Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 17, 1994 TAG: 9403160054
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By SCOTT DUNCAN ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They are monks, if you haven't already guessed, who live and worship in a secluded Benedictine monastery near the town of Burgos in northern Spain. They are also, much to nearly everyone's surprise, international recording stars with a hit record.
Their latest album of Gregorian chant became a recording sensation in Spain, spending five weeks at No. 1 on Spain's pop charts before spreading to the rest of Europe, where it is 18th on Billboard's European chart - nestled among Michael Bolton and Aerosmith.
The monk's U.S. label is Angel Records (would there be any other?), which is rolling out "Chant" this week, backed by a marketing blitz more typical of the cloistered Michael Jackson than cloistered monks.
A print and cable-television campaign will promote the recording when it reaches stores. Radio programs are giving the album advance airplay. A single is in the offing, and a marketing slogan has been coined - "Prepare for the Millennium." Promotional merchandise will include brown T-shirts - hooded, of course.
Angel is banking that in the United States, "Chant" will equal or better its European sales. More than 300,000 units have been sold in Spain, and early orders in the United States are already a fourth of the way to a gold record - 500,000 copies.
"Even my toughest sales reps are telling me the sky's the limit on this one," said Steve Murphy, president of Angel Records.
The appeal of the monks' austere plainchant, unaccompanied sung liturgy that dates to the early mists of Western music more than a thousand years ago, somehow has struck a chord with modern audiences.
The popularity comes amid the success of other recording projects that have exploited the ambience of exotic and remote vocal sounds. Romanian-spawned Enigma mixed plainchant with a dance beat and came up with the hit "Sadeness" recently.
But the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos are not samples in some producer's synthesized dream mix. Their recordings, which they've made since 1973, are simply the Latin liturgical texts sung in unison to the ancient modes that predated Western musical scales.
In other words, no gimmicks. But something happened when a two-disc set of the monks' chants took off in Spain in December. When an Associated Press wire story on the monks' success in Spain ran in the United States, what little chant that existed on U.S. record shelves disappeared.
That got Angel's attention.
"It took off in Spain with really two audiences," Murphy said. "It was a fairly young audience buying it, 16-25, and also an older audience, what we would call baby boomers, who have an interest in classical or new-age music."
Perhaps most bewildering is why Generation X listeners would be attracted to plainchant.
"It's hip in its own right," Murphy said. "It's not unlike when you had the sound of Jimi Hendrix and the acoustic Grateful Dead. Now, you have Pearl Jam and chant all in the same space. They are not exclusive."
"On one level, I'm very proud to be making available this great classical music. But at times, I feel like a character out of Robert Altman's `The Player,"' he said, referring to the send-up of the Hollywood film industry.
"The monks are sitting there dressed all in black, and I'm talking this hip radio lingo and sounding like Larry Levy."
The 20 monks who sing the 19 selections of plainchant on the new Angel Recording are not professional singers. Chant is a part of daily worship, sung in monasteries during morning prayers, at daily Mass, again at noon and the evening vespers, and, finally, before bed.
But singing the rhythmically free melodic line of chant is not easy, said U.S. tenor Cesar Hernandez, who spent several years as a seminarian before leaving to pursue an opera career.
"The first thing that makes it hard is the breathing. You have to sing long, long phrases. In some ways, it's more difficult than opera," said Hernandez, who has sung leading tenor roles at Opera Pacific, New Orleans Opera, San Diego Opera and the Spoleto Festival.
"In opera, you are singing mostly solo, so you can sing in your own voice. In the chant, you must match completely the other voices. The principal priest becomes very angry if you go out of that style."
Chant is not new to the recording industry; recordings of chant have occupied a tiny niche in the religious section. Several recordings of chant by the monks at St. Michael's Abbey in Lake Forest on the local PHD Music label have sold quite well, said the Rev. Philip Smith, who directed the St. Michael's choir in the recordings.
"I still get people asking for them," he said.
Smith said he is not surprised by the phenomenon of the Spanish monks but said the world should realize this notoriety runs counter to the teachings and sacrifice of the monastic life.
"I'm sure those guys are more surprised than anyone that this happened and are certainly reluctant about it," Smith said.
But part of the monks' appeal may stem from just this reticence. The spirituality and authenticity that may come across in the singing derives from the choices they have made in their lives, Smith said.
"That's why singers with more expertise may try to steal it, but it won't sound the same."
by CNB