Christmas - Troped Sanctus: 'Caeléste praecónium' in English
  • By request, the hymnographer Matthew Carver, of Nashville, TN, has translated this wonderful Troped Sanctus for Nativity of the 13th century into english for me. I have typeset it, including the latin original too. I hope this will be enjoyed in more Christ Masses in the coming years! The text used, is that of the "Anglican-use" Personal Ordinariates.

    https://app.box.com/s/i06ni2tmda19rk6dkzko

  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    You aren't seriously proposing that this be sung in place of the Sanctus at an EF, OF, or Anglican-use Mass, are you?
    Thanked by 1Chris_McAvoy
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    This is beautifully done, and thank you for sharing. It's evident much love and care went into this. I knew there were at one time tropes used for the Kyrie and Agnus Dei, but I didn't know there were tropes for the Sanctus.

    We're singing Mass VII for the last two Sundays of Advent so I'll share this with my schola. Maybe we can sing it after Mass next Sunday.

    Also, the phrase cum Paterno Numine et cum Sancto Flamine is very unusual. Would a literal translation be: with the Paternal Divinity and with the Holy Breath (Wind) ? Flamen is an interesting poetical substitution for "Spirit."
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    You aren't seriously proposing that this be sung in place of the Sanctus at an EF, OF, or Anglican-use Mass, are you?

    With utmost respect, Father, that is a wholly unnecessary, irrelevant and somewhat condescending statement. Nothing else to say about that. Hope you still consider us/me as friends and colleagues.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    With utmost respect, Charles, my comment was not condescending. The OP stated:
    I hope this will be enjoyed in more Christ Masses in the coming years!

    If the OP was suggesting that this troped Sanctus replace the Sanctus at Mass, by what authority was he making that suggestion - for either an EF, OF, or Angllican-use Mass? If he was not suggesting that, what was he proposing?
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Knowing the writing style of Chris McAvoy for a few years now, the only think I KNOW is that he allows for some measure of ambiguity in his choice of words. "Christ Masses" do not necessarily equate to Mass in common parlance. You made the inference, not he.
    Let's just let Chris choose to answer your question if he chooses. You have a right, maybe a duty, to ask it. But the words you chose to ask it originally were more declarative or inquisitional than perhaps you'd like me to believe. Pax tecum.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,499
    For me, the most intriguing expression Chris uses is this:
    The text used, is that of the "Anglican-use" Personal Ordinariates.

    Is this a liturgical text, for reals?
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,694
    He means up until the trope. I think.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    I read this in the way Melo did: some folks like to say "Christ Mass" for the solemnity on December 25. The usage seems to be particularly popular in Anglican circles.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    I read this in the way Melo did:

    As if we didn't need another definitive sign of the apocalypse to come! Guadete!
  • What I have done is to help create an english version, as well as my own typeset latin version of what was already in the well known book:

    image
    Tropen zum Gloria, Sanctus und Agnus Dei im Graduale Romanum
    hg. von Anton Stingl jun., 2012, EOS Verlag Sankt Ottilien


    Mr. Anton Stingl published this material for singing. This is a historical text of the historical roman rite. What else would it be sung at besides Mass? That is the primary purpose.

    Other than whatever copyright Matthew Carver waives or retains for the english version, who did the hard work translating, this should be in the public domain, being that it's from the 1200's. Mr. Carver had said he does not mind the english version he made of this being shared and sung at Masses as much as possible.

    St. Dunstan of Canterbury, Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey famously composed the Kyrie, "Rex Splendens". Saint Dunstan, in a vision during Mass, heard the angels in heaven singing this. He than quickly wrote it down to preserve it. And it survives to this day, and is recently published in Anton Stingls other book of troped Kyries.

    Here is an example of the first page of St. Dunstan's trope:

    http://app.box.com/s/ug4pm0taq6mmhbnzhez1
    http://app.box.com/s/fxmk1g79uxpoz3kwmxsv

    Have a merry Christmas.





  • Thanks for tip on these books.
    Saint Dunstan's and other Kyrie tropes are very intriguing ...
  • Thank you as also, Dr. Page, for the hard work you do. I admire the effort your schola/choir puts into it their job. They are in a unique position to appreciate and sing some of the rarest (but also most famous) propers and motets from before and after the "reformation". Much of what you are doing is the role model for others, it is a little slice of the experience of heaven on earth, in both english and latin. :-) You represent the true fruits of vatican II and fruits of every other ecumenical council, transcending every culture and time, uniting us in the love and fear of the Holy Trinity.

    I reckon that your Church is one of the only ones in the state of Maryland that sings Sequences to their original melodies, if any at all.

    To see the full range of options of tropes, conductus, post benedicamus hymn, and sequences in place of other office hymns, take a look at this 13th century Office:

    Office de Pierre de Corbeil (Office de la circoncision) improprement appelé Office des fous, page 130:

    http://books.google.com/books?id=UlwGAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA53&dq=Office+de+Pierre+de+Corbeil&hl=en&sa=X&ei=4ReuUovrN7KqsASwrYGYCg&ved=0CFUQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=Office de Pierre de Corbeil&f=false

    Keep in mind that this office is unusual in the degree of elaboration that is present, I do not know the history behind it. Yet it is interesting to compare and contrast different eras. These days, most of the Roman rite doesnt even commemorate the feast of Circumcision at all in the post-1969 new form calendar! My how times change.

    Most of the antiphonary/gradual/prose books of the middle ages that I look at have a some degree of uniformity. Except for local saints, more of my interest is in the tropes and sequences that were used almost everywhere, rather than the rarest of localization. But than again I also have focus on what was used in Great Britain, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and by neccessity, Paris, from whence originated and was diffused elsewhere. Amongst what may appear local or innovative there was in fact still some strong uniformity.

  • As As the chant historian Peter Jeffery states in his admirable book 'Translating Tradition' (which tears apart Liturgiam Authenticam) "Contrary to much popular belief the tropes were not banned by the Council of Trent - they were simply not included in the 1570 Missal..."

    There is a Missal in Lambeth Palace Library from either 1574 or 1576 that has a musical appendix that includes several troped Kyrie settings and a troped Gloria for Marian feasts.

    Until, Fr. Ron Krisman can show otherwise, I believe his suggestion that tropes are banned is in fact incorrect, and I challenge him to show the evidence from canons supporting that they are banned as a fact.

    " Secondly: Summorum pontificum confirmed juridically that the Latin Church had lived for some four decades under the dominion of a lie. The Vetus Ordo had not been lawfully prohibited. Much persecution of devout priests and layfolk that took place during those decades is therefore now seen to have been vis sine lege [force without law]. For this so long to have been so true with regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which lies at the heart of the Church's life, argues a profound illness deep within the Latin Church. And the Big Lie was reinforced by multitudes of Little Lies ... that the Council mandated reordered Sanctuaries ... that the Council mandated exclusive use of the vernacular ... The de facto situation created by the Big Lie and the Little Lies combined ought not to be regarded as normative. Its questionable parentage must give it a degree of provisionality, even (perhaps especially) to those who find it comfortable to live with. The onslaught upon the Franciscans of the Immaculate suggests that there are those, high in the Church's administration, who have still internalised neither the juridical findings of Summorum pontificum nor its pastoral call for harmony."



    One can compare in many aspects of reforms associated with the Holy Ecumenical Council of Trent to the reforms associated with Second Ecumenical Sacred Council of the Vatican. In both cases, popular concensus does not represent reality.

    Holy Tradition is bigger than you or I.


  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    For the sake of clarity, Chris, let's note that the quotation above is from Fr. Hunwicke, not from Prof. Jeffery.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    Chris, practically speaking, what difference does it make if the Council of Trent got rid of tropes or if Pope St. Pius V got rid of tropes with his 1570 edition of the Missale Romanum? Troping ceased, and that's the practice that has come down to us.

    There's no troping in the 1962 MR, and none in the 1969 MR and its two subsequent editions, except, possibly, for Penitential Act C, which some folks consider to be a type of trope. (I do not, because the invocations are not placed between "Kyrie/Christe" and "eleison.") Absent the tropes from much earlier times being included in any of the Latin Church's approved liturgical books of our time, the only justification for them in today's liturgy (OF or EF) would be by way of custom which has acquired the force of law. It seems to me that the burden of proof for such perduring custom falls to those who desire to introduce medieval tropes into today's liturgy.
  • Clearly, although "no troping" was not expressed in so many words in the documents of Trent, it was part of the Spirit of the council.