Quotes About Gregorian chant

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.

An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and of sacred polyphony.

One of Gregory's most familiar legacies flowed from his concern for the church's music. Remembering his concern for the music of the church, one form of Roman plainsong—the "Gregorian chant"—was named after Gregory after his death.

And so I realise that I want for myself the vibrant substratum of the word repeated in a Gregorian chant. I'm aware that everything I know I cannot say, I know only by paining or pronouncing syllables blind of meaning. And if here I have to use words for you, they must create an almost exclusively bodily meaning. I'm battling with the ultimate vibration. To tell you my substratum I make a sentence of words composed only of the now-instants.

Gregorian chant was the father of western music. But it was eventually killed by its ungrateful children. Buried. Lost and forgotten.