Beyond the Spire
Welcome to Beyond the Spire, a podcast of the Save Our Sacred Songs project at the Catholic Shrine of St Walburge in Preston, supported by the National Lottery.
In each episode, we go beyond what you see from the street, we explore the story and the sound of Gregorian chant, the Church's sacred song, so that this treasure of faith and culture is not just preserved, but lived and loved again.
Episodes
20 episodes
E20 • Why Gregorian Chant Still Matters
After tracing chant from its roots to the present, “Beyond the Spire” closes by asking whether this ancient music still has a future. The answer is an emphatic yes: Gregorian chant slows modern haste, unites voices in common prayer, forms memor...
E19 • Practice: Organ and Gregorian Chant
This instalment examines the proper place of the organ in a liturgical world centred on Gregorian chant. The very title expresses the principle: the greatest instrument appears most noble when it knows how not to dominate. The episode considers...
E18 • Practice: Today’s Issues and Opportunities
This episode examines singing Gregorian chant today, noting how contemporary habits, technology, and expectations differ dramatically from the past. It reflects on hearing with modern ears, the realities of current liturgical settings, and the ...
E17 • History of music: The Restoration of Roman Catholic Liturgy
This episode leaves the direct analysis of melodies and turns to the nineteenth-century recovery of Gregorian chant. At its centre stands Dom Prosper Guéranger and Solesmes Abbey, presented as decisive in restoring both Roman liturgy and Roman ...
E16 • History of music: The Decline of Gregorian Chant
This episode studies the gradual eclipse of Gregorian chant in the later history of Western church music. As musical culture changed, and as Renaissance and later styles introduced different ideals of beauty, authorship, and expression, chant n...
E15 • History of music: The Rise of Polyphony
From early organum to Palestrina and the Counter-Reformation, the discussion traces the gradual separation between chant as prayerful utterance and music as increasingly complex art. The Council of Trent established rules for chant, not as an e...
E14 • Repertoire portrait: Introit of Easter Mass of the Day
This is one of the most beautiful conceptual episodes in the series, because it treats the Easter liturgy like several cameras turned toward one mystery. Resurrexi (mode 4) gives the interior face of Easter, Vesperi autem sabbati
E13 • Repertoire portrait: Improperia of Good Friday
This Good Friday episode unfolds in two linked stages: first the presentation of the Cross, then the grave voice of Christ in the Reproaches. There is a shift from mode 6 to mode 1, a change that keeps the same general range yet alters the inne...
E12 • Repertoire portrait: Introit of Palm Sunday
In this episode, the Church’s liturgy is heard turning in a single movement from triumph to sorrow. Palm Sunday begins with the king entering Jerusalem, but the introit for Mass already opens onto the mystery of rejection and suffering, leading...
E11 • Repertoire portrait: Introit of Christmas Mass of the Night
Here the series turns from explanation to direct experience by placing the listener inside the Christmas Midnight Mass. The introit Dominus Dixit Ad Me is presented as a real sung prayer: rather than chasing polish, the programme embra...
E10 • Practice: Advanced Steps
Charles and Joshua return to “Beyond the Spire” to move from first principles to the practical craft of reading Gregorian chant well. The discussion turns to what lies beyond the notes themselves: bars, compound neumes, quilisma, dotte...
E09 • Practice: The Basics
Two young men in formation join “Beyond the Spire”. Charles and Joshua introduce to the practical side of chant: books, notes and breathing. The guests explain the role of the Liber Usualis, online chant libraries, the difference between modern...
E08 • How it works: The Sung Parts of the Mass
Gregorian chant is the Church’s natural 'musical breath'. Through the sung Ordinary and Proper parts of the Holy Mass, it unites our emotions to Christ and guides them towards the Father. Each part, from the Kyrie and Gloria t...
E07 • How it works: The Chant of the Office
Two religious sisters explain what it means to devote one's life to God and spend each day singing His praises. They offer insight into a life structured around the canonical hours, describing the Divine Office and its various parts — from '
E06 • How it works: Text Into Music
Rather than 'music with words', Gregorian chant is the sacred text itself set to music. The liturgical text takes precedence, and the melody is crafted to serve it, with every note, accent, and rise or fall created to enhance the meaning of the...
E05 • How it works: The Eight Modes
DescriptionIn this episode, we cross the Atlantic—virtually—to welcome Abbé Raymond Schmidt, an oblate brother of the Institute of Christ the King in Chicago, for a deep yet accessible conversation on the eight modes of Gregorian ...
E04 • History of music: The Rise of Written Music
A bridge between two worlds: the world of melodies known by heart and shared through practice and listening, and the world of books, handwriting and then printing. In this engaging dialogue, Canon Cristofoli explains how notation preserved the ...
E03 • History of music: A Day in the Cloister
The Christian life spreads across Europe, covered by the white cloak of monasteries, mainly shaped and governed by the rule of St. Benedict. Canon Cristofoli tells how monks understand their chant as prayer turned into music, joining the angels...
E02 • History of music: From Temple to Church
Starting with the meticulously recorded historical details in the Bible, Canon Cristofoli traces the origins of Gregorian chant right back to its roots in Israel’s worship, the Psalms and the sacred ceremonies. He shows how chant slowly took sh...
E01 • What is Gregorian Chant?
This opening episode draws you into the world of Gregorian chant, the Church’s own voice, a living breath of prayer. Through candid conversation, two young parishioners explore the sacred stillness of chant, and describe how, in their own exper...
