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In message <[log in to unmask]>, R.A.Howe <[log in to unmask]> writes > I've made many sweeping generalisations, grounded more in the broad >opinion of many churchgoers (which is more important in this issue) than >in musicological and historical fact, but my point is clear. Is Peres >responding to artistic and commercial pressures, or more to liturgical >neccessity and religious belief? Obviously to both, but which is more >important? > So I posit an additional question: >Which Ensemble Organum recordings/interpretations would you find most >affective/effective for real liturgy? I suppose that the answer to that might have something to do with the preconceptions of the congregation. When I tried to sing a small bit of the chant in a "Dominique Vellard manner" at the London Jesuit Church at Farm Street, the former Parish Priest wanted to replace it as far as possible with Graduale Simplex-style congregational chants. He also obviously believed they would respond to Mozart and Haydn masses better than chant, and did his utmost to encourage the former and discourage the latter. I'm fairly certain his arguments were spurious, and that he was merely imposing his own preferences. But presumably the answer to your questions involves recognising that some may argue that what works best liturgically will of necessity involve pandering to the expectations of a congregation, and may have little to do with trying to imagine what chant may have "originally" sounded like. I don't much mind the tendency to use chant as "ambient" music. If clergy are determined that only what belongs to modern popular musical culture is admissible in the liturgy, then anything that encourages chant to be part of modern musical culture, however divorced from its original purpose, will assist the argument that the chant is not "irrelevant". -- Peter Wilton The Gregorian Association Web Page: http://www.beaufort.demon.co.uk/ %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%