Salve Festa Dies, Baby

By John Elson

It may have been superseded by pious folk-rock in the Roman Catholic churches that gave it birth, but the ethereal, sinuous style of monophonic singing known as Gregorian chant is still alive and well, thank you. In the year's biggest musical surprise, a recording of Gregorian melodies sung by Benedictine monks from the abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain has suddenly become a monster hit. Issued, appropriately enough, by Angel, Chant has sold more than 220,000 copies in its first two weeks of release. The album is already No. 1 on the classical charts as well as 47 in the pop rankings, and a video is on the way. Even more improbably, Chant is getting airtime on alternative-rock stations. In Europe deejays have played revved-up versions of Gregorian chant for dancing at nightclubs -- and their U.S. counterparts may soon be following suit.

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."

The majority of Chant purchasers are ages 16 to 25, seemingly hooked on Gregorian's timeless, otherworldly quality. Angel has shrewdly given the album a New Age-ish appeal, with a Magritte-like cover painting of brown-robed clerics suspended in space and an ad campaign with the theme "Prepare for the Millennium." The basic appeal of the album, says Father Jerome Weber, a Catholic priest and an expert on chant, is "simplicity, purity and mysticism. There is an intuition of the beyond, both in the recording and in the way people are hearing it."

The 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.

Gregorian seems to have a trancelike effect on its fans. The Anonymous 4 is a New York City-based quartet of women who have developed a cult following for their authentic performances of Gregorian chant and other medieval music. Susan Hellauer, a member of the group, says, "The most common single comment we get from audiences is that they were 'transported.' " There is a certain irony here. Chant was composed to serve and honor spiritual texts, but it seems unlikely that its new fans are paying much heed to the Latin words. After all, would they really be out there dancing to Salve Festa Dies (Hail, Festive Day) if they knew that one verse of this hymn contains the dour plea "Break the chains of hell, the shadows of the dungeon/ And call up again whatever has fallen into the abyss"?

With reporting by Daniel S. Levy/New York