What is Gregorian Chant?

What is Gregorian Chant? Why does it still maintain its expressive strength, even after centuries? Those initial questions will be answered by M. Fulvio Rampi, a renowned scholar in Gregorian studies, author of several publications and professor of prepolyphony at the Conservatory “Giuseppe Verdi” of Turin, through analysis and listening sessions which will be dedicate to some of the most important chants.

These sessions will form a beginner’s course, for a total of 16 lectures in English which will be available for purchase online on a dedicated platform. The purpose will be that of exploring the main features of the ancient liturgical chant of the Church, some artistic patrimony which lies at the foundations of European music and culture.

After an in-depth introduction to the nature and expressive identity of Gregorian chant, the course will follow the itinerary of the liturgical year it its main tempora: Advent and Christmas followed by Lent and Easter. A detailed study on some significant chants in this itinerary will provide the occasion for a wider inspection into the phenomenon of Gregorian chant in its entirety: from sacred texts to liturgy, from ancient notation to medieval manuscripts and finally to the criteria for a correct and coherent performing practice.

To complete this analysis, listening sessions are implemented: the performance is entrusted to the ensemble Cantori Gregoriani, a male schola cantorum with long and established international experience in both live and recorded performance, founded and conducted by Fulvio Rampi since 1985.

Gregorian chant, sound of the Word in its more intimate essence, is still nowadays an immense hidden treasure, waiting to reveal its depth and its surprising up-to-datedness to whom, with patience, dares to approach it with trust and without prejudice.