Just as pop-music trends wax and wane — hello, Backstreet Boys, goodbye, Backstreet Boys; hello, Jonas Brothers, goodbye, Jonas Brothers — so it can be with classical music, at least when it comes to Gregorian chants.
Back in 1994, the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos had a hit in the United States with their "Chant" album. Two years ago, Austrian monks had a European hit with "Chant: Music for the Soul," and their success is chronicled in the new half-hour documentary "Top Ten Monks" (9 p.m. MST Wednesday, HBO2).
"Top Ten Monks" director Dana Heinz Perry — who is unrelated to the famous Heinz family — produced/directed documentaries about music in the past, and that's how HBO documentary top executive Sheila Nevins came to think of her for a possible monk-music project after she read about the monks' international success in a magazine.
Perry previously worked on "Motown 40" for ABC and a five-hour hip-hop series for VH1 in addition to other documentary films, including episodes of TLC's "Paramedics."
"I've gotten access to rock stars more easily than these people," Perry said of the monks.
"Top Ten Monks" dispels preconceptions viewers might have about monks, showing them at work on the Internet and responding to tourists. ("This is a form of prayer," a monk explains to an American tourist who requests a performance. "We don't do it as a show.")
Making contact with the monks was not the hard part. Getting them to allow Perry to document their lives was the greater challenge. By the time she began to request access, the monks had already become a European sensation.
"I think perhaps they didn't bargain for what the result was going to be of making this record and have it be a giant hit," she said. "Journalists from all over Europe were knocking on their doors and they said 'yes' a lot, and that created an invasion of their way of life."
In 2008, the album by the Cistercian Monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz sold 120,000 copies in Austria, far outpacing albums by Madonna (10,000 units sold) and Amy Winehouse (92,000 units sold). The album sold about 200,000 units in the United Kingdom, according to the film.
A representative for Universal Records' classics label explains that the company saw growth in its back catalog of Gregorian-chant releases, which prompted them to post an ad in Roman Catholic newspapers seeking a choir that might record a new album. The Austrian monks replied, not expecting there would be interest in their almost-900-year-old tradition. But there was.
They'd certainly been the center of attention before — Pope Benedict XVI visited to hear them pray in song in 2007 — but going on German and British talk shows to discuss their record was a new experience. In the documentary, one of the monks shows off plaques from record companies for attaining a high level of sales. The monks received so many that they ran out of wall space for them in one office. The only place the monks seem to lack recognition is in America.
"It didn't really happen here in the states for them," Perry said. "I don't know why that is."
Perry eventually got permission from the monks to visit in spring 2009, a new experience for a filmmaker who was raised Quaker.
"I had a lot of learning to do about Catholicism just to start and the whole cloistered-monk thing, the history of that was a real eye-opener," she said. "But I think it's good not to know stuff when you go in because your curiosity is genuine. You're the eyes and ears of your audience and it's your job to convey the information. A healthy and real curiosity is key to this kind of work."
A special edition of the monks' CD was released after the initial album, but Perry's impression is that they probably won't record another CD.
Although the documentary has been complete for some time, HBO wanted it to premiere around the holidays. A DVD of the program will be released at a later, yet-to-be-scheduled date.