Gregorian Chant

[Luigi]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='01 August 2010 - 11:27 PM' timestamp='1280719655' post='2150741']
You are extremely savvy. Thinking on this, I'd be inclined to say that proper traditional Chant is one of the very best external witnesses to the Faith we can possibly give to 'outsiders'.
[/quote]

Personally, I consider the popularity of Gregorian chant (what was that album had had monks "floating" on the cover? They were Spanish or something, weren't they?) a kind of cultural tourism, the same as Japanese tourists traipsing up & down the aisles of Notre Dame Catherdral during Sunday Mass and taking pictures of Catholics-at-prayer. The vast majority of the people who buy the mass marketed titles don't know a thing about Gregorian chant, don't care to research it, don't bother to translate the words they listen to, or anything else. It's probably the same crowd that rushes out to buy The DaVinci Code. This crowd is too vacuous to be witnessed to.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='Luigi' date='01 August 2010 - 11:14 PM' timestamp='1280722493' post='2150783']
Personally, I consider the popularity of Gregorian chant (what was that album had had monks "floating" on the cover? They were Spanish or something, weren't they?) a kind of cultural tourism, the same as Japanese tourists traipsing up & down the aisles of Notre Dame Catherdral during Sunday Mass and taking pictures of Catholics-at-prayer. The vast majority of the people who buy the mass marketed titles don't know a thing about Gregorian chant, don't care to research it, don't bother to translate the words they listen to, or anything else. It's probably the same crowd that rushes out to buy The DaVinci Code. This crowd is too vacuous to be witnessed to.
[/quote]
Dude, you're cynical.

[Luigi]

[quote name='missionseeker' date='02 August 2010 - 12:13 AM' timestamp='1280722438' post='2150782']
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zez3V19U9h4&feature=related[/media]


[/quote]

This is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of cultural tourism - slickly produced, gas-generated torches, smoke machine, torn-paper windows, some arches and stairs, generic monastic outfits - this is no witness to anything excpet PBS (or its equivalent in Germany?). There's no religion happening here, there's no understanding, there's no prayer - it's all just a performance organized to put money in somebody pocket.

This is about as close to the true spirit of Gregorian chant as those dancing Irish chick fiddle players are to real Irish music.

[Luigi]

I know I post a lot of sarcastic remarks on Phatmass, but...

In all honesty, I respect Gregorian chant because of its liturgical history but I'm not at all fond of it.

1. I can't hear and understand the words most of the time.
2. Even if I have access to the lyrics, I can't understand the Latin most of the time.
3. I can't stand more than about three or four notes to a syllable (that applies to Whitney Houston, too), so I [i]really[/i] don't like pieces that put seventeen or twenty-six notes on each syllable of "Alleluia" or something. I've heard the Dies Irae, and that's better - I think most of it is one note per syllable.
4. The notation system is not impossible, but it is arcane. I'd be able to understand it if I had some classes in it I guess, but I already know the standard system and that's enough for me.
5. It does provide nice, floaty, ethereal background music for church if done by a well-rehearsed choir in a certain style of building, but there are precious few well-rehearsed choirs, and I don't go to many churches of that style anyway. And perhaps most importantly, I don't think that Gregorian chant - because of it's important liturgical history - should be reduced to church background music; I know it's important, it's a form of prayer, but it's a form of prayer that I don't understand at all and can't participate in.

[missionseeker]

(now for an actual post)

I think a large part of the problem is the false idea that "active participation" means singing every word and understanding it. We actively participate in God's goodness simply by existing. We actively participate in Mass just by being there. The point of the Mass is that you *can't* *ever* possibly comprehend it. It's not routine or familiar. It's incredible, beautiful and foreign.

[Tridenteen]

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz9akqofziE&feature=related[/media]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGBlWquUtMQ&feature=fvw[/media]

JMJ
I here ya Luigi. When the men schola is doing their Catholic "yodeling" I get irritated when they do some slur that lasts forever, and you find out that it was a 15 note jumble for an "a" in alleluia. On the other hand, when articulated, Gregorian chant is fairly easy to understand. We sang the whole stabat mater, and the poetry was beautiful. In the English Rite, the cantor sometimes sings an alleluia...which is actuall taken from the O Filii Et Filiae easter chant, see below

[Bennn]

[quote name='Luigi' date='02 August 2010 - 06:21 AM' timestamp='1280722901' post='2150787']
This is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of cultural tourism - slickly produced, gas-generated torches, smoke machine, torn-paper windows, some arches and stairs, generic monastic outfits - this is no witness to anything excpet PBS (or its equivalent in Germany?). There's no religion happening here, there's no understanding, there's no prayer - it's all just a performance organized to put money in somebody pocket.
[/quote]

I agree. I love Gregorian (and other ancient) chant, but this is just a parody. The holy chants are only a genuine witness to the outside world if they are placed within their proper, prayerful context. There is a tradition that says that Gregorian chant was brought into existence when the Holy Spirit whispered the chants in St. Gregory's ears. The stuff of which this video is an example, is one of the many examples of profaning the sacred, turning it into some show.

(I don't mean the vids that Tridenteen posted. They are good. But I am talking about the one Missionseeker posted.)

Edited August 2, 2010 by Bennn

[Lil Red]

[quote name='CatherineM' date='01 August 2010 - 11:09 AM' timestamp='1280686166' post='2150533']I used to like listening to it when I was having trouble sleeping.[/quote]
yeah, it's good to fall asleep to.

[quote name='Luigi' date='01 August 2010 - 09:14 PM' timestamp='1280722493' post='2150783']This crowd is too vacuous to be witnessed to.[/quote]
yup.

[quote name='Luigi' date='01 August 2010 - 09:21 PM' timestamp='1280722901' post='2150787']
This is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of cultural tourism - slickly produced, gas-generated torches, smoke machine, torn-paper windows, some arches and stairs, generic monastic outfits - this is no witness to anything excpet PBS (or its equivalent in Germany?). There's no religion happening here, there's no understanding, there's no prayer - it's all just a performance organized to put money in somebody pocket.

This is about as close to the true spirit of Gregorian chant as those dancing Irish chick fiddle players are to real Irish music.
[/quote]
yup. the 3 priests wearing their collars and performing show more of a witness.

[quote name='Luigi' date='01 August 2010 - 09:56 PM' timestamp='1280724983' post='2150800']
I know I post a lot of sarcastic remarks on Phatmass, but...

In all honesty, I respect Gregorian chant because of its liturgical history but I'm not at all fond of it.

1. I can't hear and understand the words most of the time.
2. Even if I have access to the lyrics, I can't understand the Latin most of the time.
3. I can't stand more than about three or four notes to a syllable (that applies to Whitney Houston, too), so I [i]really[/i] don't like pieces that put seventeen or twenty-six notes on each syllable of "Alleluia" or something. I've heard the Dies Irae, and that's better - I think most of it is one note per syllable.
4. The notation system is not impossible, but it is arcane. I'd be able to understand it if I had some classes in it I guess, but I already know the standard system and that's enough for me.
5. It does provide nice, floaty, ethereal background music for church if done by a well-rehearsed choir in a certain style of building, but there are precious few well-rehearsed choirs, and I don't go to many churches of that style anyway. And perhaps most importantly, I don't think that Gregorian chant - because of it's important liturgical history - should be reduced to church background music; I know it's important, it's a form of prayer, but it's a form of prayer that I don't understand at all and can't participate in.
[/quote]
yeah, i agree with your points. i mean, i love it when a church has chant playing (i've never heard chant in person, so to speak) because it gives the church an atmosphere of holiness and prayerfulness - but it is essentially getting reduced to background/mood music.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='Luigi' date='02 August 2010 - 01:21 AM' timestamp='1280722901' post='2150787']
This is exactly what I'm talking about in terms of cultural tourism - slickly produced, gas-generated torches, smoke machine, torn-paper windows, some arches and stairs, generic monastic outfits - this is no witness to anything excpet PBS (or its equivalent in Germany?). There's no religion happening here, there's no understanding, there's no prayer - it's all just a performance organized to put money in somebody pocket.

This is about as close to the true spirit of Gregorian chant as those dancing Irish chick fiddle players are to real Irish music.
[/quote]

Luigi, you asked about Spanish recordings of floating monks.
I believe you were speaking of the Benedictine monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos, named for a saint so ancient that he preceded the medieval Dominic/Domingo Guzman. Holy Father Dominic's mother (a Blessed) petitioned Domingo de Silos to intercede so that she would bear a son, if I recall the story correctly, and when she birthed a son, she named him Domingo, and the rest is history.

[sistersintigo]

[quote name='Bennn' date='02 August 2010 - 11:55 AM' timestamp='1280760953' post='2150898']
There is a tradition that says that Gregorian chant was brought into existence when the Holy Spirit whispered the chants in St. Gregory's ears.
[/quote]

OH Jesus Wept!!
Sorry.
Pope Gregory I saw the church adapting, growing, and changing before his eyes. Plainchant not only was a tradition that predated Saint Gregory, but this man feared that plainchant would get lost in the commotion of the changes in the church. The reason that plainchant is named for Gregory, is because he went to such lengths to PRESERVE the stuff before it was lost. Gregory had a lot to do with getting chant written down, for example -- at the time, some chant was written down and some was an oral tradition....sorry, nothing personal, fellow Phatmasser, I just got exercised over something so blatantly untruthful. Thanks.

[Chiara_]

[quote name='Sacred Music Man' date='01 August 2010 - 02:05 PM' timestamp='1280685957' post='2150531']
From [url="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/07/gregorian-chant-nobody-really-likes-it.html"]The Hermeneutic of Continuity:[/url]




Read the whole story [url="http://the-hermeneutic-of-continuity.blogspot.com/2010/07/gregorian-chant-nobody-really-likes-it.html"]here[/url].


[/quote]


*raises hand * I love Gregorian chant! I think a lot of younger people do, and so hopefully as we get older that will start to show up in what you actually get in parishes.

[Resurrexi]

[quote name='sistersintigo' date='02 August 2010 - 12:17 PM' timestamp='1280769421' post='2150953']
OH Jesus Wept!!
Sorry.
Pope Gregory I saw the church adapting, growing, and changing before his eyes. Plainchant not only was a tradition that predated Saint Gregory, but this man feared that plainchant would get lost in the commotion of the changes in the church. The reason that plainchant is named for Gregory, is because he went to such lengths to PRESERVE the stuff before it was lost. Gregory had a lot to do with getting chant written down, for example -- at the time, some chant was written down and some was an oral tradition....sorry, nothing personal, fellow Phatmasser, I just got exercised over something so blatantly untruthful. Thanks.
[/quote]

While there were definitely Christian chants at the time of St. Gregory the Great, what we now know as Gregorian chant definitely post-dates him by several centuries. Today's Gregorian chant developed from a fusion of Old Roman Chant and Gallican Chant during the era of Charlemagne that then further developed during the course of the Middle Ages.

[IgnatiusofLoyola]

[quote name='Luigi' date='01 August 2010 - 11:14 PM' timestamp='1280722493' post='2150783']
Personally, I consider the popularity of Gregorian chant (what was that album had had monks "floating" on the cover? They were Spanish or something, weren't they?) a kind of cultural tourism, the same as Japanese tourists traipsing up & down the aisles of Notre Dame Catherdral during Sunday Mass and taking pictures of Catholics-at-prayer. The vast majority of the people who buy the mass marketed titles don't know a thing about Gregorian chant, don't care to research it, don't bother to translate the words they listen to, or anything else. It's probably the same crowd that rushes out to buy The DaVinci Code. This crowd is too vacuous to be witnessed to.
[/quote]

Luigi, I agree with you about the mass-marketed Gregorian chant. I looked at some of the videos on the Internet (I don't know the group), but the group was singing popular songs and wearing fake monk outfits. I much prefer "the real thing."

Maybe I'm being overly optimistic, but my hope is that interest in the "pop, Gregorian chant-style" groups will lead some to a greater interest in Gregorian chant, its roots, and to more "pure" Gregorian chant. Even if this has an impact on only a few, at least that is more than zero.

Also, at least the pseudo-Gregorian groups are not swinging their hips sexually (at least not on the videos I saw), were wearing robes that were obviously "faux" but at least were more modest, and they presented themselves as less "evil" than some modern pop groups. (I know this feeling of "evil" may be dismissed by some, but some modern (and actually some long-time) groups give me a feeling of "evil" that I can't explain.)

The fact that Lady Gaga's label signed a traditional group of nuns shows that there is at least some interest, even in the pop commmunity, in traditional chant. I only hope that the nuns are allowed to sing traditional chant and do not allow themselves to be enticed into other types of singing.

I agree with you about the Japanese tourists in Notre Dame. It's very difficult, because Japanese culture actually has a great respect for religious practice and being reverent and respectful. The Japanese culture places great weight on not offending others. Again, maybe I am being too optimistic, but I think that if the Japanese tourists were made to understand that Catholic worship is something quite serious, not to be treated the same way as taking pictures of scenery, then this behavior would change. At minimum, I believe Notre Dame (and other places of worship) should forbid personal photography inside the cathedral (there are wonderful, professional postcards readily available at a low price). I think also that there must be ways of restricting tourists, or at least where tourists may go, during worship services. I do think the cathedral could give limited permission to professional, respectful photographers who agree to specific restrictions, without harming the atmosphere of worship.

I wouldn't want to keep tourists from Notre Dame altogether. There is a "feeling" about Notre Dame, a holiness that is in its very stones from the worshippers who came before, that is unique, and a very positive Catholic witness. When I visited Notre Dame, I was a callow, non-Catholic of 23, but the minute I stepped in the door, it was very clear from the very air that this was a holy, special place. I think that the holiness of Notre Dame is so strong that it can reach even the most unlikely people. And, the effect may not be seen obvious immediately, but it remains in their souls. So, I wouldn't want to restrict Notre Dame it to only those who have already heard the Catholic message. Again, the very air of Notre Dame, much less the gorgeous surroundings, is a witness for the Catholic church that can't be measured, but is very much there. I realize that not all people sense these kinds of things, but I don't think people even have to realize what is happening for the Holy Spirit to have its effect.

Personally, I've stopped taking pictures when traveling because I find it interferes with my simply "listening" to the walls of the place where I am. Even today, the Japanese have very spiritual roots, and I think if they were not allowed to use their cameras, as a culture, the Japanese tourists would have the ability to "hear" and "feel" the Holy Spirit in Notre Dame, even if they didn't realize that that is what they were feeling. They would at least undersand it was spiritual.

Just my 2 cents. I'm probably overoptimistic, but I can always hope. I try not to write people off quickly (although I don't always succeed). I have discovered wisdom in some very unexpected places.

[jeffpugh]

You speak a lot of wisdom. There is something profound when exploring places not through the lens of a camera...

[Resurrexi]

I don't see anything wrong with taking pictures in churches, even during Mass. the [url="http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/"]NLM[/url] would be a lot barer and less aesthetically pleasing if pictures were forbidden during Mass.