Sacred Music - From The Middle Ages To The 20th Century [CD 1]

Ambrosian Chant
01 Lucernarium - Paravi lucernam Christo meo [04:44]
02 Ingressa - Lux fulgebit hodie super nos [01:54]
03 Psalmellus - Tecum principium in die virtutis tue [10:27]
Old Roman Chant
04 Introit - Resurrexi [07:24]
05 Offertoire - Terra tremuit [09:58]
06 Alleluia [04:25]
Beneventan Chant
07 Introit - Maria vidit angelum (tutti) [09:41]
Mozarabic Chant
08 Invocation sacerdotale d'introduction : Per gloriam nominis tui [02:11]
09 Gloria in excelsis Deo [02:48]
10 Ad confractionem panis - Qui venit ad me non esuriet [02:35]
11 Pretre - Humiliate vos ad benedictionem! [00:47]
12 Ad accedentes - Gustate et videte [02:31]
Old Roman Chant
13 Ad processionem Kyrie [05:19]
14 Alleluia - Versus O kyrios evasileosen, Versus Ke gar estereosen [05:37]
Ensemble Organum, Marcel Pérès
Solistes : Lycourgos Angelopoulos (1), Soeur Marie Keyrouz (3), Josep Cabré (4),
Marcel Pérès (8, 11), Jérôme Casalonga (9, 10)
Marcel Pérès, Jean-Etienne Langianni (13), Lycourgos Angelopoulos (14)

CD 1

The birth of the immense monophonic repertory of Christian music remains extremely difficult to disentangle, whether we
look at in terms of language (coexistence of chants in Greek, Aramaic, Hebrew, the vernacular languages, and finally Latin),
influences (an intricate relationship between East and West, later embodied in the differences between the Churches of Rome
and Byzantium) or liturgy. The liturgy, which punctuated the silence of the monasteries at regular intervals during the day,
was first organised under St Benedict (480-543). In his Rule, the eight Hours of prayer frame the Mass, which comprises the
Proper (specific to a single day in the year; this gave rise to the first polyphony) and the Ordinary (sung at every Mass; it came
to constitute the essence of the polyphonic repertory from the time of Ars Nova onwards).

The earliest neumatic notations appeared only around the ninth century, which is to say when the greater part of the repertory
was already fixed. Moreover, these notations, mere mnemonic devices without indications of interval, cannot be transcribed
today. Fortunately, comparison of this early notation with the later square notation enables us to reconstruct many of these
early pieces, which are of extremely diverse geographical origin. Most of them belong to the type known as psalmody, in which
a psalm is sung around one or two notes, known as reciting notes, with the aim of making the text easily comprehensible.
But there are also antiphons, hymns and responds with much richer melodies, sometimes featuring wonderful melismas
(frequently on the word alleluia), which prompted St Augustine to remark: ‘Sometimes I am more moved by the chant than
by the content of the words.’

During the whole of the pre-Carolingian period the practice of the liturgies was extremely varied; the order, the style and
the content of each repertory could be considerably different, even if the foundation remained the same for them all. Latin
progressively began to assert itself around the fourth century, when it was used conjointly with Greek. Out of this western
mosaic arose five ‘churches’ (or ‘dialects’) with distinctive geographical and musical traits: the Milanese Church in northern
Italy (Ambrosian chant), the Beneventan Church in the south, the Church of the Iberian Peninsula (the Mozarabic repertory),
the Church of Rome (Old Roman/Byzantine period) and the Gallican Rite, peculiar to the Gauls. The latter is closely linked
to what was to become Gregorian chant.

AMBROSIAN CHANT

It is generally agreed that it was the bishop of Milan St Ambrose (c.340-97) who originated so-called Ambrosian chant,
more often referred to as the ‘Milanese repertory’, which is the earliest Christian repertory in the West. A century before the
formation of the ‘Old Roman’ repertory St Augustine claimed that Ambrose had introduced the use of antiphonal chanting
from Constantinople. He was acclaimed bishop of Milan, then the crossroads of languages and cultures, even before being
baptised.

‘A gifted poet, the new bishop composed numerous hymns, many of which are still used today’, Jean-Francois Labie writes. ‘At
the peak of the Arian crisis the Empress-Regent Justina, who supported the heresy, sent troops to take possession of certain
basilicas in the city. Ambrose opposed this order and had the threatened churches occupied by crowds of the faithful. It was on
this occasion, Augustine says, that they began to chant the hymns and psalms according to the custom of the Eastern regions