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Gregorian
Vespers home Each first and third Saturday of the
month Gregoriana Amsterdam sings
Vespers in the Amsterdam church the Papegaai (Parrot). Until September the
location was the Obrechtchurch. Vespers is the traditional Christian evening prayer.
Early sixth century Benedict of Nursia (480-547) writes in his famous Rule for Monks: "The prophet
says: Seven times a day I sang your
praise. We will fulfill this holy number of seven, when we comply to the
duties of our service on the hours of Lauds, Prime, Tierce, Sexth, None,
Vespers and Compline [...] The Vespers are limited to four psalms with their
antiphons. After these psalms the lesson is said, followed by the responsory,
the Ambrosian hymn, the verse, the Canticle from the Gospel, the litany and Our Father which serves as the final
prayer." We don't sing seven times a day (Ps
118:164), but only twice a month. Also, we don' t get up in the middle of the
night (Ps 118:62) to sing Matins. Our monthly three quarters of an hour are
nothing compared to over hundred benedictine hours of prayer. To place the
tiny bit we do in perspective and present something of the rich tradition, we
therefore don't follow the books exactly. We broadly follow the liturgical
calendar, which can be seen in the texts of antiphons, chants, lectures and
prayers. Besides, before and after vespers, as well as after the lecture, we
sing some suitable chants from Gregorian and related traditions as the
Ambrosian, Old Roman and Mozarabic. Since 2012 Mozarabic chant in
particular has become of importance for us; i.e. the lost chant of the
Iberian penisula. This tradition started in the year 589 when Leander of
Seville converted the Visigothic kingdom to Catholicism. In the early seventh
century his brother Isidore described the rite in detail, which after the
Muslim conquest of 711 became widely known as the Mozarabic rite. In 1080 at
the Council of Burgos, the rite was officially abolished and replaced by the
Roman rite with its Gregorian chant. In 1085 Toledo, the centre of the
Spanish Church, was reconquered from Islam. Six parishes of Toledo were
allowed to continue their ancient rite. In about forty manuscripts and
fragments over 5000 Mozarabic chants for Mass and Office are preserved in
music notation. Since the pitch-readable staff was only invented in the
eleventh century, nearly all of these chants are unreadable for us. The most
important manuscript is the León antiphoner (E-L 8) from the early tenth
century. We are focusing on the computational generation of melodies for the
lost chant of the Mozarabic rite. Usually we will perform some of these in
our Vespers. Here you can follow our research. Here
you can listen to some of the results and synchronically view the manuscript
images. |