With a certain amount of trepidation, I've begun setting Responsorial Psalms to Anglican chant, typically using a single chant (but not always) for the Response and a double chant for the Verses. So far, these chants are my own compositions.
Here are the Responsorial Psalms for Ash Wednesday (ABC) and the First Sunday of Lent (B). More to follow, now that I have the template tweaked about as much as possible.
Note: I replaced Lent 1 (B) with a slightly modified version on 2015-02-16 : 7:04pm CST.
For a wedding a few years back we did the responsorial ps. to AC (Attwood, methinks, or maybe Goss, can't remember). Some verses (or half-verses) were sung unison, others SATB, I thought it worked very well---and no Anglican Thump! (I set the respond for unis. + organ.)
Thanks @CHGiffen. I appreciate the fact that the verses are written out. Unless you have the luxury of a collegiate choir that rehearses the psalms daily, it is a great boon to the singers to see words and notes aligned. We are learning Walter Alcock's "Psalm 91: Who dwelleth under the defence of the Most High" to sing as the tract on Lent I (OF). Your method would have greatly sped up our learning curve.
YES! Having the verses written out is basically essential if I ever want to do this type of chant with my choir. It really confuses amateurs to have to figure out the roadmap if the notes and words aren't aligned.
dB, thanks for your comments. Perhaps I should explain. I've had 50 years of experience with Anglican chant (I sang at All Saints Episcopal Church in Princeton, New Jersey for about 4-5 years in the mid 1960s), and have often (usually for Episcopal and other Anglican church use) notated it in the traditional way you describe. Your comments actually reflect my own preferences well. And indeed, for my Hymn Tune Introits with Anglican chant verses, I put the chant at the top and the verses, pointed, below the chant. Most recently, I did the same with the verses for my Communion "O taste and see" and for the Alleluia versicle in my Ascension Mass.
Preferences for tradition aside, I have had several people, especially here at the MS forum, ask for the verses of Anglican chant to be set between the staves and with note values chosen to represent the rhythm of the chant ... even though those things will seem unneccessary to someone of Anglican heritage, such as myself. It seems that, when Catholic choirs are not thoroughly well-versed in Anglican chant and don't use it regularly, they appreciate the sort of help I'm trying to provide. On the other hand, if I had been setting these Roman Catholic Responsorial Psalms for Episcopal, Anglican, or even Anglican Ordinariate use, I would have proceeded differently.
Several of the Anglican chant tones of mine that I am using are adapted from chants that I prepared for Lent a few years ago at an Episcopal church where I was a musician, and back then I simply provided the chant at the top of the page with the (pointed) verses below. And, in the 1980s, when I led a choir at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church in Charlottesville, Virginia, I had a small but talented choir, and we often used Anglican chant for the Responsorial Psalms, with a few of my own chant settings, as well as (quite often, actually) the Elvey single chant in A (no 644 in the Hymnal 1940) for the Response and the Randall double chant in D (no 626 in the Hymnal 1940) for the verses.
Chuck has the right idea. Not everyone has Schola Cantorum Anglicanum experience under their belt and can read block text at the bottom of the page and try to glue it to the third voice down on a set of block chord patterns above or even on another page. What's the problem? Too many chances for mistakes and bumbling. I'm a Moravian cum Episcopalian and because of my job am a slave to notation, whose job now it is to make the 'mistakes' go away by improving the notation for people who already read western music notation. That includes most of the singers in our four Compline Choirs who are instrumentalists. Even though I am not a fan of Anglican Chant Psalter, I have realized (written out) dozens of them, cherry picking the best ones, in a similar fashion as has Charles, except with fewer bar lines, just stemless quarter notes, stemless half note for endings, and whole notes for reciting notes. Anything to make it easier and less dangerous for the singers. We now do Compline in one rehearsal, but this took years to develop that quick up-take, digesting the big five changeable tunes in a very short time. Here is the notation on Psalm 86 (complete/BCP 1979) in the form of a ground i wrote for our March 1st Compline: This notation is similar to Carl Crosier's engraving of Peter Hallock's Psalm settings.
Charles, our entire congregation chants the Psalm 'd occasion in unison every week at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, in mode 2 during Lent and mode 8 after Easter, and pointed in the bulletin by our organist who knows what she is doing. It is a pleasure to hear how well we chant the Psalms now after doing and perfecting it for years.
Fifth Sunday of Lent, year B, and Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion, years ABC, are attached. These two RPs employ the same double chant for the verses, and the responses are related.
Just got back from the Ash Wednesday service. It was wonderful. No singing whatever. As the centerpiece, the congo did, however, recite the entire Psalm 51; all 18 verses. It makes a lot of sense to do the whole thing, as is wont by our Rector.
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