Pristine Audio run
a rather interesting music sales operation;
all their recordings are available direct
from them as CDs, but you can also download
the tracks from their web-site as MP3
files. CDs are available as standard
and premium; standard discs come in
a cardboard slip case and you print
the cover yourself from their website,
premium discs come in the traditional
jewel-box.
This recording is a
re-mastering from LP of monks from the
Benedictine Abbey of Beuron singing
the plainchant requiem mass. It was
originally recorded in 1954 and has
come up very well in this transfer.
The German Abbey of
Beuron lies on the south-west bank of
Lake Laach, near Andernach in the Rhineland.
The abbey was originally founded in
1093 and on the basis of this recording,
must have had quite a thriving community
in 1954.
The choir sounds quite
substantial and makes a lovely, homogenous
noise. Recordings of monastic communities
from this period have the advantage
of combining the technological advances
in recordings, the technical facility
of the monks themselves and their continued
familiarity with the daily round of
the Latin Tridentine mass. This latter
would, of course, be disturbed as a
result of the 2nd Vatican
Council.
Here the choir sounds
wonderfully confident and natural, as
if they have been doing it all their
lives. The acoustic is well captured
so that though the choral sound is focused
and the choir’s diction well captured,
the resonance of the church itself is
not neglected. The result is very atmospheric.
But let us not get
too romantic about what we are hearing.
It was generally common in the 1950s
for communities to sing plainchant with
organ accompaniment, though I am unsure
whether or not this was true of the
Beuron monks. But other congregations,
recorded about the same time, caused
disappointment when heard live; heard
on their daily round the monks were
technically less proficient and accompanied
by a rather romantic organ. So quite
what we would have heard if we had travelled
to Beuron in 1954, I am not sure. Still,
what we hear on this disc is entrancing
and convincing.
The monks sing the
Latin with a strong Germanic pronunciation
(Requiem as Rekviem, Coeli
as tsöli etc); this might
take some getting used to but for me
imbues the disc with a secure sense
of place.
The plainchant sung
is by and large traditional; at least
it is mostly the chant I recognise from
singing the Requiem Mass in modern Latin
services. We get the mass more or less
complete, with intoned Epistle and Gospel.
I can highly recommend
this atmospheric disc and Pristine Audio’s
distinctive delivery mechanism means
that it comes at a highly affordable
price; you could even download the complete
mass to your IPOD.
Robert Hugill
The Monks’ Choir of the Benedictine Abbey of St.
Martin, Beuron/Dr. Maurus Pfaff, O.S.B.
