Gregorian chants may be vividly remembered by those who saw the 1986 movie The Name of the Rose, starring Sean Connery and a very young Christian Slater as a monk and his apprentice. The chants heard during early morning and evening services were probably the most beautiful feature in this glum medieval murder mystery set in 1327 Italy. Since then, the serene, Latin chants have experienced a sort of revival – being incorporated into popular music as is or by inspiring similar chants by singers in their own language.
What are Gregorian Chants?
According to Britannica Online Encyclopedia, a Gregorian chant is “monophonic, or unison, liturgical music of the Roman Catholic Church, used to accompany the text of the mass and the canonical hours, or divine office.” Sung a-capella and in Latin, the text has priority over the melody as it interprets the liturgy of the church for the devotees.
Many church choirs today revive the complex field that is the Gregorian repertoire. The Colombian Canticum Novum choir of the Schola Cantorum Bogotensis, for example, explains on its website: “Initially the musical notation served like an aid-to-the-memory for [those] who already had an idea about how it should sound. It not was intended that the notation was ‘scientifically’ precise.”
Gregorian Chant Notation
The musical notation was secondary to the text of the liturgy and individual notes were initially simply written above the words. Benedictine monk Guido d' Arezzo invented the stave of four lines in the early 11th century, introducing the practice of a melody being sung according to a score into this part of the musical world.
Often, the melody is syllabic, meaning that every syllable of text corresponds to a sound, thus emphasizing what is sung and not so much how it is sung. Singing is praying and a very important aspect of this vocal music is that it is meant to awaken a variety of feelings in singers and listeners like sadness, withdrawal, happiness and serenity.
History of Gregorian Chants
Gregorian chants are one of the oldest surviving forms of western music, dating back to the late 6th/early 7th century when Pope St. Gregory I had the chants collected and codified for the first time. In the late 8th/early 9th century, Charlemagne, king of the Franks, used Gregorian chants to supplement the Gallican chants that were used for liturgical purposes. Both styles soon merged into one to the form we know today.
Use of Gregorian Chants in Popular Music since the 1990s
In 1990, German music project Enigma not only popularized electronic and synthesizer music with their first album MCMXC a.D., the group also introduced Gregorian chants into mainstream music. The public loved the unusual combination and catapulted first their single “Sadeness” and then their debut album to the top of the charts. Canadian world music and New Age singer and songwriter Marcome used chants and Latin lyrics in her songs "Memoria" (Seven Seas, 2006) and "Nostrie Tiempo" (River of Soul, 2008).
In 2007, an unusual source further popularized Gregorian chants: For the soundtrack of the popular Xbox game Halo 3, chants were incorporated into various songs, making them popular with players and resulting in a chant-based spin-off album. Though often somewhat similar sounding, New Age singer Enya actually does not incorporate Gregorian chants into her music but often sings in Latin, Celtic or other ancient language. She also recorded a few songs in Tolkien’s Elven languages for The Lord of the Rings movies.
Why Are Gregorian Chants so Popular Today?
In closing, Father Karl Wallner, spokesman for a Viennese group of Heiligenkreuz monks who was in the press in 2008 after securing a lucrative recording contract with Universal Music, may have a good explanation as to why the medieval Gregorian chants resonate so strongly with listeners today.
He says: "[The] Gregorian chant has an incredibly distinctive, immediate sound. My feeling is that when people hear it, in whatever context, they react immediately. This music is incredibly calming and spiritual, and people do tend to listen to it more in times of heightened anxiety (as we are all feeling right now)."
Simone Preuss - Simone is a freelance writer, editor and translator who decided to go solo after a successful career in publishing. That was more than ...
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