March 2007

The Editors in Solesmes

So, Franks in the centuries after Charlemagne introduced new hymns, new Ordinaries, sequences, tropes, organum, and rhythm became strict rather than free, with melismas being eliminated because the slower singing made them interminable, and the musical accents were shifted to word accents. By the 1614 Medici edition these chnages were codified—How did a group of Benedictine scholar/monks beginning in the 1833 help reconstruct what the earlier chant sounded like?

Composer:

CD Info: Paraclete Press CD SN-18, Accord CD 201532, Accord CD 476 1452, Kulturverksyed CD FXCD 306,

The Gallican Liturgy

If the work that was done in the courts of Pepin II and his son Charlemagne was a vast editorial process collecting chant from different churches, one thriving musical style was in the neighborhood chapel--this week, we hear the liturgy of the Gauls.

Composer: St. Gall (840-912)

CD Info:

Cantilena Metensis

Metz was the capital city of the Frankish kingdom, and the ancestor of the Carolingians was St. Arnulf, who became Bishop there after the death of his wife, and whose son married the daughter of Pepin I. It was the firs place Roman cantors taught Frankish cantors, and we hear an extremely rare reconstruction of this early liturgy (what we call "Gregorian Chant" was perhaps first called "Messine," from Metz).

Composer: St. Gall (840-912)

CD Info:

The Liturgy in Rome

Because of its centrality and continuity, the early liturgy of the Roman Christians is perhaps the earliest we can reconstruct-- we'll hear some examples.

Composer: St. Gall (840-912)

CD Info: Hungaroton CD HCD 32356, Harmonia Mundi CD HMC 901604, Eufoda CD 1346, Ligia CD Lidi 0202132-03, Harmonia Mundi CD 82876-66649-2,