A certain number of films have brought the tantric chanting of Tibetan Buddhist monks to the attention of American and European movie goers. I’m think especially of Martin Scorsese’s 1997 film Kundun about the Dalai Lama, 2001’s narrative film Samsara and 1999’s very entertaining The Cup, about some young monks who procure a satellite dish so they can watch the football World Cup.
Now the world music field recording label Ocora/RadioFrance has released on CD an important recording of this style of liturgical chant, which apparently was previously issued in 1999. The discs preserve a 1975 recording of the monks live in Paris in 1975, during the Festival d’Automne at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord. These were the first generation of Tibetan monks who went into exile from Lhasa to India with the current Dalai Lama. It’s an astonishing and utterly tranfixing auditory experience, of very high quality for 50-year-old live recordings.
The hefty booklet that accompanies the CDs has a lot of information in both French and English about Buddhism, the musical traditions of Gyütö tantric college, the monks and their instruments, and the way these recordings were produced.
From the liner notes: “As in all monasteries of the various schools, an important place is reserved for the memorisation and recitation of a large number of ritual texts. The liturgical practice of Gyütö is characterised by the use of a specific mode of singing, “the voice of the tantras”; this process consists of simultaneously emitting a very low sound and, by modifying the volume of the oral cavity, distinctly bringing out one of the harmonics of this sound.”
The first disc’s three tracks clock in at about 49 minutes total and feature mostly chanting with a few insertions of clanging hand bells on two of them. They are labeled in the booklet as “Recitation of an excerpt of the “Secret Assembly” or “Secret Unity” Tantra”; “Excerpt of an initiation ceremony (dBang) to the Cult of Yamantaka, a fierce appearance of the Bodhisattva Manjushri”; and “Excerpt from a consecration ritual (Rab-gnas).”
The second disc is about 10 minutes shorter, and its three tracks (“The Great Dark One,” “Golden Libation,” and Prayer for a “Good Omen”) feature a lot of clattering cymbals, some deep drums and raucous horns in addition to some bells, with chanting interspersed but less prominent. Both are fascinating, and the first disc in particular is a deeply meditative listening experience for those so inclined.
(Ocora/RadioFrance, 2026)
