Foreign languages

Chant II; The Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos

Throughout my CD-listening career, I have been able to clamber over the “foreign language” barrier. I can listen to a German song by Mahler, an Italian aria by Puccini or a French song by Debussy and thoroughly enjoy the music without needing to decipher, word for word, the meaning of the text in order to attain “optimal” understanding of the work at hand. I don’t fault audience members, however, for wanting a translation. It’s natural to not want to be left out. If the singer or chorus knows what they are singing, it’s just good manners to apprise the listeners of the subject encased within the music.

At times, though, the Devil in me wants to deprive the listening public of the translation of a foreign text. Because I sometimes see a printed translation as a crutch. While glorious music surrounds them, the occasional audience member unintentionally blocks out the music in order to read the words; in which case the words become the music to that listener. They missed the point. The composer’s endeavor was to lift the text to heightened awareness by virtue of the music. Perhaps even to replace the text itself, so that the music is the personification of the sentiment expressed. In which case, the audience member only need know “sad”, or “despair”, or “justice”, or “death”, or “hot”, or “hungry”, or “I have a knife”, or “Who is that charming woman?” or “I like watermelon.”

I will now descend from my soapbox and tell you that when it comes to Gregorian chant, you might as well look at a translation. The ancient composers of these religious snippets of liturgy and scripture, near as I can tell, had little intention of expressing explicit mawkish aspects of text on the wide sleeves of Benedictine brothers. As far as I’m concerned, the music and texts are interchangeable.

I don’t know why I bought this CD, other than to have a “set”. The music is beautiful. Just as beautiful as the first one, as a matter of fact. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t tell this one from the other one. In fact, let’s be completely candid. If you played the first one and told me that I was listening to the second one, I would have no reason to doubt you. In the immortal words of Bill Murray, when he takes up the Gregorian chant, minus the music, in the movie Meatballs, “It just doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER! IT JUST DOESN’T MATTER!!! … “

Credits: To Bill Murray, for comedy at its best. Mr. Murray, I liked “Groundhog Day”, mostly for the references to Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody On A Theme By Paganini”. But I loved it when you said, “Ned, I would love to stand here and talk to you, but I’m not going to.”