Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis

– The choral ensemble Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis was founded in 1998.

– Following the 1988-1990 political changes in Eastern Europe, new perspectives opened in church activities. In this paradigm, our ensemble was the first schola cantorum in Romania with the exclusive goal to cultivate Western liturgical music. We assumed a twofold responsibility: on the one hand, the spiritual protection of historic musical monuments, on the other hand, the functional re-introduction of Gregorian chanting into ecclesiastical liturgy.

– Since 1998, several founding members of the Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis had a chance for professional training, thanks to the Gregorian Society of Hungary and its leader, György Béres. After returning to Transylvania, they continue a systematic and consistent autodidactic practice.

– The majority of the singers within the Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis are not professional musicians and not all of them are Roman Catholic. What connects them is their love of service through authentic liturgical music as well as their acceptance of the challenge for excellence.

– From the very beginning, we based our Gregorian chanting on Gregorian paleography and semiology.

– The Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis was founded in 1998 within the Roman Catholic community of Monostor, situated at the Western side of Kolozsvár (Transylvania, Romania).

– The Medieval settlement of Kolozsmonostor has gradually merged with the city of Kolozsvár. During the 11^th century, (around 1060, according to the tradition) a Benedictine abbey was founded here that lasted until the Reformation. During the 13^th through the 14^th centuries it was renowned for its ecclesiastical/notarial function.

– In the place of the once Benedictine monastery, today we find the Gothic-Neogothic Our Lady church that belongs to the parish of Monostor.

– The linguistical, prosodical, and, then, the liturgical-theological interpretation of the texts is achieved by a careful articulation of specific melodic turns, the notes, the neums amd neum-clusters. The Gregorian semiology that originates from Solesmes in France after the mid-20th century, uses comparative and inductive methods to render the neumatic messages ever more understandable and instructive for in their interpretation.

– Some of the most significant scholars of Gregorian semiology were Eugène Cardine, Godehard Joppich, Rupert Fischer, Johannes Berchmans Göschl, Luigi Agustoni, Cornelius Pouderoijen, Alberto Turco, Heinrich Rumphorst, Stefan Klöckner, Franz Karl Prassl and Georg Béres.

The difference between these categories is not of degree:

a) the message of sacred music is necessarily religious in content – regardless of it musical means.

b) church music mediates Christian denominational contents; it is the music of church events and communal gatherings. Significant musical accomplishments often fall into this category. The text of choral church music does not necessarily follow the liturgical text.

c) the liturgical music is always based on the text of the “official” liturgy (in Missals, Graduals, Antiphonarys). Its musical language is the church’s own, “evolved from within”, autochton, and mostly defined by the prosody of the liturgical language (see cantus planus).

All that survived in Western Christianity is the Gregorian chant and some of the Ambrosian liturgical singing tradition around Milan, Italy. (The Gregorian memorializes the name of Pope St. Gregory the Great, while the Ambrosian, St. Ambrose, Bishop of Mediolanum.) Centuries ago, however, several other liturgical-musical languages had been in use, such as the Gallic (the Western part of the Franc Empire), the Aquitan (North-East from Venice), the Beneventan (South-Italy), the Mozarab (Hispania), the Antique Roman (Rome, later Mid-Italy), etc.

In modern music history the designated collective name for these liturgical-musical languages is cantus planus (plainchant in English and French, canto plano in Spanish). Their common feature is that they are not subordinated to the classical metric system. It means that they rhythmically are free and follow the prosody of the Latin language. They lack instrumental accompaniment and they are monodic.

It is not. Gregorian chants – like the other forms of cantus planus – belong to the category of applied music. In order to gain a better understanding, we offer parallel reflections.

Art of music	Liturgical chant
The primary “goal” of the art of music is of aesthetical nature (beauty, pleasure); the art of music exists for its own sake (l’art pour l’art). It is autonomous.	The liturgical song’s primary “goal” is the formation of the liturgical text; the intended effect is religious-spiritual in nature (ex. devotion). It is not l’art pur l’art, it is ruled by outside “principles”.
The subject of musical art is the interpreter; the personality – his or her erudition and professional preparation – is central.	The subject of the liturgical song is the worshipping congregation; the singers are the reflecting medium of the sacred texts and the spirituality of the actual community.
The objective of the musical art is always the creation of novelty in relation to changing times.	The liturgical song (in the service of liturgical texts) conveys timeless content.

“History seems to have been the best answer to this question. Rightly so, for Gregorian is the only composed music of Europe that has been flowing like a stream for two thousands years. The psalms of the ancient Near-East, the tones of calling, greeting, reading, and litany are the tributaries of its ever widening riverbed; the echoes of Mediterranean and Alpine melismata and antique hymnody stir its waves. The multicolored melodies of so many traditions swell with their thousands of antiphonal types and refraining plays of responsorial. During the high Middle Ages, new melody patterns of the sequences, tropes, the ordinarium, and compositions in a new style sprang forth, refreshing the river with the foretaste of the modern age.

Following the Renaissance, in the new world of polyphony, the mighty river with thousands of wild confluences, had to be brought under control. In the new bed of the 19^th century, it represented the monodic bearer of Europe’s voice of polyphony and carried fresh energies into the new musical world built on historical traditions.

Unfortunately, it could not avoid the tragic fate of all human creations: the very liturgy that had given birth to the Gregorian, today abandons it. And it does in a time when the works of its restoration are ever more promising. It has yet to be seen whether the enthusiastic secular nature-conservancy will save it for posterity.” (Benjamin Rajeczky O.Cist.)

GRADUALE TRIPLEX (GT, Solesmes 1979)

OFFERTORIALE TRIPLEX (OT, Solesmes 1985)

ANTIPHONALE MONASTICUM (AM, Solesmes 1934)

PROCESSIONALE MONASTICUM (PM, Solesmes 1893/1983)

LIBER HYMNARIUS (LH, Solesmes 1983)

PSALTERIUM MONASTICUM (PsM, Solesmes 1981)

János Mezei, KORAI POLIFÓNIA (Budapest 1997)

LIBER USUALIS (LU, Tournai 1964)

LATIN-MAGYAR NAPPALI ZSOLTÁROSKÖNYV – DIURNALE (Budapest-Gödöllõ 1999)

Benjamin, Rajeczky, MELODIARIUM HUNGARIAE MEDII AEVI. I.Hymni et Sequentiae (Budapest 1956)

Janka Szendrei – László Dobszay – Benjamin Rajeczky, MAGYAR GREGORIÁNUM (Budapest 1981)

Janka Szendrei, A RESPONSORIUM (Budapest 1995)

Janka Szendrei, AZ ALLELUJA (Budapest 1995)

Antiphonary of the church of Várad, late 15th c.

Polyphonic fragment from Kassa, late 15th c.

Polyphonic fragment from the era of king Sigismund, early 15th c.

Bakócz Graduale, 15th/16th c. Esztergom/Strigonium

Graduale of F. Futaki, middle 15th c.

Graduale from Pata, middle 16th c.

Antiphonary from Buda, late 15th c.

Antiphonary from Pozsony, 15th c.

Missale Notatum from Esztergom, early 14th c.

Pauline Antiphonary, late 15th c.

Antiphonary of Osvát Thuz, late 15th c.

Missale Notatum from Zagreb, early 13th c.

Passional from Esztergom, late 15th c.

Pauline Processional Book from Újhely, 17th c.

Psalterium from Buda, late 15th c.

Sequence detached from the end of source MNot.

Gregorian camps for children

The main purpose of the Schola Association and the Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis choir is to arouse children’s interest and to initiate them in the domain of the authentic liturgical music. The gregorian summer camps for children are meant to help us realise this purpose.

Beside learning gregorian chants, these children are given the opportunity to gain knowledge from several related domains: religion, history of the Church and of the liturgy, grammar and text interpretation. The schedule of the camp leaves enough time for children to play and make trips beside the daily four hours of learning. During the camp there are several occasions to participate on the liturgical service – this is one of the things the camp prepares children to.

The teachers and leaders of the camps are members of the Schola Gregoriana Monostorinensis choir.

Since 2001 the interest for these summer camps is continuously increasing. At the beginning only children from Cluj (Klausenburg, Kolozsvár) came to this camp, but during the years this changed and now children from several other cities come to learn about the gregorian chant (Sibiu / Hermannstadt, Deva, Tîrgu-Mureş / Neumarkt, Budapest).

Camps:

2001 – Călăraşi Turda / Harasztos

2002 – Leghia / Jegenye

2003 – Vlaha / Magyarfenes

2004 June-July – Tureni / Tordatúr

2004 July-August – Izvoru Mureş / Marosfő

2005 – Tureni / Tordatúr

2006 – Izvoru Mureş / Marosfő

2008 – Cozmeni / Csíkkozmás

“Children of any age are highly susceptible to gregorian music. The explanation to this is mainly the fact that the musical ideal of the modern era hasn’t destroyed yet their instinctive inclination towards a totally words-dependent, atonal music with subjective rhythm. […] As a matter of fact, our reason to teach children the gregorian chant is not a religious one: we would like to remedy the deficiencies of the education they receive in schools. One, who is familiarized with the «catches» of the gregorian music knows much more about the bases of music than one, who begins strictly with popular music or the nowadays so much in vogue Renaissance music.”

(Tamás Jakabffy, Vasárnap [Sunday] July 12th, 2002.)

Recordings Click on the pictures!