The Schola Cantorum was the trained papal choir during the Middle Ages, specializing in the performance of plainchant for the purpose of rendering the music in church.
[5] To the west, the Romans left very few traces of musical development partly because it was deliberately suppressed during the persecution of Christians during the first two centuries.
[7] However, it was during this period that art, architecture, music, philosophy, new religious rites, and many other aspects of Greek culture were brought in from the Hellenistic world.
We do know however, that music of the early Middle Ages in Western Europe was derived from the ancient Greeks in terms of form and concept.
[10] Peace between the Church and the Roman Empire greatly effected the liturgical life and musical practice of Christians.
This freedom in religion allowed the church to build for large basilicas which made it possible for public worship and for Christians to finally assume a new dignity.
As the early church of Jerusalem spread westward to Western Europe, it brought along musical elements from diverse areas.
[13] The Lombards, Franks, and Goths dominated the face of Western Europe in the seventh and early eighth centuries.
The singers had mastered a style united with a technical finish of elegance and began to flourish their singing with ornamentation which had existed during classical times.
This Roman school lasted a period of nine years which furnished the choir at most of the papal functions and was facilitated by the cantor.
[26] The idea of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody accompanied by high and low pitched voices seemed more suitable for ecclesiastic music in the eleventh century.
The polyphonic composition was constantly developing up until the seventeenth century when opera began to dominate the musical world of the church.
When the pope visited France with his court, the Frankish King Pepin the Short could not help but admire the customs of Roman liturgy.
[31] Nonetheless, the Schola Cantorum played a significant role in the transmission of Roman chant to the Carolingian court of Charlemagne.
Between the years 876 and 1073, the prior of the Schola is recorded to have performed a curious dance with clearly pagan origins known as Cornomania, on the Saturday following Easter, on the Lateran Square in Rome.
They aim to interpret classical, old popular, sacred, and of course Gregorian music with absolute purity of style and tone.