Newest Edition of the Liber Hymnarius- Changes
  • monasteryliturgistmonasteryliturgist
    Posts: 309
    Dear All,

    We recently acquired the newest Edition of the LIber Hymnarius which includes the new feasts up to Mary Mother of the Church, Our Lady of Loretto, etc...

    We noticed in this edition, compared to the old one. We noticed that the Episema has been removed on all of the hymns and invitatories. The dot to hold (I have no idea if there exists an official name for that) and the Quilisma are retained. So my first thought when I saw the Episema removed was that they removed it in order to help the director of a choir pay attention more to the semiology but considering that the Quilisma and dot are retained, both more modern inventions I am wondering why the Episema would have been removed.

    Does anyone have any light on this? I am only wondering because our monastic community is very interested in the semiology but we want to sing it in its proper forms- now there is a little division on interpretation due to so many versions... which one is correct? Beats me... maybe there is no answer.

    Sister Marie
    Thanked by 3Chris Garton-Zavesky sdtalley3 M. Jackson Osborn
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    now there is a little division on interpretation due to so many versions
    That may be an understatement. There is a previous thread here about the revised LH that may be of interest. The preface of the previous edition gave rather complicated rules for determining which notes were to have the normal syllabic value, whether marked or not. See p. 23: https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/uploads/FileUpload/10/6fb87040ab599517f709f0af311841.pdf
    I'm interested to read what others have to say.
    Thanked by 1monasteryliturgist
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    That's really curious, allowing as how the episema appears in quite a number of early manuscripts, as does the quilisma. Fr Columba has written much about this, as has Cardine. It is the dot (mora, I believe) that is quite new fangled. We have others here who could weigh in more authoritatively about this.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
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