Solesmes

Solesmes: Benedictine abbey

Solesmes, village, Sarthe département, Pays de la Loire région, west-central France. It is well known for its Benedictine abbey, the centre of the reform of plainsong (unisonous music used in the Christian church from earliest times) in France. The abbey was founded in 1010, but through the centuries the monks were obliged to leave France a number of times (most recently in 1901). In 1922 they finally settled in the austere 19th-century monastery on the left bank of the Sarthe River. Pop. (1999) 1,383; (2014 est.) 1,229.