English Chant Versions of Easter Vigil Canticles?

Paul_Kankiewicz

Does anyone know of any intermediate difficulty English chant versions of the Canticles for Easter Vigil? The plan at my parish this year is to chant them in lieu of the Responsorial Psalms in between the readings. The version from the Lalemant Propers is much too simple—just a psalm tone—and the Palmer & Burgess or Anglican Use Gradual versions look to be just the full melody from the Graduale over an English translation, which is too much for us. I'm looking for complexity somewhere in the realm of Fr. Weber's Propers or Bartlett's Lumen Christi Simple Gradual.

We are actually planning on chanting the Gradual in lieu of the Responsorial Psalm through all of Lent. For now, I've taken the melodies from Solesmes' Chants Abreges and adapted them to the English translations, which was easy enough, since they are fairly simple. But if there are intermediate English versions of those somewhere, too, I'd love to see them.

Paul F. Ford

Did you see this? https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/19737/looking-for-easter-vigils-psalms-latin-graduale-simplex#Item_12

Paul_Kankiewicz

I did not; however, it looks like the subject of that thread was the Responsorial Psalms for Easter Vigil, not the Canticles? Unless I am missing something.

a_f_hawkins

@Paul_Kankiewicz - These terms are somewhat confusing, the Missal heads each one as Responsorial Psalm irrespective of whether from the book of Psalms or a canticle from elsewhere. And the three official sources, Missal, Graduale Romanum and Graduale Simplex do not have identical texts. The GS treats them all as Responsaries, which is very different from the way the Missal lays out an RP, and from Chants Abreges treating them all as tracts. In By Flowing Waters Dr Ford also treats them all as Responsaries, in English, and he has given a link so that you can look at them.
If those are not the texts you are seeking, perhaps you can list what you want.

Salieri

In the Graduale Roman, the chants after the lessons are melismatic Tracts, called "Canticles" in the 1974 edition.

MarkB

Are any English translations of the graduals/tracts/canticles authorized for liturgical use?

Don't they have to be sung in Latin if they are proclaimed instead of the Lectionary's responsorial psalms because the Latin texts are the only ones authorized for liturgical use?

Salieri

If nothing else, the texts of the Lalemant Propers, which includes the Graduals, Tracts, and Alleluias, in addition to the processional chants, are approved:

Published with the approval of the
Office of Divine Worship
Roman Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi
(15 July 2013)

And, according to USCCB, something approved in one US Diocese is approved in all.

Also, I would argue, that since the translations of the texts found in the 1965 Missal were promulgated for liturgical use and never replaced, they are still permitted. (NB, not to say that that missal in its entirety is still permitted, but just that the translation of the sung propers are: the ordinary, not, because it has been replaced, twice, by the Sacramentary and then the Roman Missal, Third Edition.)

Also, there are some who claim that the translations found in Divine Worship: The Missal and The St. Peter Gradual are permitted for liturgical use in the Novus Ordo.

Paul_Kankiewicz

I apologize if I was not being clear enough. As Salieri said above, the melismatic chants in the Graduale Romanum for after the Easter Vigil readings are called "canticles" (see PDF page 96 and following for where they begin in the GR at the following link):

https://archive.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/14/02/17/10-18-21_0.pdf

They are also called the same in the Lalemant Propers (see PDF page 120 and following at link below; these are exactly what I am looking for, only I'm trying to find a version which is more complex than a psalm tone):

https://archive.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/13/07/30/17-01-39_0.pdf

They are called canticles as well in the St. Isaac Jogues Missal which my parish has in the pews.

I see now that some of them are in the By Flowing Waters document that Dr. Ford linked to in that other thread, but not all of them (I believe the Canticles for after readings II and IV from the GR are not there/not the same). Besides, they are in simple responsory format, which isn't what I was looking for; I am trying to find one where it is chanted straight through, as seen in the GR or the Lalemant Propers.

GerardH

Bruce Ford's American Gradual (free online editions prior to the 2020 publication) would have the tracts/canticles, but they will be as melismatic as the Graduale chants. I can't look at them right now, but they should be available at americangradual.org

Salieri

There was a PDF of the draft of the Fr. Guy Nicholls's Graduale Parvum, which had a simplified version of the melody of the Mode VIII Tracts, but unfortunately, that file seems to have been removed from the resources page. (The only part of the Parvum that seems to have been published and available for sale are the Introits, which, obviously, won't help in this instance.)

I don't know if it would be worth your time to try to contact either the Association for Latin Liturgy or Fr. Nicholls at the Birmingham (UK) Oratory.

CGM

The 2012 draft of the Graduale Parvum contains just four of the Easter Vigil Canticles, and three of them are set to psalm tones, so while the first canticle — set in precisely the intermediate difficulty level that the OP specifies — would suit his needs, the remaining ones probably would not.

However, the document has surely been updated and improved over the last decade, so I second the recommendation to track down Fr. Guy Nicholls and ask him about it. In 2018 he published a book of Introits for the whole year; I'm not sure what else has been completed.

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