Tommy:

You can't go wrong with any of these. I believe the Adoramus and the St. Michael do not have inclusive texts, but I will stand corrected if I am wrong. I have all three. The St. Michaels has much more contemporary music than the others and also Spanish selections. It is very diverse, but truly Orthodox. I am trying to get the St. Michaels here for our pews.

Did you also consider Worship III?

If you want something truly eclectic, google the Summit Choirbook. Quite an amazing piece of work with a lot of unkown pieces, chant and hymns both.

Tommy,

Most of the hymnals will be thoroughly revised in about 2 years--just in case this might be something to factor into your decision.

The Summit Choirbook is full of unusual melodies and has many hymns for saints' days. (I don't know the Collegeville but all those others you mentioned are really very fine.)

Each has limitations. In fact, I don't think a single Catholic hymnal in print compares in quality to the standard protestant hymnal. Maybe that has something to do with the reality that the core Catholic music is ritual music, not hymnody.

Collegeville is very nice.

Like Kathy says, any of them will be an valuable addition to your library. As per the revisions, well, I would think that will mostly affect the Mass parts in the front, not too much of the hymn matter. Do you agree, Kathy, or were you thinking something else?

Have you considered The Catholic Hymnbook? Known, I believe, to many members of this forum, it seems to me quite superior to any of the American Catholic hymnals. Overlooking a few schmaltsy, awful, Marian hymns, it is the only Catholic hymnal I know of which has NO rubbish at all in it. Its sole failing is that the chant section in the back is printed in quavers on a five line staff. The publisher is Gracewing. The price, if I remember correctly, is somewhere between $25 and $50 for the Harmony Edition, which would be the one you would want. If I could choose one hymnal for American Catholic pews (and couldn't choose The English Hymnal) it would be this book. There IS no other Catholic hymnary in its league for liturgical needs, with hymns for a generous variety of holy days not provided (astonishingly) for in any of our American would-be-Catholic-Hymnals. This is the book against which all others should be measured - before which they would pale. And it could quite well be a book that is NOT going to become passe in two years when we become blessed with the new translation. (Actually, one should speak of THE Translation, not The New Translation, because what we have now is a dynamic equivilency which is not a translation at all .) I have not seen the St Michael's Hymnal, but have the impression that it tries to be 'inclusive' rather than meet ALL the needs of the Church's ritual and ceremony with impeccable literature. Another possibility is The Hymnal 1940 (Episcopalian). It is basically a very fine and Catholic book with the great majority of its offerings of outstanding worth. This is the hymnal of the Anglican Use. There are a few unfortunate things in it which we long ago learnt to ignore, such as 'Jesus calls us' to a tune we have dubbed 'Asse's Bray". The settings of the Ordinary in the back, including Willan's Missa Sancta Maria Magdelena and others would really do a lot for Catholic worship; but, would probably upset the people who (falsely) believe themselves to be the voice of Vatican II because the music in these hymnals is honest music with 'meat and bones', and they make not so much as a nod to the plunky plunky crowd . - - - The Catholic Hymnal (Harmony Edition),ISBN 0 85244 359 5, Pub:Gracewing, Fowler Wright Books, 2 Southern Avenue, Leominster, Herefordshire HR6 OQF {Compiled and Edited at The London Oratory) If it's your first - it ought to be the best! (Post Script - Someone above mentioned Worship III. It is, I think, still the best of the ones published by GIA and one of the lesser bests in the country. It is not as good as its progenitors, however, and has been rather dumbed down from its original standard. Still, it remains commendable for a Catholic book. Its greatest flaw is that NONE of the settings of the mass to be found in it are worth the paper they are printed on - they are not even child's play. You could have Willan's Missa Sancta Maria Magdelena, or Mathais, or Finzi or.... but the Catholics Can't Sing That crowd would fillibuster. Catholics are People: they can sing anything anyone else can - they just need for someone to tell them they can, or... to tell them to... to be told 'this is what we are going to do!' Perhaps we should stop repeating the 'Catholics can't sing' line and replace it with 'Catholics CAN sing", or 'Catholics DO sing'. There are, of course, those few Catholics who WON'T sing, no matter what.)

M. Jackson, what rubbish is in Adoremus Hymnal? I was impressed with its content when I saw it.

Jeff, I'm surprised that, in this age of ecumenism, no one is using The Hymnbook (1940 or 1982) in Catholic churches. Couple that with PBC and a decent missalette, and you've got everything you could ever need.

If you want the best organ accomps for chant get the Nova Organi Harmonia available for free on this forum posted by JO.

M.

Those were all the same thoughts I had about Adoremus. It could STILL be a fantastic hymnal if they would just keep working it and including those things that we all crave.

Any hymnal that only prints the melody tends to portray the congregation as musically....subpar...in my opinion.

I just printed a Glory To God with the Soprano and Alto parts on the sheet on the same staff for the congregation. I put a note at the bottom that tenors and basses in the congregation could get a full copy from the organist to sing from. So:

1. The sentence was deleted from the printed version.

2. Cantors came up to me complaining that the SA version will confuse people in the congregation because they won't know what to sing. The explanation that if the people could read music and were altos, they would be thrilled to be able to sing their part and if they didn't read music it made no difference whatsoever seemed to have no effect....

Any hymnal that only prints the melody tends to portray the congregation as musically....subpar...in my opinion.

Well, those people in the pews: they're not as sophisticated as we are, we members of the liturgy committee.

:-)

I don't know whether or not Chonak has his tongue in his cheek or not in speaking about sophistication in the pews vs. the liturgy committee. I assume he does, though. But just in case - I prefer to treat the people in the pews as though they WERE sophisticated... because people will most often rise or fall to whatever level they are expected to. It seems to me that very often not much is expected from the pews... and often, perhaps, that not even too much is wanted from the pews (there are some persons who would find this threatening). This may at least partially explain some of the (largely psychological) problems with congregational singing - singing well, and singing quality music. Though the purveyers of certain kinds of inferior music would have us believe otherwise, these people are not inherently daft. I have always preferred to give people a challenge and have expected them to rise to it... this rather than even the most distant thought of insulting their intelligence! We should teach people the most that they are capable of and never bother about can't.

Indeed! Saint Stephen, the First Martyr in Sacramento, CA., sings all three days of Tenebrae though in the mornings of Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. The first day is the longest, usually almost 3 hours, each day thereafter a little shorter, with Saturday only about two hours. With all the other singing during Holy Week it is always a sacrifice, but a good one, one which none of us would ever give up! Friends fly in from around the country to sing with us, so it is always an opportunity for reunions, or "The Great Liturgical Slumber Party" as one of the cantors styled it. To be frank, there is little slumbering, but lots of chanting

I have great hesitancy about the American Catholic Hymnbook, but I think that is different from Catholic Hymnbook. Yes, I just looked it up. The Catholic Hymnbook is great, except the pew edition puts the melody at the bottom of the page completely separate from the hymntext.

M

Look it up on the net. I have a copy if you have any questions.

M

When I got my complimentary copy back in the 90's, I did not even put it with my hymnal collection on the shelf. It sits BEHIND the other hymnals, hidden from all as a remembrance of how far nuchurch has strayed from the truth. It is also a reminder to pray for their souls.