French Plainsong for the Mass and the Divine Office
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    Hello,

    Do you know of any resources of French Plainchant by any chance, for both Holy Mass and Divine Office?
    There is little to nothing of that kind in France. The closest thing we have is the "Liturgie chorale du peuple de Dieu" by Fr. André Gouzes op, which is a mishmash of Latin, Byzantine, Russian, Anglican, Lutheran and Mozarabic texts and scores, and not an official book.
    Some attempts have been made though, like the works of M. François Gineste (for instance, here is a French adaptation of the Offertory "Benedicam Dominum": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZvzItutvMk ) but it can barely be found.

    Many thanks in advance.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    Dom Georges Mercure osb, from the Abbey of Saint-Benoit du Lac, in Canada, did some interesting things too, though they are very hard to find.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NheIQRf1XSI
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,191
    Bonjour Jehan,

    Je ne sais pas "du chant gregorien" en francais.Il y a beaucoup de chant en anglais et espanol parce que les catholiques aux Etats-Unis, ils parlent ou l'anglais ou l'espanol.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    Bonjour kevinf,

    Merci de votre réponse. Vous avez certainement raison.
    Cependant, peut-être certains membres de cet éminent groupe disposent-ils de certaines ressources en français, ou en ont-ils entendu parler.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,315
    Il y a un groupe privé sur Facebook qui s'appelle « Esprit de la liturgie ». Je sais que plusieurs membres s'intéressent à la possibilité d'un chant basé sur le grégorien en langue vernaculaire et donc en français…

    À part Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, je chercherais auprès d'autres monastères de la congrégation de Solesmes : il y en a plusieurs où l'office n'est pas exclusivement en Latin, si je comprends bien.

    P.S. j'adore Saint-Eugène-Sainte-Cécile. J'y suis allé en février pendant les Quarante Heures. Magnifique comme toujours.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw Jehan_Boutte
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    Many thanks, Matthew Roth.
  • IdeK
    Posts: 87
    There is also Arnaud Peruta's Chanter la messe, which I bought on La Procure website 1 year ago. Never used it though.

    My current projects for my current parish is to pay for singing lessons as soon as the epidemic is ended and it is safe enough, because some of the other cantors have a really problematic vocal technique.

    I understand that Henri Duchatel has tried some things for the propers too, but it is hard to get your hands on it and I don't know if it covers the whole 3 years.
    Thanked by 1Jehan_Boutte
  • Jehan_Boutte
    Posts: 264
    I know Peruta's work. Some very good things and a very beautiful project. I have three issues with it though:
    1) It's not plainchant.
    2) The antiphons are taken from the Missal instead of the Graduale Romanum.
    3) As a consequence of 2), you don't find the Offertories in this book.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Admin.... and any others who can help:

    How are these bright folks typing with French accents in this forum?
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,315
    The US-International keyboard on Windows is the best way for Windows users, since most people only have numbers at the top, if you tolerate a few inconveniences, notably when typing certain punctuation marks; there are various cheat sheets online for that. They also exist for those of you who still have a number pad accessed through the number lock button, with which you can use Alt + numbers to get the required accented letter.

    Holding down the right key on a smartphone produces accents. For Mac users, the keyboard does that as well, or you can learn the shortcuts, e.g. Option + e gets é, Option + ` + e gets è. Option + \ and Option + Shift + \ gets « ». Alternatively, if the symbol doesn't exist on the keyboard, you need switch to the Unicode keyboard and insert the symbol using the Alt or Option key and the code, just as you do to get ℣ and ℟ (Option + 2123 and Option + 211F using the Unicode Hex Input); the idea is the same for the dagger, Maltese cross, etc. when setting chant or a liturgical text. Or you can copy and paste, but I find that's inconvenient, and it doesn't always produce the desired result.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw CHGiffen
  • IdeK
    Posts: 87
    I don't know for the others, mais je n'ai aucun mal à utiliser des accents en français avec mon clavier français (azerty).
    Thanked by 1a_f_hawkins
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    On the forum, using a UK keyboard, I often use † † § § ‡ ‡ by typing what is in the yellow box but not everything in this code table works with the mnemonics.
    ✠ ✠ but ✠ ✠
    https://dev.w3.org/html5/html-author/charref
    If you hover over the character, the chart will give you the magic numbers MatthewRoth mentions above. Wikipedia has an article with a chart, but it is incomplete, skipping over ℟ ℟ and ℣ ℣ - GRR
    Then I can never remember which is an acute and which a grave accent* so this is no use to me - è è for those I use Windows character picker, but again that thinks it knows the font you are using (or used when you last wrote a document), which may not contain the character you want, and is probably not the font the forum is using.
    *I have always had (slight) difficulty with the words left and right, and usually check which hand I write with before comitting myself when giving directions!
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen tomjaw
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