You could purchase a copy of the Nocturnale Romanum - see: www.hartker.com and click through to Hartker Verlag.

Holger Peter Sandhofe was the editor of the newest edition of the Nocturnale, although he died before it was published. It is available from Hartker Verlag in Germany. I don't have my Nocturnale at work with me (I have a day job and just direct a choir for the traditional rite Latin mass evenings and weekens) but I think it's in Cologne or near there.

Here is the URL: http://www.hartker.com/verlag/buecher.html

Here is the blurb about the Nocturnale:

Nocturnale Romanum

Antiphonale Sacrosanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ pro nocturnis horis.
herausgegeben von Holger Peter Sandhofe†
Das Nocturnale Romanum enthält sämtliche Stücke für das Nachtgebet (Vigil), darunter 77 Invitatorien, 13 Invitatorialpsalmodien, 40 Hymnen, ca. 600 Antiphonen und ca. 750 Responsorien, 153 mm × 215 mm × 60 mm, ca. 1.600 g.

In Memoriam Holger Peter Sandhofe (1972–2005)

Imprimatur Coloniæ, die 6 Septembris 2001. + Klaus Dick, Vic. eplis.
Mit kirchlicher Druckerlaubnis.

1.360 Seiten, sieben Lesebändchen, fester Einband.
Info :: ISBN-10 3-936476-01-2 :: ISBN-13 978-3-936476-01-9 :: EUR 99,00 ^


It's not cheap, and this little company can't take credit cards etc. - the last time I bought one from them (a gift for a priest) you had to go to a bank (I actually went to one of those currency places that is cheaper than a bank) and get them to give an actual check in Euros that you can mail to Hartker with your order. This company has not been doing that well, and they had to cut out part of their trade (the used book part, as I recall) and barely survived the last couple years. Giving them some business will be a wonderful thing not only for them but for everybody who loves chant, by keeping them in business!

* ALSO - It's good if you can get somebody fluent in German to help you, as their order forms etc. can be confusing.

All of the above trouble is WELL WORTH IT!! as this is the only way all of those chants are available with music. I had my name on waiting lists for 20 years or so for the old 1895 Solesmes nocturnale and never got near one. All of the beautiful Renaissance polyphony based on Matins chants makes so much more sense when you have this book to refer to.

Fred Lautzenheiser

That's great! I last dealt with them several years ago and I was afraid they were going to go out of business, the way things looked.

I would like to mention that the above mentioned manuscript shows the monastic office; the roman office can be found in this franciscan manuscript: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/fcc/0002/198r/medium; unfortunately it lacks a few pages, so this page starts with a fragment of the last antiphon of the second nocturn and then the first responsory, Quo progrederis.
EDIT: The missing parts are to be found in this manuscript: http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/~db/0003/bsb00036257/images/index.html?id=00036257&fip=yztseayawyztsewqewqsdasxdsyd&no=8&seite=189.

The Nocturnale from Hartker is awesome. I use it every day for Matins.

I just want to note that the medieval manuscripts won't do well as sources for the chants of the post-Pius-X Roman (non-monastic) divine office, because the "Divino Afflatu reform" gave the antiphonary a strong blow, especially the matins. Chants for many of the texts can't be found at all in old manuscripts, because many texts were newly introduced.
(The work Sandhofe did for his Nocturnale wasn't just "transcribe pieces from medieval sources", but also "find or compose melodies for the new ones"!)

(A supplement to my post above:)
The "Divino Afflatu reform" stroke especially the psalter (changed distribution of psalms led to introducing new antiphons). It is probable, that most of the proprium de tempore as well as proprium and commune de sanctis stayed intact. But I'm not sure about it.

>>they were so common to the choralists that almost nobody bothered to write them down

I hate it when that happens.

I have a copy of the Venite tones both for the monastic and nonmonastic Divine Office. The nonmonastic Venite can be found in the Nocturnale Romanum by Sandhofe. The monastic tone I was able to acquire when I contacted the webmaster of the website that hosts transcriptions from mediaeval office books. The two sets of Venite tones are quite different from each other.

The Roman Venite modulations in the Liber are mostly mode VI (apparently, the tones are assigned depending on whose feast day it is, usually for saints it's mode II in the Nocturnale Romanum). As for Dominican chant, it contains certain elements that are not found in Gregorian chant, and it certainly has minor differences in melody. I have a Dominican Matutinale that I think contains all their Venite tones, but I still have to verify.

What was the source of division for psalmody verses for Sandhofe? Sometimes flexa and median differs from Antiphonale Romanum 1912.