~1000 A.D.: Gregorian Chant

To begin my journey, I downloaded the album The Ecclesiastical Year in Gregorian Chant by the Schola Cantorum of Amsterdam Students & Wim Van Gerven. The artist performing the chant sounded sufficiently pretentious as to make it of likely high quality and the number of tracks (31) seemed large enough that I would get a good sampling of the music. As it turned out, however, 10 probably would have been enough, as I could have put it on a loop and not noticed that it was repeating for several days.

The music is a cappella, monophonic, arhythmic, and entirely sung in Latin. Since I don't speak Latin, the experience was one-dimensional, the only redeeming quality being its soothing nature. Of course, this music was never meant to be "listened to" in the sense that you would listen to a symphony or prog rock album. Rather, it was meant to "hypnotize" and elevate the listener to a different state of consciousness. Insomuch as boredom is a state of consciousness, it achieved this end, but I will admit that I sometimes play the chants as I'm going to sleep. Other possible uses include for meditation, ambient music for infants, and cool-down music for those with anger management issues.

The realm of "sacred" music, the foundation for which was the Gregorian chant, dominated Western art music in the late medieval period, so my developing a familiarity with these chants was not without purpose. Many later composers would use a traditional Gregorian chant as the driving force for their compositions, styling elaborate polyphonic motets about this "cantus firmus". In modern terms, it is akin to a hip hop artist sampling "Sittin' On the Dock of the Bay" to a chorus of scantily clad women moaning and feigning coitus. Ok, not exactly, but the principle is similar, as the composer is elaborating on a melody already familiar to the listener. I will attempt to continue developing this familiarity with the Gregorian Chant as I prepare for my review of Leonin & Perotin: Sacred Music from Notre-Dame. I promise the next review will be more positive... if before then I don't give up on my Hopeless Journey.