A Little Bird Told Me

Can you imagine having an entire orchestra at your fingertips? For Breton Abbondanzio, Director of Sacred Music and music teacher at St. Mary’s Catholic Church and School in Hagerstown, MD, that is just a regular Sunday. For almost 27 years, Abbondanzio has been accompanying, composing, and directing sacred music ministries, using his musical gifts to glorify God— a tradition dating back to the early Medieval period.

It is said that the earliest documented church music, “Gregorian chant,” was developed by Pope Saint Gregory I, or Gregory the Great as he is colloquially known, who served as pope from 590 to 604. The legend goes that he enlisted a scribe to write down the music as he dictated it, instructing the scribe to remain seated behind a screen and never look around it. However, the scribe soon became confused, and in a moment of curiosity, peeked beyond the screen, where he discovered a dove emblematic of the Holy Spirit whispering into the ear of St. Gregory. This legend is where we get the phrase “A little bird told me.” It was passed along orally and eventually put into artwork, spreading the news that the music being shared across Europe had been divinely inspired.

This legend, or more appropriately propaganda, was proven to be untrue, as at that time there was no unified way to write or understand written music. Until this point, the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne had been sending cantors from Rome to the churches of northern and central Europe to teach them the Roman style of chanting. Knowing the word of man was not enough to convince the people to abandon their regional plainchant, Charlemagne invoked the power of the divine. Thus, St. Gregory was not, in fact, the inventor of “Gregorian chant” (though it is named after him), but instead a noted reformer of the liturgy.