Chant Balneaaire

Sequentia + Dialogos - Chant Wars
Dhm | 24 octobre 2005 | Classical | APE+CUE | 3% Recovery | 360 MB | Covers+Booklet | 75'23"

The image of monks on steroids may be a bit much for some to entertain, but for listeners used to most modern interpretations of what's usually called "Gregorian chant", these performances of various types of chant from the Middle Ages will definitely seem "pumped-up", although never grotesquely or untastefully so. The singers of early-music groups Sequentia and Dialogos, the former led by Benjamin Bagby, the latter by his wife Katarina Livljanic, aim not only to illustrate the differences among chant traditions at a critical point in the repertoire's history, but also to enliven its usually refined character and re-imagine it as concert-performance music. In other words, these very scholarly-minded yet theatrically savvy performers take out of context what normally are sung as prayers, meditations, processionals, and celebratory expressions in the church liturgy and present them instead as entertainment. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially if you want modern audiences to listen and hear what proves to be a highly varied, colorful, and often very beautiful song repertoire that's so often badly sung, misunderstood, and relegated to stylistic mediocrity…

One of the most successful pop/classical fusion projects, Gregorian mixes well-known pop and rock songs with Gregorian chants. Overseen by producer Frank Peterson, co-founder of Michael Cretu's Enigma outfit, Gregorian's first album, Masters of Chant, released in 1999 (an early 1991 Peterson album released under the name Gregorian isn't counted among the group's official releases, but already employs the same aesthetic), became a smash hit throughout Europe, entering the Top Ten in nine different countries. The following albums continued in the same vein, covering songs by Peter Gabriel, Lenny Kravitz, Coldplay, Björk, Queen, Tears for Fears, and others. The Dark Side, released in 2004, put a stronger emphasis on the rock element and included songs by Nine Inch Nails and the Doors…