Column | The reporter visited the Tampere house, where men dressed in monk’s robes sang hits by Eric Clapton and Kate Bush

One my perversions include a semi-ironic interest in weird 1990s music trends.

Ska, nu metal, the new arrival of swing… from the point of view of someone slipping between generation z and millennials like this, one has to wonder what was in the tap water throughout the decade.

Because of my inclination, on Tuesday I sat in the almost sold-out large hall of the Tampere Hall and witnessed when eight singers dressed in glittering monk’s robes performed impressive choir covers, among other things Eric Clapton and Kate Bush’s of songs.

German Frank Peterson founded by Gregorian male choir has been renditions of pop music in the style of Gregorian chant since 1998. Gregorian will perform in a total of six locations in Finland this fall. After Tampere, the band went to the Sibelius Hall in Lahti.

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“Perhaps you remember that erotically stilted hook”

Break time coffee while enjoying myself, I decided to do a little research on the mystery of the evening:

What made people excited about Gregorian church music in the 1990s?

It came first Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179). An album presenting the liturgical songs of the German mystic A Feather on the Breath of God became a surprise hit in 1982 – at least by the standards of pre-classical music. In the 1980s, Levy significantly increased interest not only in Hildegard, but also in medieval music more broadly.

The upcoming church singing boom was also hinted at Umberto Eco The name of the rose -film adaptation of the novel, which appeared in 1986. of James Horner the music composed for the film boldly anachronistically added synthesizers to the pastiche of the medieval compositional style. A Gregorian male choir can be heard singing on several tracks.

The next stage was, of course, the Enigma earworm Sadness (Part 1). If the name of the song doesn’t immediately sound familiar, maybe you remember its erotically sung hook: “Sade, dis-moi, Sade, donne-moi.”

A danceable dance beat, a Latin song sampling the Capella Antiqua München choir, and to the Marquis de Sade the combination of suggestive banter worked. In the spring of 1991, Enigma reached number one in fourteen countries with a single.

(Enigma performed at Helsinki Kulttuuritalo in October, by the way. Gregorian also performed his version About Sadeness in his concert.)

Medieval the sound world was thus planted in the soil of pop culture when Gregorian chant made its biggest and strangest breakthrough in 1994.

The Angel record company, which specializes in classical music, decided to reissue the songs of the monks of the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain, recorded in the 1970s and 1980s. In the marketing, the choral song was given frames referring to relaxation and a new age vibe.

With an absurd Tetris-like cover, the album was given a simple name: Chantdamn it.

No one could have guessed what kind of huge success the album would become: Chant peaked at number three on Billboard’s sales chart.

Soon the monks appeared on American TV shows and the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos was filled with tourists. Chantthree more choral albums were brought to the market at high speed.

The founding of the Gregorian choir also coincided with this phase of the craze, which was ultimately short-lived.

Actual gregorian choral singing appeals with a stripped-down monophony that sounds alien and fascinating, one might even say sacred, to an ear accustomed to the conventions of Western art music.

The performances of the Gregorian choir, on the other hand, are closer to Heavy Christmas Hans Zimmer concerts. Dramatic drum bangs and corny synth strings are musical kitsch of the worst kind.

But when, during the encore, the singers performed a couple of songs without accompaniment and microphones like a real male Gregorian choir, you could almost understand why the monks were doing so much.