Plainsong

A quartet formed by Ian Matthews in 1972 with Andy Roberts, Bob Ronga, and Dave Richards. They released In Search of Amelia Earhart the same year to critical praise but little commercial success. While working on their follow-up, the more country oriented Plainsong III, Ronga quit and Matthews and Richards were unable to agree on the direction the band would take musically. They disbanded before the album's completion. In 1993, a revived interest in the band inspired a new studio album, Dark Side of the Room, as well as a BBC recording of a promotional tour from 1972. In 1994, the band released Voices Electric. Sister Flute followed in 1996. In 1997, Clive Gregson (ex-Any Trouble, Gregson & Collister) joined the band, with New Place Now appearing two years later.

from Wikipedia:

Plainsong (also plainchant; Latin: cantus planus) is a body of chants used in the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Though the Eastern Orthodox churches and the Catholic Church did not split until long after the origin of plainchant, Byzantine chants are generally not classified as plainsong.

Plainsong is monophonic, consisting of a single, unaccompanied melodic line. It generally has a more free rhythm than the metered rhythm of later Western music.

History

Plainchant is believed to originate from the 3rd century A.D. Gregorian chant is a variety of plainsong named after Pope Gregory I (6th century A.D.), although Gregory himself did not invent the chant. The tradition linking Gregory I to the development of the chant seems to rest on a possibly mistaken identification of a certain "Gregorius", probably Pope Gregory II, with his more famous predecessor.

For several centuries, different plainchant styles existed concurrently. Standardization on Gregorian chant was not completed, even in Italy, until the 12th century. Plainchant represents the first revival of musical notation after knowledge of the ancient Greek system was lost. Plainsong notation differs from the modern system in having only four lines to the staff and a system of note shapes called neumes.

In the late 9th century, plainsong began to evolve into organum, which led to the development of polyphony.

There was a significant plainsong revival in the 19th century, when much work was done to restore the correct notation and performance-style of the old plainsong collections, notably by the monks of Solesmes Abbey, in Northern France. After the Second Vatican Council and the introduction of the New Rite Mass, use of plainsong in the Catholic Church declined and was mostly confined to the Monastic Orders and to ecclesiastical Societies celebrating the traditional Latin Mass (also called Tridentine Mass). But, since Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, use of the Tridentine rite has increased; this, along with other Papal comments on the use of appropriate liturgical music, is promoting a new plainsong revival.

Interest in plainsong picked up in 1950s Britain, particularly in the left-wing religious and musical groups associated with Gustav Holst and the writer George B. Chambers. In the late 1980s, plainchant achieved a certain vogue as music for relaxation, and several recordings of plainchant became "classical-chart hits".

Chant types

The following is a classification of Gregorian chants into types. Other chant traditions, such as the Ambrosian or Visigothic, may lack some of the types listed, and may have other types not listed.

PrayerReading or LectionPsalmCanticleHymnProseAntiphonResponsoryIntroitGradualTractAlleluiaSequenceOffertoryCommunion

Example