Pluscarden Abbey
The Season of Advent: Gregorian Chant from the Monks of Pluscarden Abbey
£12 from Pluscarden Abbey shop (pluscardenabbey.org/shop/cd)
Review by Sr Margaret Truran OSB
The 2023 CD released by the monks of Pluscarden Abbey is a musical and liturgical goldmine. The singing of the main chants of the Mass and the Divine Office for the season of Advent is of a very high standard, reflecting profound appreciation of both text and music. The booklet of 31 pages, without going into small print, provides the Latin texts for all 34 tracks, together with full translation and notes on each item. The care that has gone into the production of the CD is evident also in the quality of the sound editing.
One of the most attractive features of the recording is the way it evokes the four-week structure of Advent, moving from a distant glimpse of light and joy to chants thrilling with expectation on the threshold of Christmas. Section II is particularly lovely: listen to the lifting of the tonic accents in the antiphon Ecce Dominus noster (track 8), and the opening of the high walls and gates in the next antiphon, Urbs fortitudinis; the Alleluia, laetatus sum (11) flows forward in youthful joy, whilst in the Communion chant, Ierusalem surge (12), we sense we are standing on tiptoe.
There are many other glorious moments. An extra-liturgical favourite of many monastic communities, Rorate caeli (4), is evidently loved by the monks of Pluscarden. The Alleluia of the third Sunday of Advent, Excita Domine (19), dances with joy as it invites the Lord to come, veni, and save us.
The singing is underpinned by a good understanding of the early neumatic signs that give expressive sense to the music. Marian chants are intrinsic to the atmosphere and mystery of Advent, and the two final items make a fitting climax to the recording: Ecce Virgo, the ecstatic Communion chant sung on Sunday IV of Advent (33), together with the loveliest of pieces, the solemn version of the Alma Redemptoris Mater.
This CD succeeds in conveying the beauty of the sung liturgy and its potential to transform our lives. Time stands still, to allow glimpses of eternity to enter our lives.
Sr Margaret Truran OSB, for many years organist and choir director at Stanbrook Abbey, helped to establish the Cantantibus Organis School of Music for the Liturgy which opened in 2009 at the Abbey of Santa Cecilia, Rome.