The Benedictine monks of Norcia have enjoyed a surprising amount of commercial success with their recent debut CD, Benedicta<\/em>. It pleases me personally to see a collection of chant receiving widespread attention. The exposure is well-deserved. The young community is blessed with a number of lovely voices, and their intonation and ensemble singing is nearly flawless. The opening sequence, \u201cAve Maria\u2026virgo serena,\u201d is a perfect selection for luring the listener in. Their interpretation is musical, flowing, energetic. The brothers do an impressive job of staggering their breathing so as to produce a stream of unbroken sound for long passages. \u00a0At various points, we are reminded, in a good way, that the monks are not professional singers by the presence of short capitula<\/em>, the brief readings for the Divine Office that here are chanted by diverse brothers. The varying qualities of their voices lend a feeling of authenticity to the experience, without in any way diminishing the overall quality.<\/p>\n Acknowledging this helps in assessing some important decisions made by the Norcia monks. The selection of chants based on a particular liturgical theme is not at all unprecedented. However, such a procedure can distance the chants from their particular, proper <\/em>liturgical setting and thus from the particular theological meaning. In the liner notes, Father Prior Cassian Folsom, O.S.B. states that they carefully chose \u201cpieces that are less common, in order to offer our listeners something special, something unique.\u201d \u00a0So the CD is aimed primarily at \u201clisteners\u201d rather than \u201cpray-ers,\u201d though the CD is also billed as an \u201cexperience of prayer.\u201d My difficulty with this billing is that the theological meanings conveyed by the Divine Office and Mass depend very much on the context in which the chants are presented by the Church\u2019s tradition, and the arrangement of these chants tends to obscure this context.<\/p>\n The monks wisely play to their strengths in the choice of repertoire. In these days of the internet, I suppose that (again from the liner notes) \u201cmany recordings of Marian chants\u201d are available. But I suspect that relatively few people have had the opportunity to track them down. So the absence, on this CD, of any of the chants from the Mass feels like a glaring omission to me even if it was a conscious choice to avoid repeating someone else\u2019s work. The chants that are chosen are, for the most part, easier than Mass propers. The monks probably made a good artistic choice in avoiding the trickier Introits and Offertories and focusing on simpler forms like antiphons and strophic hymns. As a result, Benedicta<\/em> offers, in abundance, the soothing aesthetic experience that the popular chant audience associates with the form.<\/p>\n For someone like myself, who spends hours each day performing Gregorian chant at the liturgy, the lack of context is a bit of a problem. An example: I was pleased to hear the antiphon \u201cRubum quem viderat\u201d performed here. Traditionally, this was the third antiphon for the Octave of Christmas (the booklet lists it as a 12th<\/sup> century antiphon, though I believe that it appears in manuscripts dated to the 11th<\/sup> century, and is almost certainly much older), and survives in the contemporary Antiphonale Monasticum<\/em> in Lauds for the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. This happens to be one of a set of five particularly interesting antiphons, unusually dense in allegorical imagery. Why not sing all five antiphons, to offer just a bit more context for the particular theology of Our Lady\u2019s role in the mystery of the Incarnation?<\/p>\n The inattention to context accords with another, perhaps pedantic, comment I would offer. The monks have chosen to interpret the chant musically<\/em> according to the (late nineteenth-century) Solesmes method. I have no problem with this choice as such; each community must decide for itself what best suits the level of expertise of its members and the medium that seems best for its own prayer. This method, based on a fairly strict equal rhythmic value for single notes, often contributes to an assured, warm vocal production and an admirable ensemble sound.<\/p>\n That said, at this point in time, there is something anachronistic and somewhat arbitrary about using the Solesmes method, especially for a highly publicized release such as Benedicta<\/em>. It freezes chant interpretation in a time when chant recovery was still in its earliest stages. This has the effect of rendering canonical some of the more questionable editorial practices of the monks who undertook the otherwise admirable task of compiling and publishing chants that had largely fallen out of the repertoire from the Renaissance until the nineteenth century. Scholarship has come a long way since then.<\/p>\n In fact, more recent scholarship (dating back to the 1950\u2019s), which is based on earlier manuscripts and a much more sophisticated understanding of the earliest notation of chant, is precisely in the service of a greater integration of text and music. The Solesmes method achieves a relaxed unified sound at the expense of attentiveness to word accents and Latin syntax. It also risks being a bit dull. More current methods make interpretation somewhat riskier and more complex\u2014at least at first. I judge the intellectual and spiritual rewards, however, to be greater. The newer approaches demonstrate how the musical setting is already an interpretation<\/em> of the text itself, and thus help to integrate the emotional, aesthetic, and conceptual aspects of chant.<\/p>\n Evaluated on its own terms, Benedicta<\/em> is a marvelous success. I suspect that this is the angle most reviewers will take. If I\u2019ve opted to listen to the CD against the larger backdrop of the liturgy, theology and modern scholarship it is because I\u2019ve come to see this context as essential to the deepest meaning of the \u201cinestimable treasure\u201d of chant. A marketing success such as the monks of Norcia have had definitely broadens the reach of this beautiful and musical manner of prayer. For that, I am grateful that the brothers took such loving care to produce a worthy recording. From another standpoint, the monk and musician in me considers it an opportunity missed.<\/p>\n Benedicta<\/em>, from the Benedictines of Norcia, is available for purchase here<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"benedicta](\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/benedicta-cover.jpg\")
<\/a>A small digression might be helpful here to make possible a closer look at the significance of this recording. First of all, the act of listening to chant recordings differs from listening to other styles of music. A symphony is normally composed with a rapt audience in mind. Hearing the same symphony in a concert hall or through a stereo is an analogous experience. In both cases, the listener attends to and appreciates the aesthetic and narrative qualities of the musical composition and its execution. Chant was not composed with the distance between performer and listener in mind, nor with the idea that a listener would simply attend to the musical execution. Chant is meant to be experienced within the liturgy. This makes listening to chant in a recording a very different<\/em> experience from hearing it, or even participating in it, in the liturgical milieu that provides the chant its fullest meaning.<\/p>\n