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


And, in support of St Augustine, it may be stressed that not only did this repertory persist for centuries to come, but once the
crisis was over, it even spread ‘to the rest of the world’.

Not only did the practice endure beyond the great Gregorian reform, it even survived the Council of Trent. To be sure, it
incorporated over the centuries certain elements and parts of the younger Gallican and Old Roman repertories, and in the
pieces sung by the Ensemble Organum we find familiar melodic features that have survived down to our own day in the
commonest liturgies. None the less, the manner in which Marcel Peres and his musicians have applied the customs of singing
and the modes of the Churches of Athens and of Antioch appears highly convincing and appropriate.

OLD ROMAN CHANT

The ‘Old Roman’ repertory consists of the chants of the early Roman Church. It is anterior to the ‘Gregorian’, compiled during
the Carolingian Empire and greatly influenced by it, but which did not entirely oust it before the eighth century. ‘The early
chant of the Church of Rome took shape during the seventh and eighth centuries. Its distinctly Oriental character, which gives
it the aspect of an ornamental cantillation, is by no means surprising when one remembers that at this period Italy was not
only dependent on the Byzantine emperor, but was also a land of asylum for a large Greek colony which had sought refuge
there. . . . And the iconoclast quarrel was all the more reason for the monks to flee from the Orient and reassemble in the
Italian peninsula. Between 726 and 755 nearly fifty thousand monks took refuge in southern Italy. From this point on many
popes of Syrian or Greek origin presided over the destiny of the Church of Rome’ (Marcel Peres).

In this respect the question of performance is of crucial importance. With the assistance of Lycourgos Angelopoulos, the
director of the Greek Byzantine Choir, Marcel Peres has applied himself to demonstrating the numerous similarities subsisting
between Old Roman and Byzantine chant: ‘In certain aspects Old Roman presents itself as a direct manifestation of the
old Byzantine chant. For instance, the Greek alleluiatic verses preserved in the Old Roman manuscripts may be seen as
direct evidence of the Alleluia as it was practised in Byzantium in the eighth century.’

In the pieces on this recording the presence of an ison (a note sustained by the lowest voices in order to emphasise the modal
changes) seems to be indicated by contemporary accounts referring to a ‘polyphonic’ tradition in Rome, manifested by the
presence in the Papal Chapel of three paraphonists (para/phonos: one who sings beside the melody), but also by the music
itself, which appears to be constructed around degrees peculiar to a specific mode and which it seems natural to bring out in
order to reveal it in its true sonic dimension.

The fall of Constantinople did not bring about a break, contrary to what certain western European musicologists have thought.
Quite the opposite is true: it becomes increasingly apparent that Turkish and Arab music inherited an enormous amount
from the Byzantine aesthetic. The confrontation with Old Roman chant is illuminating on this point. Certain pieces in this
repertory, which cannot be considered to have been subjected to any kind of Islamic influence, present constructions and
formulas which are absolutely identical to pieces from the Byzantine repertory.

BENEVENTAN CHANT

At the beginning of the Middle Ages the city of Benevento in the south-western corner of the Italian peninsula played the role
of political and cultural capital of this of the then dominant Lombardic civilization. And yet, the Beneventan liturgy would soon
be called ‘Ambrosian’ even by those who practised it – a token of recognition of their common heritage with the Lombards of


Whatever the case may be, Beneventan texts, liturgical structure and musical styles were distinctly different from the Milanese.
Moreover, they were less fortunate in their fate, because practically all the manuscripts were destroyed and the liturgy was
proscribed by Stephen IX in 1058. However, one relatively rich source has survived in the manuscripts of the Cathedral of
Benevento which contains the Mass for Easter; here, the Communion, Qui manducaverit, attains an altogether extraordinary
degree of musical elaboration. ‘The music of Beneventan chant has a style that is characteristic, pure, archaic, and elaborate.
It is highly ornamental, often having several notes to a syllable. The music is full of formulaic repetitions, small melodic units
that recur throughout the repertory and give it a particular flavour’ (Thomas Forrest Kelly). It is true that the Introit of the
Mass for Easter Day seems to be based on the periodic repetition of a single melody.

The music is not divided into modes, and it has not suffered the restructuring that results from the importation of the system
of eight modes. It is a music that transmits a particular cultural and aesthetic moment, and it has a value for us, not as archaic
and outmoded music of little aesthetic interest, but as an example of stylistic purity and maturity from a culture of which it
was the supreme artistic expression.

MOZARABIC CHANT

With Mozarabic chant, we move from one peninsula to another.

Born with the evangelisation of the Roman provinces of Hispania and firmly established during the rule of the Visigoths
(466-711), Mozarabic chant (the Mozarabs were the Christian communities of the ‘Arabised’ Iberian peninsula) put up a
long and obdurate resistance to the criticisms of the Church Universal, and was not supplanted by the Gregorian dialect
until 1081 (Council of Burgos). ‘Throughout the duration of this vehement controversy between Carolingian Rome and the
Hispanic churches that went on for over two centuries, diligent scribes in the abbeys of Castile and Leon had ample time to
copy a goodly number of liturgical codices in the beautiful Visigothic neumatic notation, with its fine wavy calligraphy’ (Ismael
Fernandez de la Cuesta).

Certain churches in Toledo never submitted to the liturgical reform imposed at the end of the eleventh century and maintained
the tradition of Mozarabic chant. Around 1500 this chant was written down, thanks to the farsightedness of Cardinal Cisneros,
one of the great figures of the Reconquista. He reinstated the Mozarabic rite by setting aside a chapel in the Cathedral, that
of Corpus Christi, for the preservation of these ancient traditions. He entrusted the task of the reconstitution of the liturgy to
Canon Alonso Ortiz who might have modified certain chants, notably those of the schola (choir), but given the present state
of our knowledge, we cannot estimate the extent of these transformations.

Marcel Peres: ‘This chant has come down to us in only three manuscripts, two of the Mass and one of the Office of Vespers.
They are conserved in the Mozarabic Chapel of Toledo Cathedral and we were permitted to consult them thanks to the courtesy
of the choirmaster. The music is written in late fifteenth-century mensural notation and is therefore perfectly legible as
regards the rhythm and the melody. In spite of the date of their publication, these pieces reflect an extremely ancient tradition,
the chants of the celebrants generally having been transmitted with great consistency. The dialogues between the celebrants
and the schola are essential for grasping the rhythm and the spatial aspect of these liturgies, whose roots go down to Near