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Chantdiscography.com offers a relational database of Western Plainchant on sound recordings. (The term “record” is used here to describe any sound carrier, including but not limited to shellac 78s, vinyl 45s, vinyl LPs, cassette tapes and compact discs.) It is a revision and expansion of A Gregorian Chant Discography, published in 1990. Data entry began in February 2010 and public access has been offered since November 2010. The entry of known records issued since 1990 was the first priority, followed by the entry of records listed in the 1990 book. Both are complete, and new issues and records newly discovered are still being entered.


Each chant is identified by one or more editions. The first page number identifies the edition heard on the record. The following page numbers identify editions that may be the same editions or different variant versions of the same chant. For example, most hymns found in LH, AM and LU vary in text or melody or both; the doxology, or final strophe, is usually a different text in each of the three editions. A chant sung from none of the editions listed is noted as a variant manuscript or variant edition with the source cited if known. Chants that are not found in any modern liturgical edition may be identified from one of various sources identified in the list of abbreviations. Some chants have not been found in any available source.

A large number of previously unknown recordings has been lent to the compiler for analysis by Manuel Alberto Díaz-Blanco González-Mohíno of Belfort, France. Since 2015, a large number of analogue recordings never issued on CD have been digitized by Dominique Crochu and placed on the website of Musique Médiévale: http://gregorian-chant.ning.com Each digitized record can be accessed individually by copying the link in the comment box and pasting it into a web browser. Then each chant can be downloaded individually. You need to register on the website, but registration is free.

In this database, each record is identified by format and country of origin. The format codes are CD (compact disc), LP (12-inch or 10-inch vinyl long playing record), OR (open-reel tape), MC (tape cassette), 33 (seven-inch 33rpm vinyl disc), 45 (seven-inch 45rpm vinyl disc), 78 (78rpm shellac disc), and DV (DVD video disc). The country of origin codes are the two-letter internet country codes, including US and UK.

Since October 2013, a few entries have been added for information. The Haydn Mass on Disco-Club DC 11 is mentioned speculatively. The Maredsous set on Semen c.1933 is mentioned without contents. The lost Pathé cylinders (CY) of 1899 are mentioned. A Parlophone set of hymns of 1927 is mentioned because it has been erroneously catalogued in GSERM and WERM as chant. These are exceptions to the usual criterion of data entry confirmed by listening. 

The Neumz Project: https://app.neumz.com/ The Benedictine nuns of the Abbey of Notre-Dame du Fidelité at Jouques, in French Provence near Aix-la-Chapelle, have been recorded as they chant the entire Mass and Office according to the Novus Ordo. The recording began with Year C in 2019 and was completed at Pentecost 2023. The nearly 10,000 hours of Gregorian chant will be the largest recording project ever undertaken. It will be followed by a liturgical year of the old rite recorded at the Benedictine monks' abbey of Le Barroux.

Many chants of the Mass and Office that have never appeared on records will now be heard for the first time. The Neumz Project is directed by Alberto Díaz-Blanco, professor of Hispanic Philology and a specialist in Gregorian chant discography. Dominique Crochu, a co-director of Musicologie Médiévale, is the producer. John Anderson is the founder and manager of Odradek Records, working with 13 collaborators.

On the Neumz Project the chanting is synchronized with its square-note notation, the neumes of Laon and St. Gall, the Latin text, and its translation into the user's language (five translations are available). The complete Psalter, Lectionary, Collectary, Antiphonale Monasticum and Graduale are assembled into a 21st-century multimedia "Liber Digitalis" of chants.

The community was established in 1967 as a daughter house of Saint-Louis du Temple, which moved from Paris to Limon in 1951. In Paris the nuns had learned the restored chant from monks of Solesmes at an early date. It became an abbey in 1981 and now has 47 nuns. Its website is www.abbayedejouques.org. The recording is done at high resolution by engineers of Odradek Records, based in the United States with a studio in Italy.


For twenty-three other discographies of early music, see the following:

http://plainsong.org.uk/publications/discographies-by-jerome-f-weber/

For many old recordings digitized and referenced in this database, see the following:

http://gregorian-chant.ning.com/group/enregistrements