Sacred Music
(Middle Ages 1)
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In the Middle Ages, the church was very important in the lives of the people.
In turn, the music of the church was very important and from approximately
350 to 1100 CE, Medieval music was created mostly in the monasteries.
This means that composers were mostly monks and priests associated
with the Catholic Church. These monks and priests believed that their
talents were gifts from God and any work they composed was meant to glorify
God. It is because of this that most music up to 1100 is provided
by anonymous sources, meaning sources without specific names attached to
them.
Sacred music was called plainsong,
and it consisted of a single unaccompanied melody with words in the Latin
language. The melody of plainsong was simple so the words would be
easily understood by others. The words were usually part of the Roman
Catholic mass.
The majority of the music of the time is now known as
Gregorian Chant, named after
Pope Gregory I (590-604), who organized the plainsong chants into a specific order and
had them published and communicated to churches throughout Europe and the
Roman Empire.
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Credits:
Benedicamus Domino, MIDI sequence by Curtis Clark
from Classical MIDI Connection
Coro de Monjes del Monasterio Benedictino de Santo Domingo de Silos, Gregorian Chants; Canto Gregoriano; EMI Classics;
©1994 EMI Records Ltd. (CMB 565217)
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