As we will be visiting Solesmes Monastery here in the next hour or two, we'd just like to give you a little bit of a background on the monastery. First of all, it was founded about 1000 years ago, and it was a fully functioning Benedictine monastery, and then at the time of the French Revolution, the monks were expelled, and the place became deserted. 

And then in 1833, there was a young priest who grew up in Solesmes and grew up around the Abbey, and he wanted to purchase it and restore it to a fully functioning Benedictine monastery. And in 1833, he did purchase it, and five years later, it did become an Abbey. The number one purpose of this Abbey was to research Gregorian chant and to restore it to its purest form.

And since that time Father Geranger who founded it – he lived until 1875. And during the span of his lifetime in the last century as well, Solesmes has since become world renowned for their Gregorian chant. In fact, the Church itself looks to Solesmes as the supreme model, the supreme teacher of Gregorian chant. They place in a lot of weight upon the research.