Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Studies in Medievalism
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- I Medievalism and Authenticity
- II Other Responses to Medievalism (and Authenticity)
- III Early Music (and Authenticity) in Films and Video Games
- Introduction
- Beyond (the) Halo: Chant in Video Games
- A Plague of Medievalism upon You All: Medievalism, Music, and the Plague
- The Past is a Different Planet: Sounding Medievalism in Aleksei German's Hard to Be a God
- Contributors
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Beyond (the) Halo: Chant in Video Games
from III - Early Music (and Authenticity) in Films and Video Games
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2018
- Frontmatter
- Studies in Medievalism
- Acknowledgments
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- I Medievalism and Authenticity
- II Other Responses to Medievalism (and Authenticity)
- III Early Music (and Authenticity) in Films and Video Games
- Introduction
- Beyond (the) Halo: Chant in Video Games
- A Plague of Medievalism upon You All: Medievalism, Music, and the Plague
- The Past is a Different Planet: Sounding Medievalism in Aleksei German's Hard to Be a God
- Contributors
- Miscellaneous Endmatter
Summary
In the 1990s, the so-called chant craze provoked a number of thoughtful responses in scholarship. Reacting to the recent releases of plainchant albums by Ensemble Organum and the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos (the famous Chant album, the cover of which featured hooded monks staggered in mid-air against a bright blue, cloud-swirled sky), Katherine Bergeron observed that they provided a good opportunity to examine “the whole phenomenon of chant as music in the modern imagination; and the various guises in which it appears; and the contexts in which it has acquired value and meaning.” A few years later, Linda Schubert looked at film as one such context, focusing on the use of the well-known “Dies irae” chant within modern cinema. She concluded by saying that:
Now that film music is better established as a field of scholarly study, and chant has found a place in the popular music scene, it is time to think about how the two sometimes interact, and what the characteristics of this relationship are. It is time to recognise and enjoy the creative ways in which music a thousand years old has been used in an art form unique to the twentieth century.
Since these articles were written, the presence and functions of plainchant (and related musics) within film has continued to be analyzed. James Deaville and K. J. Donnelly, for example, have built upon Schubert's work to further explore the use of chant as a symbol of evil, violence, fear, and death, while more recently John Haines treats chant as one of several key signifiers of the medieval. While there is much more still to be said about the intersections of chant and cinema, at some twenty years later, there is yet another modern context to consider for plainchant: video games.
Little has been articulated to date about plainchant in video games. This is due to any of several reasons, all of which strike at the heart of what plainchant is thought to be. If plainchant demands vocality, then a large swath of game music is eliminated from scrutiny owing to technological constraints or preferences in orchestration.
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- Information
- Studies in Medievalism XXVIIAuthenticity, Medievalism, Music, pp. 183 - 200Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2018