| |
Current programs:
Chant Wars
The
Carolingian ‘globalization’ of medieval plainchant
Listen to sample
Two of Europe’s most innovative ensembles for
medieval music, Sequentia and Dialogos, join their men’s
vocal ensembles for an exciting new vision of Gregorian
chant which illuminates the legendary confrontation between
Carolingian cantors and regional European chant traditions
of the 9th century. For many pieces in our program, these
are the first known performances since the Middle Ages.
 dialogos
& sequentia,
Katarina Livljanic
& Benjamin Bagby,directors
voices:
Benjamin Bagby, Olivier Delafosse, Olivier Germond, Katarina
Livljanic, Vincent Pislar, Branislav Rakic, Jean-Paul Rigaud,
Wolodymyr Smishkewych, Michael Loughlin Smith
What is ‘Chant Wars’?
The emperor Charlemagne (d. 814), acutely
aware of the decline of liturgical singing and the many
competing chant traditions in his wide-ranging empire,
expressed a desire to return to the purity of the ‘original
source’, the chant of Rome. The subsequent imperial reform
of the liturgy and its music arrived in some regions of the
vast Carolingian empire as a kind of ‘cultural revolution’,
finding in most places an established local liturgy and
singing style with which it had to contend. These
confrontations between expert singers (as documented by
churchman of the period) and the manner in which this
dynamic tension led to the creation of the globalized hybrid
repertory we call ‘Gregorian Chant’, form the basis for our
program.
What is ‘authentic’ chant?
The ideal of returning to the ‘original
source’ has been voiced by various personalities between the
9th century and our own time, throughout the long history of
the liturgical song commonly known as ‘Gregorian chant’ ;
used in reference to opposing views of reality,
Charlemagne’s phrase continues to witness to the fact that
disputes about that mysterious ideal -- the authenticity
of liturgical chant -- have never ceased to flourish.
Having been in almost continuous usage in the liturgy,
Gregorian plainchant has not always enjoyed the privilege
(or should we say the bad luck?) to be considered ‘medieval’
music, and thus didn’t necessarily have to conform to the
ever-changing aesthetic vogues of the recently created world
of ‘historically informed’ performance. As a living music
shared today by active religious communities, secular
vocalists interested in medieval performance practice,
musicologists and liturgists, plainchant continues to arouse
opposing approaches to its interpretation. Nowadays,
unfortunately, this plurality of interpretive styles is not
always accompanied by a tolerance of divergent musical
ideas. The participants in today’s aesthetic ‘chant wars’
surrounding Gregorian chant sometimes still harbor a latent
belief in ‘Romanness’, in the supremacy of one singing style
over all others, and a desire to be the bearer of a unique
truth based on the ‘original source’. In our Chant Wars we
attempt to orient ourselves towards the other pole of the
problem : by considering the plurality of European chant
traditions, we may be able to better understand repertoires
which, at the beginning of their existence and for hundreds
of years thereafter, were transmitted from singer to singer
in oral tradition.
The Production
The creation of ‘Chant Wars’ was made
possible by research grants from the Music Department of
Harvard University and the Harvard Divinity School’s Center
for the Study of World Religions (Music and the Arts
Initiative), which provided for two residencies at Harvard
in early 2003 during which Katarina Livljanic did the
in-depth scholarly research for this program and, together
with Benjamin Bagby, began the process of choosing pieces,
making reconstructions and transcriptions. The recording was
made in the French medieval abbey of Fontevraud.
The Ensembles
Both Dialogos and
Sequentia are renowned for their performances of medieval
song and chant using various groups of musicians (men’s
voices, women’s voices, and sometimes instruments). For this
unique production, the two ensembles have joined their
respective men’s vocalists to create an ensemble of nine
which is capable of rendering all the subtleties of medieval
chant.
Boston Globe
Review
|
|
