STORY OF THE CHOIR AND HIS FOUNDER | OBJECTIVES | THE CHOIR: MEN AND WOMEN’S VOICES | BRIEF HISTORY OF GREGORIAN CHANT

GREGORIAN CHANT has its roots in the evangelization of the Western Europe in the first centuries of our era.
If the attribution of his paternity to Pope Saint Gregory the Great (+ 604) is today pure legend, the fact remains that Rome was an active and major place of composition in the 5th-6th centuries.
But so many regions, so many different repertoires. For example, Milan, Rome, Benevento (Southern Italy), Spain and Gaule...

Memory ensured the transmission of melodies. It was in this context of orality that in the 8th century came a rapprochement between the Kingdom of the Francs (Pepin, Charlemagne) and Rome (Pope Etienne II). While securing the Papal States, the King and then the Emperor believed that the adoption of the liturgy would help to resolve political difficulties and would also ensure the desired unity of the kingdom/empire.
Concerning the liturgical chants, the process led to an adaptation and not a radical replacement of one repertoire by another. It is therefore a blending and a hybridization that have been at the origin of the chant called Gregorian.

It might be necessary to qualify, but gradually the oral tradition gave way to a tradition of writing. Indeed, the invention of a writing method revolutionized musical traditions! The rhythm of the notes could be noted without specifying the intervals... This manuscript work was done mainly between Seine and Rhin. It was a progress, but also a source of decadence. The freedom of the verbal rhythm was gradually forced to disappear under the pressure of theorists. The notes landed on lines, polyphony began and developed.
With books, the role of memory fades. At the end of the Middle Ages, decadence was complete, both in book publishing and in choral performances. If there was an early concern from the ecclesiastical authorities for a return to the sources of a "golden age" of the Gregorian chant, this effort remained vain for a while. It was not until the 19th century and the research work, carried out mainly by the paleographic workshop of Solesmes, that a rediscovery and a true restoration were carried out. Some names could be mentioned, such as Dom Guéranger, Dom Pothier, Dom Moquereau, Dom Cardine, Dom Claire... Monks, researchers of yesterday and today to whom we owe this new birth. Concretely, our books, Antiphonale monasticum and Graduale Romanum are the visible results of this long and beautiful Benedictine work.

This restoration will find all its brilliance and completion only through the voice of those who practice it in a living and spiritual way. This cultural, musical and spiritual heritage is placed on our lips, like a treasure so that we can give it life and know how to transmit it.