Gregorian chant with added ornaments


This is the artwork for the forthcoming Decca CD from L'Abbaye de Notre-Dame de l'Annonciation du Barroux with added ornaments to reflect the topical playlist for my Chance Music programme on Sunday, August 1.

1. Titi Robin - Kali Sultana, troisième mouvement
2. Lady Gaga - Poker Face
3. Monks of l'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux - Gregorian antiphons and responsories
4. Bells of l'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine du Barroux
5. Xavier de Fourvière, Te Saludan - Jean Coutarel (organ) and Jean-Sébastien Bressy (galoubet)
6. Jonathan Harvey, Mortuos plango, vivos voce for eight channel tape
7. Titi Robin - Kali Sultana, septième mouvement and épilogue

Titi Robin's daughter features on vocals on the opening track. My daughter will be talking about the Lady Gaga track as she was at the diva's O2 gig in London a few months ago and, I have to confess, I wasn't. But is it art or entertainment, or is it just quick and dirty media? Does it matter? As broadcaster and musicologist Leo Black says in his new book:
'Broadcasting, overall as well as in detail, is a field where you drop a pebble down a well, wait for the faint splash, and then proceed to next business.'
* Listen to a podcast of this Chance Music programme here.

* Titi Robin is appearing with Faiz Ali Faiz at the Barbican, London on Sept 18 in a performance of Jaadu Magic, which I enthused about last year. It should be an unmissable evening, but sadly we will be in Languedoc on the path of the Albigensian Crusade.

* More Gregorian with added ornaments here.

BBC Music in the Glock Era and After by Leo Black ISBN 9780955608742 is published by Plumbago Books. Distribution is by Boydell & Brewer who supplied a review sample at my request. All CDs on the playlist were bought at retail. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk. This post is available via Twitter @overgrownpath

Comments

Anonymous said…
um,. ok,well, you may be interested in the following post, includes an video interview with aforementioned Nuns in your post. its the second half of
http://gregoriano-monastica.blogspot.com/2010/07/httpwww.html
(and the NUns already have 3 other CDs Cassettes and a DVD out, but on much smaller label/scale.
pax
Pliable said…
um,. ok,well, a promotional video for Universal Music .... you may be interested in Chapter 7 of the Rule of Saint Benedict.

The value of humility

The twelfth step of humility is concerned with the external impression conveyed by those dedicated to monastic life. The humility of their hearts should be apparent by their bodily movements to all who see them. Whether they are at the work of God, at prayer in the oratory, walking about the monastery, in the garden, on a journey or in the fields, wherever they may be, whether sitting, walking or standing they should be free of any hint of arrogance or pride in their manner or the way they look about them.


Regular readers will know I have visited L'Abbaye de Notre-Dame de L'Annonciation and L'Abbaye Sainte-Madeleine at Le Barroux, which is a long way from Avignon incidentally, many times over the years. I have also written positively about the communities there and the recordings they have made of chant.

But I have a healthy degree of scepticism as to whether signing for a major record company that markets the nuns as stablemates of Lady Gaga and U2 is in line with Saint Benedict's Rule 12.

I also have a healthy degree of scepticism about the concept of monastic infallibility -

http://www.overgrownpath.com/2010/01/love-life-and-crimes-against-humanity.html

Talking of infallibility, I notice that Uber Ultramontanist's blog, which appears to use a lot of copyright recordings of chant, does not allow comments.

Rule of Saint Benedict, Chapter 53

The reception of guests

Any guest who happens to arrive at the monastery should be received just as we would receive Christ himself ...


Thanks for visiting Uber Ultramontanist and I hope you enjoy the programme.
Pliable said…
This quote from the Telegraph website is also relevant to the link I give above and the past links between the Benedictines at Le Barroux and Monsignor Marcel Lefebvre.

'Likewise, mid 20th-century southern European regimes often described as “fascist” (such as Franco’s) were close to authoritarian monarchists or ultramontanist Catholics.'

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100048427/the-bnp-is-still-far-right-whatever-true-rightist-dan-hannan-may-say/

While this needs to be read in conjunction with Uber Ultramontanist's web name.

'The crossover of the term "über" from German into English goes back to the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. In 1883, Nietzsche coined the term "Übermensch" to describe the higher state to which he felt men might aspire. The term was brought into English by George Bernard Shaw in the title to his 1903 play 'Man and Superman'. During his rise to power, Adolf Hitler bastardized Nietzsche's term, using it in his descriptions of an Aryan master race.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9Cber

Please can we get back to the music now?
Pliable said…
Back to the music ...

I mentioned that Titi Robin's daughter sings on Kali Sultana. But I did not mention that Jonathan Harvey's son appears on Mortuos plango, vivos voce for eight channel tape.

It is his voice modified by IRCAM electronics that is heard together with the sound of the great bell of Winchester Cathedral. Jonathan Harvey's son was a chorister at Winchester in the 1970s.

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