The Spirit of Gregorian Chant by Marie Pierik, 202 pages
The Spirit of Gregorian Chant is an introduction to the history, notation, and performance of Gregorian chant, with brief asides on Ambrosian and Mozarabic chant. Author Pierik is very much a disciple of the school of Solesmes, the famed French monastery which did so much to recover traditional forms of monasticism and liturgy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This does lead to what some casual readers might see as a fussy purism which must stifle any kind of artistic creativity, but others will perceive is connected to Pierik's recognition of the vital connection between chant and the liturgy in which and for which it developed. This is the key to the "spirit of Gregorian chant" - that it has as its purpose the adoration of God and not personal accomplishment.
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