Seventy-four minutes of Gregorian chant is
not going to be to the taste of everyone. And yet, there is
a strange, hypnotic fascination to the endless flow of monody,
and the images of the cloistered activities of monks centuries
ago, that this ancient music brings to mind. What this disc
presents is the same ancient music, performed by the descendants
of those mediaeval monks in our own country. The chants for
the Mass, and the Office of Matins for St Thomas of Canterbury
are taken from the Sarum rite - the liturgical format developed
at Salisbury Cathedral, which became the, more-or-less, standard
sung formula throughout the middle ages in England. St Thomas
of Canterbury is, of course, England’s most important home-grown
Saint, and therefore has a special resonance to the place of
Canterbury. The performers here are the Lay Clerks of Canterbury
Cathedral - the professional men of the cathedral choir; since
the reformation, when many Cathedrals lost their dual roles
as monasteries, the musical tradition has been upheld by such
Lay Clerks, who continue to sing daily in the Cathedrals, much
as their predecessor monks did, if somewhat fewer times in the
day. The recording location, the Trinity Chapel in the cathedral,
is also full of historic resonance, being the site of St Thomas’
shrine, also lost at the reformation, but still the spiritual
and architectural culmination of Canterbury Cathedral.
All of these things add up to make this disc
a document of some interest in this secular age. Here is the
most tangible of musical links stretching back 1000 years, and
taken in this way the disc becomes much more than just another
74 minutes of Gregorian chant. Excellent booklet notes by Mary
Berry, the significant authority on this repertoire, explain
clearly the structure of the services recorded and the significance
of the various chants and tones employed. Listening to the chants
in their context as part of complete services, be it the Mass
with propers, or the Office of Matins, adds to the sense of
continuity in the performances. The way the chants are handled
is always a touchy area, for there are almost as many ways of
singing chant as there are people who sing it. This writer feels
that the reciting passages (many words on a single note) are
too stolid, with emphasis given evenly to each successive syllable,
and that this format is rather old-fashioned. Others may disagree,
and the "authenticity" of the style is hard to dispute
when one is dealing with an ensemble so intimately linked to
the origins of the music. That having been said, these chants
of the ancient Catholic church are not used much in the context
of today’s Anglican services, and a freer, more recitatory style
would reflect current thinking about Gregorian chant rather
more closely, as well as providing more variety of timbre, as
happens in some of the melismatic chants in the Matins service.
The other problem that this disc has is the
quality of the recorded sound. The choice of the Trinity Chapel
is evocative certainly, but it is not so good acoustically,
and there is little reason to believe that these chants would
ever have been sung in the chapel. The Quire of the cathedral
is the natural place for this repertoire and it would possibly
have been a wiser recording venue. In the small space of the
Trinity Chapel the microphone placings are, of necessity, close
and this destroys the feel of the vast spaciousness of the cathedral
that sets off Gregorian Chant so well. Additionally, it allows
a lot of breathing noise between the phrases to be audible,
and results in the blend of the singers being reduced. Overall
there is a considerable amount of ‘dead noise’ in the recordings.
These aspects are unfortunate as, those small reservations mentioned
above notwithstanding, the quality of the singing is good. A
more ambient acoustic would certainly have done no harm. A fascinating
disc well worth having, if only for very late at night.
Peter Wells
David Flood, Master
of the Choristers 