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| An interview with Fr. Bernard Lorber |
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The liturgical year in gregorian chant. Interpretation, style. Projects and more…
Father, your Schola has so far recorded nineteen compact disks containing the Liturgical Year. Could you first tell us who is the Schola Bellarmina? B.L. The Schola Bellarmina has its own story. We started in 1998 in Brussels with five singers who had specialized in Gregorian chant for many years. With them, we recorded the whole Temporal, that is the Sundays and Feasts of the liturgical cycle ; altogether, we produced 14 disks in three years. Then I left Brussels for France, and I worked in one of our schools, where the musical work was best developed thanks to the energy and know-how of a colleague. This offered me the opportunity of carrying on with the task by recording all the Kyriale and Credo. Later I was appointed as Musical Director in St-Nicolas-du-Chardonnet, in Paris, where I met a few excellent Gregorian singers, and therefore we intiated the Sanctoral cycle. Then, it is a long-term work you initiated ... B.L .: Indeed it is. We started nine years ago; but, due to other comitments, we had to work off and on. Meanchile, our disks met with some success, and this encouraged me to carry on with the task.  What is it that drove you to such an undertaking? B.L.: In the beginning, our idea was to help choirs sing Gregorian chant. The problem is fairly universal: there are many obstacles to obtain good practice time, from whence the insufficient quality of the musical interpretation. The second aim was to produce a integral repertoire of Gregorian chant, which had never been done. This allows those who love the beauty of Gregorian chant and the liturgy of the Church to listen to whichever part of the repertoire that they would like, when they would like. But such a vast series of recordings doesn’t this scare away those that would be interested? B.L. Whomever Gregorian chant would frighten would shy away from one CD as well as twenty. Certainly, the investment is not the same. Thus, in order to give a gentle introduction to this series, we have put together a promotional CD, which contains twenty pieces taken from the entire work. Thus, before taking on the main course, one can see by the appetizer the quality of the meal... Just recently, Gregorian chant was in vogue, it was fashionable. Several monasteries have recorded their disks, to such a degree that there are many different disks available for listeners today. What is it that distinguishes your collection from those that have come before? B.L. It is true, there are many different recordings available today. Nonetheless, these recordings are for the most part of selected pieces, or of certain Masses of the principal feasts of the Liturgical Year. You will easily find a dozen different interpretations for the Mass of Easter, but not a single version of the 17th Sunday after Pentecost, or of the Saints Peter and Paul (29 June) . Our monumental work fills this great gap, with the added advantage of a unity of interpretation and a coherent vision. On this subject, what style of interpretation have you adopted? Do you follow a certain school? B.L. None at all. The “schools of interpretation” follow the fashions. They come, and then they go. Gregorian chant will outlive all of them. Gregorian chant is in a certain way as eternal as the Church, because it is as universal as the Church. Certainly we have taken as a foundation the rhythm and the neums of Solesmes, because today they form the common basis of the notation and the interpretation of Gregorian Chant. It is true that we appreciate the interpretation of Dom Gajard. But we are not a choir of monks; the ambiance and the spirit of our work are different. Having a more educative purpose, we have put our efforts on a very small choir of four singers, which gives us an undeniable precision. A choir of monks has a particular charm; our charisma is precision. If a choir of monks advance with the majesty but also the handiness of a steamliner, we advance as a small frigate, furtive but nonetheless. Wouldn’t it have been useful to study the manuscripts and to discover the proper interpretation of Gregorian chant, as it had been sung during the times of its composition? Would you not have then a faithful interpretation beyond reproach? B.L. We leave this task to university researchers, who are very active in this field. It is obvious that we do not sing as the cantors of Saint Gregory the Great did , nor like those of the High Middle Ages. Each epoch has its proper style, and all cultures in the same epoch had each their own style. The genius of Gregorian Chant stems from its universality. Listen to three different singers: one with a Germanic origin, another from from an Anglo-Saxon country and the third from a Latin country, and you will quickly realize that there is no unique style nor method. Nonetheless, they all sing Gregorian! The melodies are committed to paper, but the men come from very different cultures. Let us stay away from the disputes of specialists over the manuscripts of Laon or of Saint Gall. We have preferred to give a unity to our work by adopting a liturgical style that encourages prayer, and thus we believe ourselves to be at least close to the spirit of Gregorian chant. Don’t you run the risk of becoming pragmatic ? B.L. I don’t think that the Gregorian chant was created by specialists sitting around a table. In the Church, one began to sing – by first adopting some of the melodies of the synagogue, since most of the fist Christians were converted jews – and only then were the chants noted on paper. The process was indeed very pragmatic, because praying was what mattered,not tickling someone’s ears. Only present-time aesthetes will fight over the interpretation of a salicus. What are your projects ? B.L. : First, the completion of the Sanctoral, which ought to be done by the end of 2007. We recently published a first volume of the Sanctoral, including 8 masses (from the Immaculate Conception to the Feast of the Precious Blood). We are now going to publish a disk with all the musical pieces that the Priest must be able to sing in the traditional liturgy. This disk accompanies the DVD we issued recently, about how to celebrate the traditional mass. Lastly, this site, which is dedicated to liturgical music, will be increased continuously. |
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