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CONCERT SUGGESTION
“BENEDETTO E GREGORIO“
With Gregorian chant at the roots of European culture
The centenary of the death of S. Gregory the Great (604-2004) offers an important cue for a reflection on the decisive contribution that such a distinguished personality was able to make not only to the institution of the church, but to the entire western culture In him, medieval spirituality recognised an absolute reference point: the same liturgical chant, even if not composed by him, receives authority for the very fact of being called "Gregorian". And Gregorian chant itself is a strong reminder of the figure of
S. Benedetto, who in the first half of the del VI century started the extraordinary monastic experience, an environment in which Gregorian chant took shape and was guarded as the priceless treasure of the Church and symbol of unity in the whole of Christian Europe. It is not by chance that Gregory was concerned about writing a "Life of S. Benedetto", not in order to draw a historical profile of him, but rather to expose him with insistence as a "man of God", discovering in him a humanism which presented itself essentially as a "total reconstruction of man" an that this was in the fruits that he gathered throughout Europe. The programme suggested here alternates actual pieces of the Gregorian repertoire- referring to these two giants of Western spiritual and cultural tradition – recited extracts taken from the literary work of Gregory "Vita di S.Benedetto". |
