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The medieval office of Corpus Christi

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     The feast of Corpus Christi was officially instituted for the whole Church by Urban IV on  8th September 1264. Urban IV had previously been archdeacon of Liège and confessor of Julienne de Cornillon who was, with Eve of Liège, the promoter of this festival. The composition of the texts for the office of Corpus Christi is attributed to Saint Thomas  Aquinas, who was then in Paris. It was at this time that he also wrote his ‘Summa Theologica’, contemporary with the musical writings of another Dominican, Jerome of Moravia, who was also in Paris at the time. It can be legitimately assumed that, the music for this office was composed by Jerome of Moravia.      In any case, the treatise of Jerome is the only text from the Middle Ages that describes the different ways of interpreting square notation. Thus, with this office, we have a precious testimony of music composed at the same time as the treatise that explains how to compose and perform this...
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Old Roman Chant ROME January 2025

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Marcel Pérès by Timothy Dickey   *     Much of the so-called early music revival was carried out in a uniform, polished, and reserved vocal style. English vocal ensembles such as the Tallis Scholars, the Hilliard Ensemble, and Gothic Voices replaced earlier excesses of vivid instrumental sonorities, with a placid, crystal-clear, and impeccably tuned sound; the singing of plainchant, likewise, most often was heard in the reserved regularity of the Solemnes monastic sound. Yet alongside this elegant and polished sound, a minority of French singers and conductors maintained an alternative acoustical ideal: vibrant and expressive, experimental and exciting.        Marcel Pérès, perhaps the greatest iconoclast among the early music performers of his generation, challenges his audience to rethink how we hear musical repertories from the tenth to the eighteenth centuries.     Pérès studied organ at the Conservatory of Nice, followed by advanced...
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Old Roman Chant, a musical palimpsest.

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  We have used a photograph of a wall of one of the most fascinating churches in Rome -Santa Maria Antiqua- as an illustration for the announcement of the course about Old Roman Chant. This is no coincidence. Not only is it one of the oldest churches in the eternal city, but its walls bear witness to the first centuries of Roman liturgy and the various influences and changes of the Rome of the first millennium. It also reflects the time of the Greek influence in Rome and its liturgy, as well as the subsequent stages that followed. This changing vitality comes to an abrupt halt in 847 when an earthquake seriously damages the church which ceases to be used and, from the 11th century, is buried for more than a millennium. When it was discovered in the 20th century, one of the most striking aspects which attracts the attention is the image that we reproduce, in which we can see the superimposed remains of different layers of paintings from the different periods that have been overlap...
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Old Roman Chant in London 2024

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Old Roman Chant  workshop conducted by  Marcel Pérès (Ensemble Organum) An introductory course to the ancient chant of Rome prior to the introduction of ‘Gregorian Chant’. Two independent days, costs to be covered on a voluntary donation basis. Brompton Oratory Friday 20 September , 1pm to 8pm. St. Joseph's Hall (ground floor). Saturday 21 September,  9am to 2pm. St. St Wilfrid's Hall (first floor).   Tube:  Knightsbridge (Piccadilly),  South Kensington (Piccadilly, Circle, District) Buses:  C1, 414, 74, 14 Sponsored by:  Society of Comparative Liturgical Studies IBAN:  GB59MYMB23058054336624 Account Number:  54336624 Sort Code:  23-05-80   Info & inscriptions:  association@liturgia.ac
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