This won't be the preferred performance style of 'Gregorian' plainchant
for everyone. At almost an hour and a quarter, it's nevertheless
a generous selection of over 30 short pieces: only two substantial
numbers exceed four minutes; the majority is under two. They're
sung in a style that's not exactly mannered or inappropriate,
although the slightly 'precious' English choir school diction
does detract from the music's impact at times. But with a kind
of restrained and almost self-conscious gentility that has now
largely been superseded. Gregorian Chant from Westminster Cathedral
is evidently a reissue by the small independent label Griffin
of music recorded in the early 1980s - a much earlier source than
the copyright dates, 2006 and 2009, suggest. For one thing the
CD's SPARS code is ADD and an audible background is present; for
another Stephen Cleobury ceased to be music director at Westminster
in 1982. Not that these are reasons to reject the CD. If you're
new to plainchant, or have only experienced it in its definitely
less than honest 'crossover' format, there is much to give pleasure
in the music presented here. Just that its delivery is decidedly
dated, although the music was selected and prepared by the late
Mary Berry, a world authority in the area.
The 32 items are
grouped into half a dozen or so areas: Music around the year;
Languages of the Chant; Hours of the day and moments of life;
The Song School; Instruments; Pageantry, with a single chant,
the laudes regiae or christus (misspelled
'chritus' in the otherwise useful liner notes) vincit.
Then, Easter Vigil is performed by the Benedictine nuns of the
Argentan Abbey in France.
This is certainly a good way
to expose anyone new to the field to ways in which chant worked
during the early mediaeval period. But a recording these days
would be built on greater vocal authenticity and acuity. Not
that either Cleobury and the Westminster Cathedral Choir or
Lebon and the Nuns of the Abbey of Notre-Dame, Argentan, makes
the mistake of trying to impose spurious 'atmosphere'. This
is singing, simple and unadorned, however innocent of musicological
advances which have since gained almost universal acceptance.It's
now thought that Gregory, whether as Pope or cleric, had little
to do with either the codification or promulgation of the chant
with which his name is traditionally associated. We also now
know that the corpus of plain singing (almost certainly to make
the verbal message easier to hear and thus to assimilate) was
formed between the fifth and eighth centuries CE. Consistent
with the tenacity with which early Christians followed and spread
their faith and its trappings, so the music had begun to be
written down and to some extent established in set forms by
the eleventh century.
Examples of this body of music
are presented here. To some extent that presentation suffers
from being a series of individual pieces, albeit connected into
the themes just mentioned. They don't extend into a more meaningful
recreation or even a simple recording of worship or perhaps
a staged sequence. In that case the intensity and distilled
concentration of melodic line (with implied harmonies if you
like) could have been appreciated at length.
Such an approach has in its favour,
though, the way the music consequently moves from one focus
to the next without any real cohesion… as a side effect there
is certainly variety on this CD. Even given the feeling which
the listener has of being whisked from one short extract to
another, interest is maintained. They're even interspersed with
short spoken, organ and set items - Taverner's In Nomine,
for example.
The music sounds very much as
an updated and somewhat more 'punchy' nineteenth century vision
of plainchant - which is precisely what it is. If you can live
with this quite understandable inauthenticity of delivery and
perhaps of conception, or treat it as a useful document of how
such music was perceived 30 years ago as the 'early' music movement
was getting into its stride, then you will surely find something
here to enjoy. But you should be aware that much has changed since
the early 1980s; work like that of Ensemble Organum with Marcel
Pérès is much more representative of best practice.
Mark Sealey
Westminster
Cathedral Choir/Stephen Cleobury *Benedictine Nuns of the Abbey
of Notre-Dame, Argentan/Denise Lebon **
