Timothy McDonnell, director, Institute for Sacred Music, was interviewed for Catholic News Service stories and series of videos on Gregorian Chant.
... The tradition of sung prayer dates back to the first millennium, with Gregorian chant becoming the proper music of the mature Roman rite, said Timothy S. McDonnell, director of the Institute of Sacred Music at The Catholic University of America in Washington.
Gregorian chant was standard in the Mass in the 1950s, but fell out of favor after the Second Vatican Council, when the traditional Latin Mass was changed to the dominant language of each country.
Though it has regained popularity in the past few decades, the chant is not the principal music in most U.S. Catholic parishes, McDonnell told Catholic News Service. ...
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... That movement began following the success of a 1990s album titled “Chant,” recorded by the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain, said Timothy S. McDonnell, director of the Institute of Sacred Music at The Catholic University of America.
“People became interested in it,” McDonnell told CNS. “Then you would start to hear Gregorian chant as samples in popular music. You’d start to hear it in soundtracks, things like that. So, Gregorian chant became popular with all kinds of people with all kinds of belief systems.”
That was a turning point for some church officials who recognized the music had intrinsic value, he said. “That this is our proper music for our liturgy. That movement of recovery of this material I think started at that point when it was recognized more broadly as a tremendous treasure.” ...
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It’s going to take leadership from the priests, women religious, seminary leaders, music directors and the laity for Gregorian chant to become the dominant music in most Catholic churches in the future, McDonnell said.
“I think we’re starting to see that happen,” he said. ...
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