Beneventan chant is a liturgical plainchant repertory of the Catholic Church, used primarily in the orbit of the southern Italian ecclesiastical centers of Benevento and Montecassino, distinct from Gregorian chant and related to Ambrosian chant. It was officially supplanted by Gregorian chant in the 11th century, although a few chants of local interest remained in use.
What is interesting is that three bilingual (Greek and Latin) antiphons, of this is but one, were sung in Benevento and some other Italian centres as part of the Adoration of the Cross service in Holy Week. Some of these chants seem to have Eastern origins: this particular sample for instance, found in sources from places such as Benevento and Ravenna, is actually a version of a Byzantine troparion which can be followed back to the rite of Jerusalem in the 7th century. Its presence in Ravenna should mean that it was already used in the liturgy there before the fall of the Exarchate of Ravenna to the Lombards in 752.
Peregrinus expectavi pedes meos incymbalis. A silly (when translated) and grammatically-incorrect nonsense Latin phrase which the composer Sergey Prokofiev used as one of the lyrics in his score for the 1938 propaganda film Alexander Nevsky. This is notably heard in the background as the Teutonic Knights charge towards the army of Russians during the Battle of the Ice:
Many people have attempted (and failed?) to decipher this short elusive phrase (which is otherwise unattested in Biblical, Patristic, Ecclesiastical, or indeed even secular literature), often with strange results; whileothersjust deal with itbriefly andnever mention it again, shrugging it off as either an obscure medieval hymn - which would be odd, since were it a true hymn we should either be singing it in church right now or have manuscripts that give its lyrics! - or a feeble attempt by Eisenstein and Prokofiev at concocting a Latin phrase and coming up with nonsense (Prokofiev originally intended to use authentic medieval chant for the score, but found the music "so far removed" and "emotionally alien" to the 20th century listener).
However, Morag G. Kerr, soprano for the BBC Symphony Chorus, may hold the true answer to this riddle: the nonsense phrase is actually a jab against Prokofiev's colleague-slash-rival Igor Stravinsky, who wrote The Symphony of Psalms in 1930. The Latin words of the phrase are apparently taken from phrases found in the Latin Vulgate, specifically, from Psalm 39:12-13 [38:13-14]; Psalm 40:1-3 [39:2-4]; and Psalm 150 (this can be observed here). The clincher is, these are the exact same Psalms Stravinsky used in his symphony, so saying that it is coincidental would be rather unsatisfying.
Random minor trivia: In the clip above, a keen observer would notice that the Teutonic bishop blesses/makes the Sign of the Cross in the Eastern manner (moving from the right shoulder to the left) as opposed to the present-day Catholic left shoulder-to-right movement!
The Missa Luba is the (Latin) Mass as interpreted by the Congolese musical tradition. Arranged by Franciscan friar Fr. Guido Haazen (from Belgium), the original recording was performed in 1958 by "Les Troubadours du Roi Baudouin," a choir of 45 Congolese boys and 15 teachers from Kamina at the Congo.
The Mass, more specifically the following sample (the Credo), in my opinion, is (very much like plainchant) very powerful and much more edifying than most contemporary liturgical music that we commonly hear in our churches today.
