Twenty-one years ago, A Gregorian Chant Discography, an analytical survey of every known recording of Gregorian chant issued since 1904, was published. One appendix listed known recordings that were unavailable for analysis; another listed recorded non-Gregorian chants of other Western rites. Since the inception of Plainsong and Medieval Music in 1992, the listing (if not the analysis) of new recordings has continued annually in this journal. Review copies flowed in from Fanfare and Goldberg, and colleagues at Cantus Planus also furnished copies of their discs. Visits to stores in Barcelona, Rome, Munich, Brussels and Paris turned up unsuspected rarities. Dealers on the Internet became a wondrous new source of records.
A projected second edition of the discography was announced in this journal in 2004 and 2005, a project that is now a reality but not in the form conceived at the time. Though the format is not a printed book, the information is more accessible and more widely available on a website and a relational database similar to that which underlay the contents of the 1990 publication. Analysis and data entry began in February 2010, and by the time this report appears in print most of the recordings issued since 1990 should be listed. Hispanic, Milanese, Roman and Beneventan chants are now analysed, as well as those by St Hildegard of Bingen. The last stage of data entry will include the contents of the 1990 publication. The use of the site is fully explained on the home page, www.chantdiscography.com.
Last April, a list of addenda et corrigenda appeared in this journal. The analysis described above has turned up still more overlooked citations. It should also be noted that the website lists every recording of offertories with verses under the search term ‘offv’.
The Offertory and its Verses: Research, Past, Present and Future, ed. Roman Hankeln, Trondheim, Tapir, 2007:
Add to Ad te Domine levavi (2)
v. 1–2 Philippe Lenoble, Choeur Grégorien du Mans [4:52] – recorded 1992
CD: Art & Musique AM/CD 107 39201 t5
Add to A[O]fferentur … post eam (1)
v. 1–2 Damien Poisblaud [4:05] – recorded 1990
CD: Pavane ADW 7239 t20
Add to Ave Maria (8)
v. 1 James O'Donnell, Pro Cantione Antiqua [4:46] – recorded 1990.01
CD: United 88007CD t5
v. 1 Alberto Turco, In Dulci Jubilo [5:33] – recorded 1992.09.11
CD: Naxos 8.550712 t22
v. 2 Philippe Lenoble, Choeur Grégorien du Mans [3:42] – recorded 1994
CD: Art & Musique AM/CD 107 39401 t9
Add to Exsultabunt sancti (4)
v. 1 Philippe Lenoble, Choeur Grégorien du Mans [3:47] – recorded 1992
CD: Art & Musique AM/CD 107 39201 t15
Add to Improperium (8)
v. 1 Alexander M. Schweitzer, Consortium Vocale Oslo [5:01] – recorded 2006.09
SACD: Lindberg Lys 2L43 t18
Add to Laetentur caeli (4)
v. 1 Nicola Bellinazzo, Schola Gregoriana [3:44] – recorded 2002.08.26-29
CD: Tactus TC 100006 t15
Add to Meditabor (2)
v. 1 Jaan-Eik Tulve, Nuns of Notre-Dame de Pesquié [3:21] – recorded 1996.07
CD: Les Ateliers de Louvrange (no number) t12
Add to Stetit angelus (1)
v. 1 Anne-Marie Deschamps, Ensemble Venance Fortunat [4:53] – recorded 1990
CD: L'Empreinte Digitale ED 13006 t11
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‘Laudes Regiae on Records’, in Cantus Planus 2006 (Budapest, 2009), 667–82:
No. 9, Westminster Cathedral has been reissued as CD: Griffin GCCD 4068, issued 2009.
An additional entry has appeared:
Choir of Westminster Abbey, directed by James O'Donnell. Hyperion CDA 67586, recorded 6–15 February 2006 [4:08]. This is an abridged edition of the Worcester Antiphoner version, consisting mainly of the Regi(nae) Anglorum, Rex regum and Ipsi soli sections.
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‘The “Mystery” of Old Spanish Chant’, in Cantus Planus 2004 (Budapest, 2006), 371–83:
Additional entry: Pater noster (rec. 1994 to 1997) [1:06], David Eben, Schola Gregoriana Pragensis. CD: Supraphon SU 3271-2, issued 1997.
Additional entry: Per gloriam, Pater noster (rec. September 1996) [1:56, 1:19], Jean Tubéry, Choeur de chambre de Namur, CD: Ricercar RIC 206152 (with Philippe Rogier's Missa Domine Dominus noster); reissued as CD: Ricercar RIC 271 A/B (with second disc, Romero's Missa Bonae voluntatis, listed here in April 2010).
Additional entries: Six antiphons for the consecration of an altar, edited by Carmen Rodríguez Suso (recorded 21–3 February 2003), Juan Carlos Asensio Palacios, Schola Antiqua. CD: Pneuma PN 670, issued 2004.
Additional entries: Lamentations 1, 3, 4, 7 and 9 are found on ten additional recordings. They will be found on the website by searching “his 501” “his 503” “his 504” “his 507” and “his 509”.
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A remarkably small number of new chant recordings have been issued this year, but two unusually interesting late Offices are among them. The first (no. 1 in the following list) was composed by a Hieronymite friar, Fray Hernando de Talavera (d. 1507) soon after the fall of Granada in 1492. The two surviving manuscripts – a text source and a choirbook from the parish of Santa Fe in Granada – were published in facsimile in 2003. In 2004, Maria Julieta Vega Garcia-Ferrer published an edition which included her recording of the Office. Now we have a new recording of Matins from the same Office under the direction of Juan Carlos Asensio that equals the fine work he has given us in recent years.
The recording of another late Office (no. 2), the only one known to have been composed by the Cistercian St Bernard of Clairvaux, includes a colour facsimile, edition and commentary by Claire Maître. The dedicatee, St Victor of Arcis, was a hermit venerated by the Benedictine monks of Montiéramey. Sources Professor Maître cites place him in the sixth century; his remains were transferred to Montiéramey in 837. Centuries later, the monks asked St Bernard to compose this Office. The ensemble, devoted to the performance of Cistercian chant, continues the fine work heard on prior recordings (1994, no. 8, and 1999, no. 5).
Another group also heard on earlier recordings returns with a late Office for the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin (no. 3), a thirteenth-century source from Nidaros cathedral (Copenhagen, KK Add. 47 fol.). Only the Vespers Magnificat with antiphon, the third nocturn of Matins, and the antiphons for Lauds are heard on a disc that would have had room for much more if the rest of the codex had survived.
The next disc (no. 4) was the last recording made by Wim van Gerven, who founded this choir in 1959 but soon found that, after the liturgical changes, the repertoire was largely limited to the Office. After his death in 2008, this disc was issued to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the choir's foundation. Matins of Easter had never been recorded, and it disappeared in 1956, so this might have been a useful document. It should be observed that the programme, structured as the single nocturn for that day, inserts an extra responsory from the following Sunday, a gospel, Regina caeli, and the Easter gradual with two verses.
The Song of Songs is the basis for the next programme (no. 5). Eugeen Liven d'Abelardo and Franz Karl Prassl prepared their female students in the 2007–08 academic year at the university in Graz using medieval sources for chants of Mass and Office set to the texts of the Song of Songs. Included are Abelard's Epithalamica, Hildegard's Favus distillans, and several lessons sung in organum. The direction is divided among four of the members and the singing is remarkable.
A disc reviewed earlier (2007, no. 8) has reappeared as a Super Audio disc (no. 6). As three sets of Mass Propers, it was noteworthy for including all the verses of the three offertories. Dominique Vellard's disc (no. 7), which first appeared on Harmonia Mundi (1998, no. 5), has now been reissued on the Glossa label. Focusing on St Gall, the chants are attributed to such composers as Notker for sequences and Tuotilo for tropes. It is good to have this fascinating disc available again. The reissue from the monks of Beuron (no. 8) has been available for a number of years. It comprises the First Mass of Christmas (14153 in my discography) and enough of the Third Mass (14154) to fill up the disc. Since the latter Mass had already been issued complete on CD, this was no great loss. The disc from Fontgombault (no. 9) is a reissue from Art & Musique (2005, no. 26), originally made to mark the 900th anniversary of the abbey's foundation, and is noted here because it was given wider distribution in the United States.
The Schola Antiqua of Chicago, an ensemble that made its début last year (2010, no. 30), has devoted a programme (no. 10) to sacred music from the Turin Codex (Torino, BN J.II.9), a source that has been recorded chiefly by Paul van Nevel on four discs. Only four tracks on the Schola Antiqua recording are in fact chants, including an alleluia and a sequence for St Hilarion. Giovanni Legrenzi's Mass consists of Kyrie, Gloria and Credo, but his Vespers of a Confessor includes the appropriate plainchant antiphons (no. 11). Finally, the Dunedin Consort (no. 12) is a Scottish vocal ensemble that assembled a number of contemporary pieces commissioned by the group, including several of the Ordinary texts and several non-liturgical texts, along with four Proper chants sung from unidentified variant sources.
Discography
All record numbers in the following list refer to the compact disc format unless otherwise noted; record retailers will be able to advise about the availability of other carriers. ‘T’ indicates that the accompanying booklet includes full texts of vocal works in the original language. Where translations are also supplied, these are indicated as follows: e English; f French; g German; s Spanish; n Norwegian; d Dutch.
1 Oficio de la Toma de Granada
Schola Antiqua, dir. Juan Carlos Asensio
Pneuma PN 1190. (Recorded 2008) Tes
2 Bernard de Clairvaux Office de Saint Victor
Les Ambrosiniens, dir. Marc Robin
Supplement to book: Paris, Les Editions du Cerf, 2009. (Recorded 2009) Tf
3 In Nativitate Beatae Mariae Virginis
Schola Sanctae Sunnivae, dir. Anne Kleivset
Lindberg Lyd 2L 069 SACD. (Recorded 2009) Ten
4 Dominica Resurrectionis ad Matutinum
Schola Cantorum Amsterdam, dir. Wim van Gerven
Schola Cantorum Amsterdam (no number). (Recorded 1992) Ted
5 … stark wie der Tod ist die Liebe
Choralschola des Instituts für Kirchenmusik und Orgel
KUG 35. (Recorded 2008) Tg
6 Gregorianische Gesänge
Monks of Gerleve, dir. Gottfried Meier
New Classical Adventure 60173 (SACD). (Recorded 1996, reissued 2007) Tg
7 Music and Poetry in St Gallen
Ensemble Gilles Binchois, dir. Dominique Vellard
Glossa GCD 922503. (Recorded 1996, reissued 2010) Tefg
8 Weihnachtsmessen
Monks of St Martin, Beuron, dir. Maurus Pfaff
Deutsche Grammophon 445046-2. (Recorded 1959; reissued 1994) –
9 Gregorian Chant
Monks of Fontgombault
NYCMusic 26617 12132. (Recorded 1990, reissued 2006) –
10 West Meets East
Schola Antiqua of Chicago, dir. Michael Alan Anderson
Discantus 1002. (Recorded 2010) –
11 Giovanni Legrenzi Messa & Vespro
Oficina Musicum, dir. Riccardo Favero
Dynamic CDS 653 (2 discs). (Recorded 2008) –
12 The People's Mass
Dunedin Consort, dir. Ben Parry
Delphian DCD 34018. (Recorded 2003) Te
