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Was watching a documentary about early music history, which covered Gregorian Chants briefly, Dies irae in particular, and I immediately fell in love. The simplicity of the melody, the monophony, the textures of the huge reverberations, the voices; everything was just so nice!

I want to listen to more, but have no idea of where to start, which made me wonder: Which are the "standards" of the Gregorian Chant world? The must-listen, most famous, most representative, outstanding, or otherwise noteworthy?

Seems that approaching this by author might not be a good idea, since attribution is all over the place, but what about hymns and pieces in particular? Are there "subgenres" or "styles" to look for?

NPN328
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Hard to answer this without having to dig into the history, which is somewhat confusing. The short answer is that there is an authoritative version of what is considered "Gregorian chant", but if you look at the history, the chant we know as "Gregorian" is a scholarly compilation of a particular chant tradition which ended up by taking precedence over other traditions. (The other traditions also survive in some form).

The Wikipedia article on Gregorian chant gives you the history, which shows different traditions arising in different places, and in time vying to be the definitive version. In the end what we now call "Gregorian" chant dominates over other traditions. This dominance seems to happen in two phases : the first phase ends in around 800 CE, when the emperor Charlemagne imposed on all his subjects a form of the Catholic service derived from the Roman one, which is the origin of Gregorian chant, and this was somehow also linked to the name of the Pope of the time, Pope Gregory - although there was no musical notation in use at that time to capture an authoritative version. The second phase is in the nineteenth century, when there was serious scholarly effort put in in the abbey of Solesmes, from about 1855 onwards, to reviving the tradition and compiling an an authoritative version. The Vatican commissioned the Benedictine Abbey of St. Pierre, Solesmes, France in 1904 to write the authoritative version, based on their previous work, although since that time there has been disagreement about the musicological accuracy of it. More detail on that in the wiki article.

The authoritative version is known as the Liber Usualis. Link is to a 1961 edition online, and since Gregorian chant is tightly coupled with the Roman Catholic forms of worship, the book gives all that context, in terms of particular chants for particular religious services or special days. 24 pages of the book are given over to "rules for interpretation", and the equivalents for traditional notation in standard musical notation, but the actual chants are in traditional notation. While this aims to be definitive, it is not very accessible if, like me, you are not familiar with the traditional notation. And the correct interpretation of the traditional notation is also subject of debate and disagreement as you will find from the references in the Wikipedia article.

If you want to follow this further, not sure what to suggest. There is a wealth of material on the subject online, and many sites devoted to teaching people to sing Gregorian chant.

Some random examples, which I hope will set you on your own journey of discovery with this:

Correction : taking into account comment from @Coemgenus on Charlemagne becoming Holy Roman Emperor and imposing Gregorian chant throughout his empire, date should be 800CE not 600CE as I originally wrote.

Angst
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  • Your date of the "first phase" is off. The Carolingian incorporation of the Roman rite into the church of Francia dates to the second half of the eighth century, that is, roughly between 750 and 800. – Coemgenus May 16 '21 at 21:19
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    To me this is the list of the "must-known" gregorian chants, in terms of liturgical importance and tradition. The website itself is a great source of chants, ordered by religious period. They include link to youtube videos with rubrics for following the chant. Greatly recommended. On a more personal note, my two favourite chants ever, after following the genre for years, is De Profundis and Lamentati Jeremia prophetae. Links to best interpretations imo in the next comment. – luchonacho Dec 29 '21 at 11:26
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bVAqWY52qs and my all time favourite: https://youtu.be/OyIN6taZBC8?t=5949, plus a bonus track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjyFJBABHFw – luchonacho Dec 29 '21 at 11:35