later additions and redactions. The notes are written on 4 lines and various notes are used, different than the ones we are used to in conventional musical notation. Although popular legend credits Pope Gregory I with inventing Gregorian chant, scholars believe that it arose from a later Carolingian synthesis of the Old Roman Chant and Gallican Chant. Gregorian chant was originally used for singing the Office (by male and female religious) and for singing the parts of the Mass pertaining to the lay faithful, the celebrant and the choir. The Catholic Church later allowed polyphonic arrangements to replace the Gregorian chant of the Ordinary of the Mass. This is why the Mass as a compositional form, as set by composers like Palestrina, Haydn and Mozart, features a Kyrie but not an Introit. Among the composers who most frequently wrote polyphonic settings were William Byrd, Tomas Luis de Victoria, Josquin DuPre and Claudio Monteverdi. The most pristine sound of Gregorian Chant is that recorded over the last 80 years by the Monks of St Peter’s Abbey in Solesmes, France (pronounce Solemm.) These were made famous as the source of the restoration of Benedictine monastic life in the country under Dom Prosper Gueranger after the French Revolution. These recordings were done probably in the 1960, led by Dom Joseph Gajard OSB (1885-1972.)
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