Ten Gregorian Chants Every Catholic Should Know [free PDF included]

...And Sing Regularly!

Julian Kwasniewski

Oct 03, 2024

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15th Century Netherlandish Antiphonal (source)

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Now for today’s post by Julian. ~ Dr. K

GREGORIAN CHANT IS SPECIAL. No doubt about it. But that’s as much as I’ll say on that front for now; others have waxed eloquent about its artistry and its unique qualities.

Today I want to focus on a more practical side of things than musically mystical musings. If Gregorian chant is so important, where do I start learning it? What pieces should I sing first?

Look no further! Here I will introduce you to a list of pieces, provide recordings of all of them, and supply you with a free PDF download containing all the chants at the end of the article. Excluding the Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus, Asperges, Vidi Aquam, etc.), I’ve collected here the ten chants I think are most important to know.

My determination of the top ten is not arbitrary. Here are the criteria influencing my choices:

They are frequently used. These chants regularly appear not only in the liturgy, but are likely to be sung by the laity in the course of daily devotions, processions, summer camps, etc.
These chants are culturally prominent. You will find these more often referenced in literature than other tunes.
These chants are textually rich. Their lyrics poetically embody numerous Catholic doctrines, pious beliefs, and devotional practices.
The chants here represent a wide variety of the Gregorian repertoire: antiphons, hymns, sequences, even a Mass proper.

Let’s dig in — and sing along!

1. Salve Regina (Antiphon)

The smiling queen of heaven; a medieval ivory carving at the Cloister Museum in New York City (Photo: Julian Kwasniewski)

The first four should come as no surprise. These are the so-called Marian Antiphons which are sung after Compline every night, every day of the year wherever the Divine Office is celebrated. This is their primary official liturgical place, but they also show up elsewhere; in fact they tend to be among the most commonly sung chants at any public gathering of Catholics.

Each comes with a solemn and simple tone; and although you are most likely to hear the Roman version, there are slight and interesting variations in the monastic and mendicant versions of the same antiphons.

The current form of the Salve derives primarily from the splendid abbey of Cluny, which pioneered independent monastic houses, subject to the pope rather than local bishops. From there, it spread quickly in the course of the 1200s and 1300s all over Europe.

Many Catholics who know no other Gregorian Chant at least know the simple tone of the Salve Regina: we all know the text as the “Hail holy Queen” used to conclude the rosary. You can follow along with the simple tone here, and listen to the monks of Norcia singing the solemn monastic tone below:

2. Ave Regina Coelorum (Antiphon)

Hail, O Queen of Heaven.
Hail, O Lady of Angels
Hail! thou root, hail! thou gate
From whom unto the world a light has arisen.
Rejoice, O glorious Virgin,
Lovely beyond all others,
Farewell, most beautiful maiden,
And pray for us to Christ.

So runs the Ave Regina Coelorum, sung from the feast of the Purification (February 2) through Holy Week. Although the primary reference of Christ “rising” is to the incarnation, it could also be understood of His resurrection from death—and this is the antiphon sung throughout all of Lent!

I like those two very different metaphors: Mary as root and as gate. She is compared to something from the natural world and something from the man-made “technological” world. Do you know about plants? She and her Son’s coming are like that: a springing-up from the hidden depths. Do you only know about cities and man-made things? There’s still a comparison to be made that will work.

The simple tone of this antiphon is childlike and catchy:

Here’s the beautiful monastic solemn tone:

3. Regina Coeli (Antiphon)

This is the Marian antiphon used during Eastertide: its origins are unknown, but it too appears on the scene mid-way through the Middle Ages, first extant in a manuscript dating from c. 1200.

According to the Golden Legend of the Italian Archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, the first three lines of the antiphon were heard being chanted by Angels during a penitential procession in Rome in the time of Pope Gregory the Great, who then added the last line. This lovely story, which reinforces the traditional association of chant with Gregory the Great, is unlikely to be true, as is typical of much of the content of the Golden Legend, but no matter; the text is wonderful no matter where it comes from:

Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia.
The Son you merited to bear, alleluia,
Has risen as he said, alleluia.
Pray to God for us, alleluia.

Here’s the simple tone, with faint organ accompaniment:

And now the canons of St. Michael’s Abbey in California chanting the solemn tone:

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The depiction of Mary as *virgo lactans* is an artistic representation of Mary being the *Alma Redemptoris Mater* by giving Christ (in the words of Hopkins) “birth, milk, and all the rest.” (Source)

There are two beautiful translations of this antiphon I’d like to share:

Mother of Christ! hear thou thy people’s cry,
Star of the deep, and portal of the sky!
Mother of him who thee from nothing made,
Sinking we strive, and call to thee for aid:
Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to thee,
Thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see.

So goes the translation of Edward Caswall, a fellow Anglican convert and Oratorian confrere of John Henry Newman’s. Newman renders the same Latin antiphon this way:

Kindly Mother of the Redeemer, who art ever of heaven
The open gate, and the star of the sea, aid a fallen people,
Which is trying to rise again; thou who didst give birth,
While Nature marveled how, to thy Holy Creator,
Virgin both before and after, from Gabriel's mouth
Accepting the All hail, be merciful towards sinners.

The word alma is a very rich word. It derives from the proto-Indo-European for “to grow, nourish,” resulting in having as its primary senses “nourishing, kind, propitious.” Lewis and Short have:

nourishing, affording nourishment, cherishing (poetic epithet of Ceres, Venus, and other patron deities of the earth, of light, day, wine, etc…Hence, genial, restoring, reviving, kind, propitious, indulgent, bountiful, etc.

And they give examples of it being used to describe everything from Venus and Mother Earth to agricultural fields and female breasts. This puts me in mind of the artistic tradition of depicting Mary as the virgo lactans or “nursing virgin”. The Alma Redemptoris Mater—nourishing, cherishing Mother of the Redeemer—gives “birth, milk, and all the rest,” as Hopkins put it.

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5. Victimae Paschali Laudes (Sequence)

The Sequence is a musical and poetic form that was once very widespread throughout European liturgy. It is a poem in honor of a saint or a mystery that usually falls after the Alleluia of the Mass, to prepare for the Gospel. Medieval and early Renaissance Catholics were accustomed to dozens more Sequences than we have now in our traditional rites. The Tridentine reform, ever conservative as Rome used to be, limited the Sequences to the small series that were already used in the papal court liturgy, and as a result, many of the Sequences of local rites were lost when the Roman missal was freely adopted in those places.

The Easter Sequence Victimae Paschali laudes — like many great works of art—has been attributed to quite an array of characters, including the 11th-century Wipo of Burgundy (chaplain of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II), Notker Balbulus (a monk of Sant Gall in Switzerland), Robert II of France (a French monarch), and Adam of St. Victor (a Parisian Master of Ceremonies and composer). The Victimae is a short sequence—made shorter by the fact that one antisemitic verse was excluded in the Tridentine reform: “More to be believed is truthful Mary by herself than the deceitful crowd of the Jews.”

Here’s the literal translation from Wikipedia:

Let Christians offer sacrificial praises to the passover victim.
The Lamb has redeemed the sheep:
The Innocent Christ has reconciled sinners to the Father.
Death and life contended in a spectacular battle:
the dead leader of life reigns alive.
Tell us, Mary, what did you see on the way?
"I saw the tomb of the living Christ and the glory of his rising,
The angelic witnesses, the shroud, and the clothes."
"Christ my hope is arisen; he will go before his own [you] into Galilee."
We know Christ is truly risen from the dead!
On us, Conqueror King, have mercy!
Amen. Alleluia.

Here’s the chant from an Irish monastery:

6. Veni Sancte Spiritus (Sequence)

Trinity from *Les Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne* (source)

Fifty days after Easter falls the great solemnity of Pentecost — and it has its own sequence too, which is so beautiful that it has been called “The Golden Sequence.” We don’t know for sure who wrote the text; two likely 13th-century candidates are Pope Innocent III and Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Langton, incidentally, is most famous for being the one who (more or less successfully) divided up the books of the Bible into the system of chapters used by everyone today. It can be hard to believe that prior to the end of the 12th century, there were no chapters. (Verse numbers came even later: the 15th century for the Old Testament, and the 16th century for the New.)

With light organ in the background, this recording of the Golden Sequence preserves the alternation between cantors and full choir.

7. Dies Irae (Sequence)

This is probably the best known chant of the whole bunch, plastered all over the internet with masochistic-looking monks hunched in black hoods. Despite being one of the most iconic features of the Requiem Mass, this chant is not the “Dark Occult Monastic Ambient Gregorian with Bible” that AI-generated YouTube videos would have you believe. The catchy melody has worked its way into dozens of great pieces of classical music, and later into movie soundtracks: Star Wars, The Lion King, The Lord of the Rings, Frozen, and Dune, to name a few better-known ones.

Cultural allusions and illusions aside, you will find in the Dies Irae a poem of intensely gentle medieval piety. Oscar Wilde objected to the focus on judgement, writing in On Hearing the Dies Iræ Sung in the Sistine Chapel that he found beauty in nature spoke more clearly of God than “thundering”:

Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,
Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,
Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love
Than terrors of red flame and thundering.

I disagree with Mr. Wilde. Although it opens with “day of doom impending,” it winds up calling Jesus the “fount of mercy”—and the word pietatis derives from the love of a father accepting his child as his own. Against our own sinful frailty, it also calls to mind the humanity of Christ: “Seeking me, You rested, tired.” This is a reference to the pericope of the Samaritan woman at the well, and seems to suggest that it is Christ’s humanity that gives us confidence in the face of judgment.

I would sit with the text for a while, especially with the Latin which is much more fluid and beautiful than any English translations.

8. Ave maris stella (Hymn)

The *Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière* (Our Lady of the Beautiful Glass) window in Chartres Cathedral, famed for its unreproducible blue (Photo: Julian Kwasniewski)

This is the great Marian hymn. Probably originating earlier than the other Marian antiphons here, we see a beautiful exploration of Mary’s ancient title “Star of the Sea.” This hymn also includes a clever pun:

Sumens illud “Ave”
Gabrielis ore,
funda nos in pace,
mutans Evæ nomen.

Playing off the fact that Ave in Latin is the same word as “Eve” spelled backwards (Eva), the poem links the “yes” of the new Eve to the “no” of the old Eve. The very first word that the angel spoke to Mary already signified the one whose bad choice her good choice would reverse:

Receiving that “Ave”
From the mouth of Gabriel,
Establish us in peace,
Transforming the name of “Eva.”

My favorite stanza is the penultimate one:

Bestow a pure life,
Prepare a safe way:
That seeing Jesus,
We may ever rejoice.

The last two lines in Latin are ut videntes Jesum / semper collætemur. Perhaps I’m extrapolating too much, but the use of collætemur is significant to me. It could have just been lætemur, which is effectively a synonym: both mean rejoice. But collætemur sounds to me like it derives from co+laetare, with co being “together,” collætemur then implying a social dimension — not just any kind of rejoicing, but “rejoicing together.”

To my mind this hints at the fact that one of heaven’s great incidental joys must certainly be the unity that souls will experience with each other. We don’t rejoice in isolation: we collætemur with all our friends.

Earliest known manuscript of *Sub tuum praesidium* in Greek, dated between 3rd to 9th centuries.

The Sub Tuum Praesidium is likely the oldest chant on the list. The Latin of this prayer might be the “latercomer” translation: ancient versions exist in Greek, Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian. Scholars heavily debate the dating of the papyrus scrap pictured above, some arguing for the late 3rd century, others advocating a century as late as the 9th, but it has been discovered in a chant book from Jerusalem indicating liturgical use in at least the 5th century.

This chant is short and easy to learn: it is sometimes prayed after the rosary, but is appropriate year-round, for any necessity.

10. Requiem eternam (Introit)

This might surprise you as making it onto a “short-list” of chant, but the Requiem Introit is indeed one of the most consoling pieces in the Gregorian Repertoire. It represents in some way the entire Requiem itself: the soft, gentle, soothing rite which accompanies the deceased’s body to the grave, or which prays for any of the departed souls for whom we offer prayers. The Roman Requiem is quite unlike the Byzantine funeral rite, which graphically and lengthily repeats lines about kissing the body for the last time, emphasizes how recently he was among men, with his relatives, and how quickly the corpse will decay. Rather, the Requiem adopts a more butler-like aspect, a somber presence you hardly notice is even there. The prayers barely intrude any specifics, only mentioning the departed’s name when absolutely necessary (the Byzantine, in contrast, constantly repeats it).

When it comes to the music, I love the floating opening, the sedate and restrained rise of the melody and the flat thrown in there on eis in the first line. Here’s Christopher Jasper of the Gregorian Chant Academy singing it:

FINAL STEP: Download the PDF

It would be silly to encourage you all to sing these ten chants without making them easily accessible. All of them can be found in the free download below—crisp, and easy to read, with the notation sourced from GregoBase. Not only do I include the simple and solemn tones for the Marian Antiphons, I’ve even included the solemn monastic versions of them as well. Happy chanting!