Vespers Antiphons (texts) don't match between AR and the current LOTH
  • graduale
    Posts: 30
    Hi all, and happy Advent and New Year!!

    Why don't the antiphons of the Antiphonale Romanum (I'm using the 1949/60) and Liturgy of the Hours (1970s) texts match? Some of them are used in different places (such as Vespers' Daughter of Zion/Lauds' Filia Zion, etc.), but many English antiphon texts aren't anywhere I can find in the Antiphonale. This makes it kind of frustrating when trying to loosely adapt the Gregorian melodies to English words. Any thoughts? I'm going for a sort of Roman Missal 3rd edition in adapting the Latin chants for English words, of course, since no official version exists for the office.

    Thanks!
    Graduale
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    This sort of problem speaks to the extent of the changes which were made between these two forms of the office, to the extent that it could be said:

    As we have seen, the Liturgia Horarum departed from the Roman Office in all essential points: it abolished the characteristic structure of the Hours; modified the distribution of the psalms, moreover, gave up its principles; transformed the repertory and arrangement of the antiphonary to such an extent that the two can hardly be identified. In contrast to the Roman Office, its norm is not the common celebration in choir, but the private reading of the Breviary. If the Roman Office of recent centuries can be likened to a libretto of an opera without its music, the Liturgia Horarum is an opera destined from the outset to exist without music, without public performance, i.e. it is only a story to read.


    —László Dobszay in The Bugnini Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform (2003), p. 67.

    This book, by the way, is dedicated, with his permission, to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger.

    I would highly recommend reading the chapter in this book which deals with the Divine Office, which I found enlightening (.pdf available here).

    Another quote, from p. 48:

    In this sense it can be said that the Roman Office – originated in the 4th or 5th century – was deadly wounded around 1900, and ceased to exist in 1970.


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  • Andris Amolins
    Posts: 154
    In addition, the situation is complicated by the reform of Roman Divine Office under Pius X anno 1911. While the propers and commons remained largely intact, the weekly psalter was rearranged and, for reasons utterly incomprehensible, many of the antiphons were replaced with new ones. The reform of 1970 produced a totally brand new Office (Liturgy of Hours), but it is possible that in same cases the pre-1911 antiphons were restored. You can check it by comparing with the Antiphonale monasticum (1935) or any monastic (benedictine) breviary (1962 or earlier).
  • joerg
    Posts: 137
    As for the ferial antiphons of the breviary of 1911 there is a devastating critique by Dom Pothier. He examined the whole ferial antiphonary and time and again he remarks "antifona male scelta" (antiphon badly chosen). His letter is preserved in the library of the Centro Liturgico Vincenziano in Rome -- unpublished as yet. Of course this critique did not change anything, and in the end Dom Pothier himself as editor of the Antiphonale of 1912 had to compose new melodies for all those badly chosen antiphons.
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  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 392
    @Andris Amolins

    You can check it by comparing with the Antiphonale monasticum (1935) or any monastic (benedictine) breviary


    Not really. The Benedictine and secular cursus have always been different. The distribution of psalms differed (the most obvious difference being different amount of psalms in Vespers and Matins) - and so differed also the selection of antiphons - even before the Pian psalter reform.
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    For the pre-Pius X form of the Roman Office, check out these two books:

    Liber Antiphonarius pro Vesperis et Completorio Officii Romani (1891)
    Libri Antiphonarii Complementum pro Laudibus et Horis Officii Romani (1891)

    Between the two of these, the basically same material is covered as the Antiphonale Romanum, i.e. the day hours.
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