Recent recordings of plainchant

The first recording to be made from the new Liber Antiphonarius, volume 1, of 2005, a volume that bears the old title Antiphonale Monasticum on its cover, offers twenty-four antiphons and a brief responsory from that volume; six communions and an introit from the Graduale Triplex; and five responsories from the Liber Hymnarius (no. 1 in the list below). All the chants are chosen for the words of our Lord that are quoted in the texts, which recounts the life of Christ from Cana to Emmaus. Some of these chants have been re-edited from the 1934 edition, but half of the group heard here are newly created, including one, Venite ad me, that has a new melody for a text still assigned to the same office of the Sacred Heart. Essential to understanding the method of editing these chants is Dom Daniel Saulnier’s article in Études Grégoriennes (15056 in Günther Paucker’s chant bibliography). The singing is exquisite in the semiological style.