Recent recordings of plainchant

Abstract

Last year (2005, no. 6), we greeted a recording that seemed to be directed in a special way to chant scholars. Two more discs of similar interest have arrived, the newest one an interpretation of the conflict, shall we call it, between Roman and Frankish cantors during the introduction of Roman chant into the Frankish kingdom (no. 1 in the list below). The chants were chosen for specific characteristics of Old Roman and Gallican style, but the stage is set by beginning with ‘Gregorius praesul’. Most of the selections have been recorded only rarely, and the Old Roman offertory ‘Deus enim firmavit’ (from Bodmer 74) with its verses is new to records. Benjamin Bagby accompanies himself on the lute in ‘A solis ortu’, the lament for Charlemagne, the choice of verses (neither version is complete) partly different from Alfred Deller's recording, 237 in my discography (1992, no. 19 on CD). The disc concludes with two familiar pieces, the Palm Sunday processional responsory ‘Collegerunt’ and the laudes regiae ‘Christus vincit’. The last (from Paris, BNF lat. 13159, a source not cited by Bukofzer in ‘The Music of the Laudes’) is the most imaginative performance on disc, the only one known to me that interjects the acclamations more fluidly than the familiar editions indicate.