Venite Exultemus

B.C. Sacred Music Symposium

A hopeful sign for the Latin churches in British Columbia? The video advertises a diverse and young group of people who are interested in preserving the Latin patrimony of sacred music.





NLM

Is the Solesmes interpretation still being handed on as THE tradition or do we have a competing interpretations in North America now? Where is the innovation or the attempt to do something different, other than from musicians who specialize in early music and historical reconstruction? Too bad Cappella Romana isn't interested in doing such reconstructions, specializing as they do in Byzantine and Slavic sacred music.



Different interpretations of Gregorian chant may sound different with respect to the music, but not to the range of singing, and I have not found an American group that incorporates a larger range of male voices. The English sound of Anglican sacred music sounds like it has more T, and the same is true of Catholic choirs in the UK. Is it just the lack of male voices in the lower ranges? Or is there something about the Gregorian melodies as well? I don't think so -- I can hear a wide range of male voices in recordings from Solesmes. So it is something about the interpretation and/or the melodies.

Some historical recreations of "old Roman chant," including a couple of tracks by Ensemble Organum:

Feast of Pentecost

Press Conference with Marcel Peres

From April 2013: 11 MARCEL PERES καλλιτεχνικός διευθυνής Ensemble Organum & CIRMA .


The info for this clip says it's Ensemble Organum singing; I have not heard it before.

A Conversation with Marcel Pérès

For Capella Romana.



Parts 2, 3, and 4.

Alleluia: V. O Kyrios

Chant of Benevento - Crucem Tuam

(via Br. LL)

Crux Fidelis

Ensemble Organum:

Salve Regina

Chant of the Templars - Salve Regina

Dies Sanctificatus

(via Fr. Finigan)

The Christian Knight explained... by a Knight

Jack Donovan talks about Geoffroi de Charny's writings on being a knight in Way of the Knight.

The Book of Chivalry is not a manual on tactics or technique, it is a treatise on how to live -- and die -- like a knight. It describes "The Way of the Knight." And, importantly, it was written --likely dictated aloud to a scribe as the Hagakure was -- by an actual knight. Charny was not a monk or a poet or a politician or a novelist or a Victorian or a modern historian. He was a battle tested knight held in high regard as an exemplar of chivalry by his king and his peers. Chivalry was his Way.


...

The word chivalry is most often used today to denote some sort of Victorian gentlemanliness, especially deference toward women. While Charny notes that men can triumph when they put their hearts into winning the love of a lady, he also says that such men are "so naïve that they are unaware of the great honor they could win through deeds of arms." He acknowledges the draw of women and their ability to motivate men, and advises both men and women to love loyally, but sees obsession with romance as a distraction from winning honor and places romance in perspective. The word chivalry comes from the French chevalier, meaning horseman, and it is the French equivalent to the word English word "knight." The knight was a warrior, analogous to the samurai. His primary function was to kill men in honorable combat for his lord, his King, his God, and occasionally just on general principle. The Knight did not exist merely to impress and fawn over the ladies. Chivalry was the Way of the knight, his code of conduct, his standard of honor. And it was with fostering knights of exemplary worth, courage and honor that Geoffroi de Charny was primarily concerned.

"Fascinating."

Amazon: A Knight's Own Book of Chivalry and The Book of Chivalry of Geoffroi de Charny: Text, Context, and Translation (U PA Press)

Responsorium: "Congratulamini mihi omnes qui diligitis Dominum"

Ensemble Organum has a new CD out. I believe it is all new material, based on recently-discovered manuscripts dating from the 11th century.

NLM: Credo VII, which is to say Seven

See comments on interpretations of Chant and Marcel Pérès.

Edit. This Richard Llewellyn is posting comments???

Juventutem/WYD 2005 Soundtrack: O Magnum Mysterium (Lauridsen)
Juventutem - JMJ Cologne 2005
Fœderatio Internationalis Juventutem - Sacred Music
Fœderatio Internationalis Juventutem - Soutien par les Arts Sacrés

"Marcel Pérès on Plainchant" (thanks to "Ben")

Ensemble Organum - Concupivit rex decorem tuum

Kyrie: Orbis Factor by Ensemble Organum