Word: plainchant
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Gregorian -- more properly known as plainchant or plainsong -- first surfaced as a popular phenomenon last year in Spain, where a two-disc version of Chant sold 325,000 copies in four months. The Benedictines' run-down 8th century abbey in northern Spain became a Mecca for music lovers, who came in throngs to hear the monks chant their communal prayers seven times a day. All this attention has flummoxed the abbey's 36 residents. "You have to understand," said one, "we are not rock stars...
...origins of plainchant are obscure. The music takes its name from Pope Gregory I (A.D. 590-604), but probably developed in the Carolingian empire -- part of which is now Germany -- during the 8th and 9th centuries. There may be as many as 11,000 Gregorian melodies, ranging from relatively simple psalm settings to elaborate tropes that were included in the Mass. The Second ^ Vatican Council's reforms, particularly the mandated use of vernacular instead of Latin liturgies, relegated chant to a few churches and religious communities like Santo Domingo de Solis that kept the old ways as best they could...