Word: gregorians
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Because Johann Sebastian Bach hymned religiously in dozens of soaring masses, magnificats, motets and fugues and developed the contrapuntal organ that still accompanies the Gregorian chant, three pious Venetian music lovers wrote the Vatican's weekly Osservatore Delia Domenica that he should be considered for sainthood. Alas, replied Theologian Benvenuto Matteucci, a Protestant is a Protestant, however sublime his music. "There is an esthetic and artistic religious sentiment in his musical expressions," Monsignor Matteucci sympathized, "but it is only through the true and only church of Christ that salvation and sainthood come." So Lutheran Bach must remain unbeatified except...
Despite some shortcoming in the remainder of the huge cast, Michael Murray's production holds up well. No thanks to the worthless Gregorian chant which Murray has inserted between scencs, the play maintains a solid continuity which should appeal to any kind of audience. And with the help of Tony van Bridge, the fire is there -- the play often wraps and wiggles with the power of a python. The Charles, in short, deserves a medal both for its courage in attempting Galileo and for its large measure of success in setting off so many of the depth charges which Brecht...
Wilkinson's vocal and instrumental score is unsurpassably integrated. There are about two dozen cues, ranging from five seconds to five minutes. We have Gregorian chants, and an organ fantasia in the style of Cabezon. But most noteworthy is the substantial amount of Indian music and sound effects, performed both on and off stage. This has been meticulously written out, with a vast instrumentarium including slide-recorders and some twenty varieties of exotic percussion. Its impact is indescribable...
...problem is that Michael Cacoyannis has unforgiveably tried to wring emotion from a stone-dry script, presumably to titillate the crowd in the Broadway bleachers. In imitation of Luther, or perhaps even The Sound of Music, Cacoyannis punctuates the play with obnoxious Gregorian chant. His minor characters, whom Whiting wisely kept undeveloped to preserve focus, become caricature roles of great distraction. Cacoyannis also revives The Trojan Woman by turning the Ursuline Nuns into a Greek chorus...
...Musical Setting of the Eucharist, performed in May at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, Pianist Vince Guaraldi took Anglican plain chant as his starting point. The flowing Gregorian tunes were chanted by a 68-member chorus while Guaraldi improvised back of it with his trio, shifting the mood with the spirit of the prayer. "Lord, Have Mercy" is crisp and plaintive, with a syncopated Latin rhythm; the Communion anthem is a waltzlike blues with a flowing melodic line. The "Theme for Grace" at the Offertory, with a chorus crooning the syllables of "hallelujah," reminded some listeners of mood-setting...