Gregorian Chant [GA]

[Written by Gaius Alabaster]

"I think I'm approaching a complete knowledge of music," said a certain friend of mine whose identity I will take to the grave. "Is that so, Tiberius," I said, "then what about the Beatles and Radiohead?" A look of disdain crossed his face as he carefully formulated his response. "Music that matters," he said.

Poor taste aside, this exchange got me thinking about the limitations of my own musical experience. What about those genres of music that I had completely written off? For that matter, what about the cultural and musical origins of my favorite artists? Surely they have something to offer me. As it turned out, my failure to grasp Tiberius' use of hyperbole as a rhetorical device had inadvertently led me down a path of destiny. No ordinary path of destiny, mind you, but one so absurd and tedious that its only likely claim to a destiny was that of abject failure. As such, I will call this, "The Hopeless Journey."

The Hopeless Journey is my attempt to explore the entire history of western music, or at least the important parts of it... that we know about... and that I can purchase on iTunes in some form. Although I'm sure to give up on this quest in the very near future, I will share with you here its beginnings — the Gregorian Chant. Clearly, it would make little sense to structure these "reviews" in the traditional sense, as I'm no more qualified to judge the quality of a medieval motet than I am qualified to compete in the 200m wheelchair dash at the Special Olympics. As such, rather than try to ask, "How good is this music?", I will try to answer the question, "What does this music have to offer me?" By "me", here, I of course mean "myself". Any resemblance the content of this review has to the value the music might have to, say, "you", is purely coincidental.

To begin my journey, I downloaded the album "The Ecclesiastical Year in Gregorian Chant" by the Schola Cantorum of Amsterdam Students & Wim Van Gerven. The artist performing the chant sounded sufficiently pretentious as to make it of likely high quality and the number of tracks (31) seemed large enough that I would get a good sampling of the music. As it turned out, however, 10 probably would have been enough, as I could have put it on a loop and not noticed that it was repeating for several days.

The music is a cappella, monophonic, arhythmic, and entirely sung in Latin. Since I don't speak Latin, the experience was one-dimensional, the only redeeming quality being its soothing nature. Of course, this music was never meant to be "listened to" in the sense that you would listen to a symphony or prog rock album. Rather, it was meant to "hypnotize" and elevate the listener to a different state of consciousness. Insomuch as boredom is a state of consciousness, it achieved this end, but I will admit that I sometimes play the chants as I'm going to sleep. Other possible uses include for meditation, ambient music for infants, and cool-down music for those with anger management issues.

The realm of "sacred" music, the foundation for which was the Gregorian chant, dominated Western art music in the late medieval period, so my developing a familiarity for these chants was not without purpose. Many later composers would use a traditional Gregorian chant as the driving force for their compositions, styling elaborate polyphonic motets about this "cantus firmus". In modern terms, it is akin to a hip hop artist sampling "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay" to a chorus of scantily clad women moaning and feigning coitus. Ok, not exactly, but the principle is similar, as the composer is elaborating on a melody already familiar to the listener. I will attempt to continue developing this familiarity with the Gregorian Chant as I prepare for my review of "Leonin & Perotin: Sacred Music from Notre-Dame." I promise the next review will be more positive... if before then I don't give up on my Hopeless Journey.