Saturday, December 06, 2008

Let Dom Johner Be Your Advent Narrator

I don't know how he manages this, but Aristotle Esguerra at Cantemus Domino, who always seems to be ahead of the game, is posting the magnificent commentaries by Dom Dominic Johner, who wrote his encyclopedic treatment of the proper chants in the 1920s, proper by proper. Aristotle is posting them in clean HTML. It is great experience to both read and sing these pieces from the Gregorian repertoire. The hardcopy of the book is here. I recall the first time I discovered this resource and realizing what a kick comes from singing music in our own parish that has been sung for 1000 years, and enjoying reading a learned monk's reflections on the same pieces of music. He will nearly always enlightened you, and there is a special sense of something that comes when you notice something that he didn't, which happens from time to time. It is excellent work to make all these available in short pieces week by week.

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