Recently the Erleigh Cantors have been using some chants from Richard Marlow’s Trinity Chant-Book. These are mostly adapted from other works, by quoting a phrase or two rather than forcing a longer passage into a metrical straitjacket. They can be used to complement other works by these composers or from the same time and place.
Before I sang any of these I found this exercise almost pretentious – why weren’t the chants the rest of the world uses good enough for Trinity College, Cambridge? But in fact the ones I’ve sung are very pleasant to sing, and I particularly like the richness of the 5-part ones. (Of course you have to be able to split your soprano section 4 ways if you do Dec and Can with them).
Despite drawing on some 400 years of music these chants have a distinctive similarity of style which I attribute to Marlow himself. Rather like Trinity College Choir under his direction, which always sounded the same to me through many changes of personnel (several of whom I’ve known).
I have that book. I rather like the chants derived from Faure’s Requiem. I really like the consistency of style that you can give to a service by matching it with other music from the programme.