Anyone else here a big Gregorian Chant fan?

[leftyladyfrommo]

I am. Just wondering if anyone has some really good recordings that they could share.

I just bought a new one (actually recorded in 2000) by a group of Benedictine nuns who have an abbey on the east coast. It is just a gorgeous recording.

[regnaD kciN]

1. Our plainchant group actually issued a CD...

...about ten years ago. It used to be available on Amazon, but hasn't been for years.

[DemBones DemBones]

5. What's the title? Maybe it's available somewhere --

perhaps alibris carries records? Hamilton definitely does and many are older ones.

[tjwmason]

2. Not recorded.

Speaking personally (and only personally), I find that it loses everything when removed from context.

In the Liturgy, however, it can be stunningly heavenly. The Regina Caeli was my favourite part of the Pope's inaugural Mass.

The loss of chant from main-stream Catholic life has been a tragedy, I don't believe it would be difficult at all to get congregations to learn some of the simple bits - the Salve Regina and other Marian antiphons, the ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei), and some of the old hymns. Best of all, it was specifically called for by Vatican II.

[DemBones DemBones]

6. You are so right about the tragedy of chant being removed from the Liturgy.

It makes me sad, sick at heart, and angry that so many parishes so badly misinterpreted Vatican II. It was a pastoral council, it had no authority to change the Mass. Catholics still have the right to the Traditional Latin Mass but to hear it you have to go to an SSPX church or one with an independent priest.

(Caveat: Your local "indult" Latin Mass may be a Latin translation of the Novus Ordo rather than the Traditional Latin Mass. Without an old missal to compare it to, or a good knowledge of Latin and a good memory of the Traditional Mass, who can tell whether an "indult" is Traditional or a Latin version of the "New Order?")

My parish church is a bit of a rarity these days: a beautiful, old church which still, for the most part, looks like a Catholic church. Yet what do we sing? Mostly Protestant hymns and not the good Protestant hymns, but the ones written by people with no ear for music or talent for lyrics. It's a sin, when we have such a rich tradition of Catholic music, to be subjected to such insults to ear and soul.

We sing "Salve Regina" in Latin only once or twice a year, "Stabat Mater" in Latin at Stations of the Cross on Fridays of Lent only, once in a blue moon "Kyrie Eleison" in Greek. Forget about "Tantume Ergo," "Te Deum," "Panis Angelicus," "Regina Coeli," et al.

The popularity of "Chant" back around 1994-95, and all the subsequent Gregorian chant albums, should have been a message to the Church that the people want this music.

I want to be able to attend the Traditional Latin Mass again without driving a hundred miles to an SSPX church, and I want to hear Gregorian chant at Mass, not just on CD.

To me, chant is always beautiful, but in context it's at its most sublime.

[Joe Chi Minh]

3. I find Gregorian Chant absolutely sublime.

[DemBones DemBones]

4. YES! I missed this thread before. . . What is

the name of that CD???