Heath, looks fantastic! Kudos to you and Junior BowTieMan!
I do have some budget $. Approximately how many titles are there? And are some of your pieces included?

Janet Gorbitz shared her recording of one of the motets...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5Bp_ivw-ho&feature=youtu.be

Very lovely, Janet.
Heath, I'll be ordering in the very near future.
C

Sure thing, Noel. Preface is here:

The motets within this book have all been taken from various Latin works of Orlando di Lasso, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and Josquin des Pres found in a collection entitled “Example of Gregorian Chant and Sacred Music of the 16th Century”, compiled by Gustave Frederic Soderlund and Samuel H. Scott. Within that book I found two and three voice excerpts (usually in the midst of a longer movement from the Mass Ordinary) which I then re-fit with English texts.

The texts are from the Ad libitum Eucharistic antiphons found on p. 391 of the Graduale Romanum; the translations are from a variety of sources, sometimes modified to work with the music. The pitches of the music itself have been retained, though rhythms have been re-worked for the English texts. Various editions of each motet have been included so that different voice combinations could be used.

The texts for the psalm tones are from the Douay-Rheims translation, at times tweaked for modern ears, and set to Aristotle Esguerra’s Gregorian psalm tone adaptations for English texts. The tone for each motet was chosen for the sake of variety and to foster a smooth transition back into the repetition
of the motet.

These look very nice, Heath! Thanks for sharing.

Thread with SAB versions here...

http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/12263/bread-from-heaven-collection-sab-versions#Item_2

We sang the 3-voice "I Am the True Vine" this morning.

After the 8am, before I hit the organ's power switch, a parishioner RAN up to me to say thank you. I crossed paths with our associate pastor (who was presiding) on his way out of the sacristy - he was blown away. My usual sneak through the post-Mass coffee & donuts was delayed by several folks expressing their delight with the choir.

Same response after 10am. Before he left, the priest at that Mass looked me dead in the eye and said, "I need to shake your hand. What was that piece you sang during communion? I mean, just wow!"

Last year, this parish was in the throes of the "Big 3."

Now this.


We have only a few singers who can hold their own in a polyphonic piece (we sang it with literally 3 voices). While rehearsing it last week, the others were asking excitedly, "Are we all going to learn to sing things like that?!"


This is a really great collection. The vernacular makes it accessible to parishes without any experience with Latin, yet it exposes them to the timeless beauty of the polyphonic masters.

Bravo, Heath. Thank you for your wonderful work.

Heath... wanted to let you know that I am also having success with these motets. I have a four-person small group that sings some simple polyphony. When I have only three available, we choose one of several motets we have learned from Bread from Heaven to add to the liturgies (typically as a post-communion motet). I usually just sing whichever part is not covered. I'm losing my Bass next fall (goes off to college) and we'll be back to a treble group. I'll be using the motets even more then unless I find another likely bass candidate...

Whenever we sing these at Mass, we get compliments... Thank you!