Buying into the Monastic Experience: Are Chant Recordings the Real Thing?

Abstract

As a musicologist researching contemporary monastic music, I am fascinated by the way in which monastic identity is promulgated through commercially available recordings of chant. While Gregorian chant and chant-based music remain central to twenty-first-century monastic life, my research has revealed that the music currently being played, sung, and composed in monasteries¹ is not confined to the chant genre, but actually extends into the folk idiom and even into soft pop (Haste 2009). This situation begs the question of whether, through chant recordings, music listeners really are hearing the genuine article, or simply experiencing received ideas of how monastic music should sound. In this chapter, I will be examining criteria for authenticity and asking whether the knowledge that the musical product is “authentic” leads to a deepening of the musical experience. In fact, does it really matter whether such a product is “the real thing” or will a perception of authenticity suffice?