American Gradual Propers for All Saints' Day
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    Attached are the revised propers for All Saints' Day.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    GRAVE MISTAKE

    Please ignore the conventional chant notation .pdf above. It's the wrong one.

    I'll post the correct one later.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    Here is the correct version of the All Saints' Day propers in conventional chant notation ("square notes.")

    I would like to know if anyone happens to use it.
    All Saints revised conventional chant notation.pdf
    98K
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    This is wonderful, Bruce… thank you! Whatever extra work you likely did to put this in conventional chant notation (on top of the monumental work of the project itself), I, for one, say thanks!

    I'm comparing your setting of the Introit, "Gaudemus," to what I see in my Gregorian Missal. In the Missal, I see a flat on ti (making it te) in the first phrase; this seems to be missing in both the traditional notation and the conventional notation of your settings.

    Thanks again!
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I find it necessary to replace both versions of the All Saints' propers that I posted yesterday. Believing that some who cannot sing the propers on ordinary Sundays might be able to sing them on All Saints' Day, I RUSHED to get the revised edition posted, only to discover that I had made a number of typographical errors, including the repetition of two whole incises in the Alleluia. I must, therefore, post a corrected version in two formats. I beg the indulgence of those who have already downloaded two other versions of the same chants.

    Proofreading will never be my forte.
    All Saints revised 20091024 conv chant notation.pdf
    98K
    All Saints revised 20091024.pdf
    47K
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    Wonderful! But again, Bruce, my question (above) on the flat that seems to be missing. Am I wrong on this? Or is the Gregorian Missal wrong?
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    The Gregorian Missal reproduces the chant from the Graduale Romanum of 1908, as does the 1974 Graduale. Neither reflects any editorial changes in the music. Solesmes (I am told) has proposed a major revision of the actual chant in the Graduale, which is awaiting approval by Rome and seems to be lost in the shuffle.

    I, therefore, do not work from the Vatican edition alone. I compare its readings with Benevento VI.34, and other sources. Within the past year I have begun consulting a new edition of the Latin chant compiled by German scholars, which is accessible at http://www.gregor-und-taube.de/html/materialien.htm#I.1 Their version of Gaudeamus does not use the B-flat in the intonation.

    Where the B-flat/B-natural issue is concerned, the manuscripts provide us with little help, because the Beneventan manuscripts, which maintain modal integrity more than northern manuscripts (for reasons I explain in the introduction to The American Gradual) do not indicate any distinction. So choosing a B-flat or B-natural is almost always an editorial decision, guided by modal theories. In the view of Claire and Saulnier, whose theory enjoys currency, the B is generally natural when the melody revolves around C, and it is generally flat when the melody revolves around A. Pothier (and Gajard, who edited the 1934 Antiphonale Monasticum) held that the modality of the whole phrase determined whether the B should be flat. (If we apply the Claire/Saulnier theory across the board, we would never have any protus phrases ending on A--which is absurd.)

    In this case I used the B-natural for two reasons. (1) I like it better; (2) The German scholars used it, giving me a sense of legitimacy or, at least, of licence.

    If you prefer the use the B-flat, feel free to write it in. No one can say with positive conviction that one or the other is "wrong."

    I did not intend to write a lengthy article on this subject; but I could not cover the topic any more succinctly.
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    Thank you again, Bruce. You're a scholar speaking to an amateur here… thank you for your kind, careful explanation. I appreciate the opportunity to learn.

    I'll be writing in the B-flat, not because of preference one way or the other, but rather because I'll be using the Nova Organi Harmonium as accompaniment (which has the accidental). Of course, I know I'll have to edit the NOH a bit to make it congruent with the English in your adaptation… something I already have been doing with using th NOH with Richard Rice's Communios with English verses.

    But, to answer your original question, yes, I will be singing this next weekend… probably just the Introit.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    Bruce, Thank you for exposition of Bflat. I have puzzled over it myself. I have assigned your Introit setting to a single tenor- an excellent singer and sensitive to the chant. Maybe we'll be able to inc the Offertorio also. Is it OK to do that and then proceed to a 4pt setting of Blessed are the Dead?

    Donna
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 429
    Is it OK... I certainly think so.

    In the "extraordinary form" a motet may follow the offertory--according to the pre-Conciliar manuals I've seen. (I haven't checked for actual S.C.R. decrees)

    In the modern rite I have sometimes seen more than one piece of music used to cover the offertory actions, although I don't see any reference to the possibility in GIRM. I think this is a case in which you may safely invoke the "rhetoric of continuity." GIRM doesn't say that you can't do two pieces, and doing two violates no principle of the renewal (except, perhaps, that the offertory itself should not take disproportionately long, as it usually does in Anglican churches.)
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