French Benedictine nuns release 7,000 hours of Gregorian chant
20 November 2020, 14:56
French Benedictine nuns release 7,000 hours of Gregorian chant. Picture: Abbaye de Notre-Dame de Fidélité
An abbey of French Benedictine nuns is taking part in the largest recording project in history, bringing the complete Gregorian chant to the modern world and breathing new life into an extraordinary 1,200-year-old tradition.
At a time when people are turning to music for comfort and solace, one man has taken on the mammoth task of bringing the entire Gregorian chant to the world, for free.
Every day for three years, US musician John Anderson is recording the daily plainchant sung by a community of 45 nuns, who live in seclusion at the Abbey of Notre-Dame de Fidélité of Jouques, near Aix-en Provence in southern France.
He installed microphones in the abbey’s chapel, and at the end of each day the audio is uploaded to a remote drive, allowing the recording to take place without disrupting the sisters’ way of life.
The result is 7,000 hours of chants which …
That moment when I realize, to my embarrassment, I have easily double this amount of music in the trance and hardstyle genres. All archived on DVD-R, each containing over 4 GB and I still measure "music" in terms of shelves on a wall to wall bookcase.