According to Latin American inventories previously done for some churches and cathedrals (7), the number of
plainchant music manuscripts only represents a small percentage of the plentiful musical heritage inherited from Spain and Europe.
Arguably the most unusual movement of the Ordinary is the Credo, where Salieri appears to have taken
plainchant as a main inspiration.
Their fusion highlighted a kinship between the Eastern and the Western worlds in whose musical traditions the
plainchant mightily exists.
Henri du Mont's (1610-1684) five
plainchant Masses, known as the Messes Royales, survived up to the 1950s.
The Durham Singers will also perform Tom[sz]s Luis de Victoria's unaccompanied Requiem Mass of 1605 which, like Durufl's more romantic setting, is based on the melodies of medieval
plainchant.
His constantly evolving rhythms - influenced by speech and birdsong patterns - and his fragments of melody - part folksong and part
plainchant - were perfectly judged.
Unlike the previous two discs, it returns to the
plainchant repertoire of late-Medieval Bohemia, enriched with the later polyphony tradition.
It is clear the author does not side with the late nineteenth-century Cecilian movement that sought to return Catholic Church music to
plainchant, Renaissance polyphony, and modern compositions modeled on these.
Labels have been removed from the walls (and relocated to a 'church plan' on a table, as one might find in a church today), two long benches add to the church atmosphere, and the whole is enhanced by a soundtrack of organ music,
plainchant and noises of people coming and going, giving the impression that one is in a much larger space.
Works previously heavily dependent on Latin text and
plainchant, were being abandoned or radically challenged.
James parishioner, Elizabeth Lang, used to give up meat for fish during Lent, but stopped when she realized that fish was more of a luxury in contemporary Canada than steak "Now I attend the annual Lenten lecture series and enjoy the beautiful simpler music of the season, such as
plainchant," she says.
The Bangor Pontifical is a 14th Century bishop''s manuscript, containing blessings and text of
plainchant.
The audience members--architectural historians, musicologists, and acousticians, but also singers--experienced a variety of choral performances in
plainchant, polyphony, and the spoken voice, as well as instrumental performance of organs.
The Monteverdi
Plainchant Consort, early-music group QuintEssential and the ES0 String Consort were also among the ensembles brought together under the baton of Paul Leddington Wright.
In it, he offers a monophonic
plainchant score, based on contemporary Saturn Use, for each of the songs in the play that seem to call for
plainchant performance, as well as scores for three polyphonic songs, two by known fifteenth-century composers and a third anonymous.
