Using chants from older editions of Liber Usualis in the EF?
  • JamesGriffinJamesGriffin
    Posts: 20
    Hello, all. Thanks to the power of the Internet, several older editions of the Liber Usualis and so forth can be downloaded and viewed online. I've noticed that several of the chant settings for the nuptial Mass are different in Dom Mocquerau's 1903 Liber and in Dom Pothier's 1883 Liber Gradualis, than what appears in the later editions that EF chanters usually use.

    The question is: assuming the text of the chant is exactly the same as what appears in the 1962 Missal on the altar, is there any reason why using an older setting would be disallowed in the EF? As an example, I attached the 1903 Liber's versions of the nuptial Mass Introit and Alleluia. Both are, in my opinion, superior the versions in the newer Liber editions, which for some reason don't sound quite as..... Gregorian. I'm not a musicologist, so I can't put my finger on why.

    Also, does anyone have insight on why the settings for those chants changed?
    Deus Israel.bmp
    893 x 855 - 2M
    Alleluia Mittat Vobis.bmp
    871 x 496 - 1M
    Thanked by 1Chrism
  • BGP
    Posts: 219
    I have no idea exactly why. Pothier had considerable influence on the 1908 Gradual.
    The 1908 edition legislatively replaced all older editions.

    I answered a similar question on this forum a while back and essentially got called a 'rigid'. It wouldn't bother me personally if someone used the older versions, but a strict legal approach would mean the 1908 replaced the predecessors.
  • Chrism
    Posts: 870
    assuming the text of the chant is exactly the same as what appears in the 1962 Missal on the altar, is there any reason why using an older setting would be disallowed in the EF?

    Yes, we are supposed to sing the notes as well.

    if for some reason a choir cannot sing one or another liturgical text according to the music printed in the liturgical books, the only permissible substitution is this: that it be sung either recto tono, i.e., on a straight tone, or set to one of the psalm tones. - De Musica Sacra (1958), 21. c)


    This doesn't exclude polyphony (ibid., 17-18).

  • JamesGriffinJamesGriffin
    Posts: 20

    This doesn't exclude polyphony (ibid., 17-18).


    Okay. That being said, I don't see the rationale behind a polyphonic setting of the Introit composed in, say, 2014 being allowed, yet an ancient plainchant setting of the same Introit that appeared in an older edition of the Liber being disallowed. Know what I mean? Does the older plainchant Introit suddenly become legit (if it was not so before) if I use it as the cantus firmus of a two-voice setting?
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,211
    That does seem to be the logic of taking the instructions at face value. If you would like to use the older version and want to satisfy any objections, e-mail your diocesan office for worship and get permission from the director. You may as well frame the request broadly, so that you won't need to ask again for some other case.

    By the way, the setting in the older book might or might not really be older than its replacement: it might take some digging to determine that.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Andrew_Malton CCooze
  • BGP
    Posts: 219
    Does the older plainchant Introit suddenly become legit (if it was not so before) if I use it as the cantus firmus of a two-voice setting? - legalistically speaking, yes. Whether or not in specific cases the law makes sense is a different matter.

    And yes as chonak indicates it would take some research to find out if either old or new chants are authentic or adaptations. The melody of the introit you attached has been very widely adapted for a large number of introits. At least thats my understanding.
  • JamesGriffinJamesGriffin
    Posts: 20

    That does seem to be the logic of taking the instructions at face value.


    Yes; I didn't think about this until just now, but at face value, it would also condemn my local diocesan TLM's use of "simplex" or "abreges" (but not quite psalm tone) versions of the Gradual and Alleluia.

    By the way, the setting in the older book might or might not really be older than its replacement: it might take some digging to determine that.


    You're right, of course. I'd like to know the original sources of each chant. According to one thread I found from a search of this forum, the version from the 1908 Liber onward comes from the St-Yrieix Gradual, which appears to date to the 11th century.
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