WHEN a CD of Gregorian chant by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain was released in 1994, it sold six million copies worldwide, testifying to the enduring hunger for the world’s most spiritual music. If music can convey meditative silence, Gregorian chant does. If music is prayer, Gregorian chant is, combining both repetition and variety as the body of chants follows the liturgical cycle of the year. It is possible to absorb the meaning of chant without even knowing the words. But knowing the words, “we can rediscover,” as Dom Jacques Hourlier of the Abbey of Solesmes in France said, “the cantus obscurior, the song which hidden from conscious awareness, is yet at the origin of all vocal music.”

You can learn about the structure and history of chant, as well as listen to many samples, at the website (click on ‘translate’) of the Spanish monks.

Here the monks sing the Kyrie Eleison from the Latin Mass.

The Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos

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