Interview, Gregorian chant-inspired contemporary choral music by Henrik Ødegaard

Developed in central Europe in the ninth and tenth centuries CE, Gregorian chant has been a constant presence in church music and beyond for over a millennium. In addition to forming the foundation on which Western polyphony was built, chant itself has inspired many composers and compositions over the ages – from ominous quotations of the Dies irae by Berlioz and Rachmaninoff to works by Holst and Respighi incorporating whole chant melodies, as well as the choral and organ compositions of Duruflé and Demessieux that draw even more deeply on its legacy.

Norwegian composer Henrik Ødegaard is very much towards this end of the spectrum, as a new album on ECM with Estonia's Vox Clamantis choir shows – showcasing his atmospheric and refined musical style in which the influence of Gregorian chant is front and centre. I spoke to Henrik to understand more about his relationship with Gregorian chant, and his musical philosophy.

You’re not the first contemporary composer to draw on Gregorian chant, and you certainly won’t be the last. What is it about this ancient style - over a thousand years old - that keeps drawing people back to it?

Well, what I particularly enjoy about it is that the melodies are so extremely well-shaped. There's a balance. And there are the tonal systems of modes, which we don't use so much any more. You have the extreme focus on the text, which also you can see in the notation - great importance is placed on having the smallest parts of the words be well-pronounced. And it is the base of all our Western music history, in fact, so that alone is a reason for studying and admiring it.

Speaking of studying - I believe you've studied chant in some detail yourself, as well as simply using it in your compositions?

Yes - the background for that is that I had been working as an organist in the Norwegian church, and for about twenty-five years I was the cantor in a very small medieval stone church, built in 1180 or 1190 or so.

Ah, so is Gregorian chant still used extensively in the Norwegian church? Here in the UK it's still used somewhat in Roman Catholic liturgy but less so elsewhere.

I would say it is increasing - there were a couple of centuries largely without Gregorian chant, but it's now returning, and I've been very much a part of that work, to take it into the church again. Especially the Hours, the prayers for different times of day - and I've worked on how to sing it in Norwegian, because if it's going to be part of a service and a personal prayer, you need to understand every word.

Oh, yes - we sometimes have this with psalms in the Church of England, sung to Gregorian chants but in English rather than in Latin.

Yes, the same thing. And sometimes, if we have a Mass for the anniversary of a church or something, then we find melodies for the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo and so on - but it's not in the ordinary set of melodies you would be choosing from.

But then, when I entered this church for the first time, of course I started imagining what music had been sounding within its walls before me. And that led me, funnily enough, to spend a year in France with the Choeur Grégorien de Paris, which has a school for conducting Gregorian chant. We worked there on old manuscripts and on Latin, and especially on learning repertoire. The curriculum involved learning quite a large number of pieces by heart - because as our teachers said, this music has survived all this time primarily through listening and repeating over the centuries, and in a way that's the nature of it. So because of that, we had to learn it by heart too. It was very difficult for me - as an organist I was used to playing everything from the music! But I must say, more than twenty years later, I can still remember all of it. And I think even if I were to forget most other things, I would still remember it.

The luxurious major-minor chords in the opening movement of the Meditations reminded me very strongly of the idiom of Roxanna Panufnik - what have been the main influences on your composition?

That first movement is one of two that do not involve direct quotations of Gregorian chant. It's like a kind of prelude. And there are the two ensembles, the women and the men, and in that movement they very often sing in different tonalities. Related, but different - for example, D major and A minor. So for me it was a natural way to conclude, with those two sections.

I wouldn't say I had any other influences beyond simply how I put the material together.

The chants on this album are rightly described by Kristina Kõrver as the “protagonist”, occupying centre stage. How do you find a way to add to them, without removing the simplicity that is their hallmark?

You have two extreme positions, on as it were the very right and the very left end of the spectrum - one is to use Gregorian melodies alone, and the other is to write music where those melodies aren't heard because the rest of the music is so strong. And then there are a range of different positions in between. So when I was working on it, I was standing here and singing, and especially in the start of the movements, I was considering when to say "now we need to add something more".

Yes, I was struck by how in some of these movements you wait a long time before adding anything to the chants!

That differs a little between the movements, and obviously it's different in the ones that don't have the psalmody, but yes. And it's not calculated - I just sing and try to imagine the point at which the listener might start to think something more is needed.

Of course, when singing it in a monastery or a cathedral, nothing more is needed - but this is meant for concert use, and for a public unfamiliar with this kind of music. So, basically, the Gregorian melodies can stand by themselves - but I've added a little, and then sometimes a little more, according to my taste and what I feel is needed.

As an organist, have you been in the habit of accompanying plainsong? Some traditions do this while some prefer not to...

Yes, and some of this grew out of that. In a recently-published hymnal there is a section in the back which includes liturgical pieces, including about twenty small antiphons in this style which are harmonised by me. But these are meant to lead the congregation - they need quite frequent changes in the harmonies, because you're trying to lead them from note to note, in a sense.

Whereas here the situation is quite different; you have splendid singers who don't need any guidance at all, so the composer is much more free and can think over a larger scale.

In the score, I combine both notations, and when it gets a little further on, the modern notation is always related to the square (plainsong) notation. The singers singing that are the bosses, and the others have to align with them, which I show using arrows. I try to integrate it. And the main difference between those two notations is of course that the square notation does not have any pulse. That's what, for me, is the most fascinating thing about Gregorian chant - that it's the texts and the pronunciation and the different groups of symbols that create a rhythm that cannot be reduced to a regular "beat". When I do this kind of work, adding to Gregorian chant, sometimes I deliberately contrast with that - with the other parts sung in a very strict pulse - and other times, using arrows and other systems, I make the choir singing in modern notation join the world of non-pulse-based music. So this rhythmic aspect is very fascinating with this music. Sometimes I think of it as setting down the burden of pulse, to go into this beautiful, flowing kind of rhythm instead.

And it works especially well with ensembles like Vox Clamantis, who are perfectly suited to both types.

When so much of your music is concerned with arranging existing material, you end up taking a very unobtrusive role as a composer - compared to, say, the writer of a symphony, who is responsible for every note. Do you think that unavoidably comes with the territory of writing sacred music?

Actually no - not unavoidably. I've written many works that don't use any Gregorian quotations and with much more centring of "me", as the creator. For instance, a few months ago in Tallinn we had the premiere of a piece I wrote around the Stabat Mater - for male choir, five soloists, wind quintet and percussion - with no quotations at all. Although, of course, it would have been very natural with that kind of text!

That's a decision I make from piece to piece, and sometimes I absolutely do want to express the idea of "this is me, this is what I feel". But in sacred music you need to be careful about that, and decide how important you actually are in relation to what is to be said. That balance is something I weigh up when I start each project. And I'm perfectly happy with both approaches - but the role of the creator in sacred, and especially in liturgical music, is of course a little different from a composer with a capital "C", as it were!