The Recovering Choir Director

On Chant Café, a new group blog spearheaded by Jeffrey Tucker of the Sacred Music journal (among other things), Adam Bartlett (SacredMusicProject.com) writes about his journey towards Gregorian chant and why it is given pride of place in the liturgy:

The more that I have reflected on the way in which Gregorian chant gives a perfect expression to the Voice of Christ in the liturgy, I have come up with an expanded permutation of this idea:

Gregorian chant is given “pride of place” in the liturgy because the Liturgical Word is given pride of place in Gregorian chant.

Read the rest there, including quotes from An Introduction to the Interpretation of Gregorian Chant, Volume I: Foundations by Luigi Agustoni and Johannes Göschl, one of which I post below:

The phrase “In the beginning was the word” has an unlimited value when applied to the Gregorian repertory. In fact, the text is the key to understanding both the rhythm and the melody of a Gregorian composition.