Polyphonie Grégorienne

Released in 1959, this recording features the Choeur des Moniales Bénédictines du Précieux-Sang de Mont-Laurier, a monastic community located in Quebec, Canada. The album was produced as an internal project by the monastery, reflecting the mid-twentieth-century movement to preserve and document traditional Gregorian chant as a pillar of liturgical life. It captures a moment in time when many religious orders began utilizing contemporary recording technology to share their devotional music with a broader audience beyond the cloister walls.

The album serves as a pristine example of private press religious recordings from the era, characterized by a minimalist aesthetic that emphasizes the purity of the choral performance. The design and production were handled entirely by the nuns of the order, focusing on the preservation of the Latin chant cycles rather than commercial appeal. Because it was self-distributed within Catholic circles and local communities, it remains a rare piece of Canadian monastic history, valued today by collectors of archival religious music for its authentic capture of the order’s spiritual practice.