PÂQUES • Dom Jean Claire, dir; Monks of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes • ABBAYE DE SOLESMES SN 05 (2 CDs: 86:19 &)

VĘPRES ET OFFICE AVANT LA NUIT • Dom Jean Claire, dir; Monks of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre de Solesmes • ABBAYE DE SOLESMES SN 10 (52:03 &)

These reissues tell us two things. The monks of Solesmes, who have produced their own recordings since French Decca went out of business in 1979, have been reissuing their catalog in digipacks with multilingual booklets (new issues are also appearing in the same SN series). In addition, they have a new distributor in this country that is importing the finished product. These two issues are taken from S 822 (Easter Sunday and the Second Sunday of Easter) and S 825 (Eastertide) in one case and S 826 (formerly titled Sunday Vespers and Compline) in the other. These should not be confused with the reissues of French Decca recordings on the Accord label (27:2 Want List), which have their own lasting value.

The first disc offers two complete Sunday Propers, the ones for Easter being some of the most frequently recorded of all chants, along with some additional chants of the feast. The second disc in the same package gathers some of the Proper chants for the next four Sundays of Easter, as well as a series of 34 antiphons that narrate the story of the Resurrection. These are antiphons for the morning and evening canticles of the Office, which are always brief excerpts of the gospel assigned to be read each day. The third disc is a 1982 remake of Dom Joseph Gajard’s 1958 disc of the same title (Accord 476 1453), which was one of the abbey’s best-selling records, judging by its many reissues and its durability in the catalogs, even though it was the last mono record made at Solesmes. The content of the newer disc is different in the Magnificat antiphon, which changes each Sunday, and Dom Claire’s interpretation, informed by Dom Cardine’s teachings, is lighter. But the more obvious difference is the revised liturgy, in which the Compline hymn was rewritten and the age-old Latin psalms (unchanged since late antiquity) were replaced with a misguided neo-Vulgate translation published in 1979 and set to chant in 1981.

As long as the Solesmes catalog remains on the market, the new packaging makes a more attractive format for new purchasers, many of the issues doubling up like the first one here. The artwork and photography are attractive and the notes legible. The singing of the chants, of course, is supreme, an unsurpassed experience of monastic worship.

FANFARE: J. F. Weber