Heiratic English Wedding Propers
  • liampmcdonough
    Posts: 283
    Are there any extant sources for melismatic English wedding propers with a heiratic translation? I did not realize there was not a Palmer-Burgess version in the Plainchant Gradual (unless I missed it).
  • CGM
    Posts: 683
    There is an English translation starting on p. 42 of Vol. 4 of the Fr. Weber propers. See the forum here.

    If, by hieratic, you mean "thee" and "thou" and similar usage, you could make adjustments:
    "O Lord, you have been our refuge" --> "O Lord, thou hast been our refuge"
    etc.
    All the chants have scriptural citations indicated, so you could compare texts with the Douay-Rheims and make further alterations as desired.
  • WGS
    Posts: 297
    I don't know what the OP meant by "heiratic", but the word "hieratic" relates to a priestly usage. For example, the priestly class of ancient Egypt communicated by means of their system of hieroglyphics.
  • davido
    Posts: 874
    In current Catholic liturgical discussions, a hieratic language refers to one that is set aside for worship, elevated in tone, and dignified. Latin, Greek, Church Slavonic, etc. And especially, the “King’s English.”

    Thanked by 3WGS ServiamScores M. Jackson Osborn
  • liampmcdonough
    Posts: 283
    I guess my real question is what do ordinariate musicians do for weddings if melismatic english propers are desired, as Palmer-Burgess have not provided them to my knowledge, and those english sources which I know about such as the Weber are in plain English.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 411
    What I would do - though I'm not an ordinariate musician - is look at the options given for propers in the Ordo Cantus Missae, and find corresponding chants in Palmer & Burgess gradual. For instance, the options for the introit are
    • Deus in loco sancto suo
    • Domine, refugium
    • Timete Dominum

    Only the first of these has a corresponding P&B chant: Deus in loco sancto suo, but it's a good start.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,372
    Note also, the Introit, Deus in loco sancto, the Offertory, Immittet Angelus, and the Communion, Primum quaerite, are in The Plainchant Gradual under various other ocassions, but the Gradual, Uxor tua, and the Alleluya, Mittat vobis, are not. I have made my own English adaptations of these last two.

    From a post by Jackson Osborn in 2013 : https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/8682/palmer-burgess-wedding-help/p1
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,962
    …so what about Deus Israel? Is there no adaptation of that? (I think that, for a lot of people who feel compelled to do the nuptial Mass in English they say, "Thanks, but no thanks" to Deus in loco sancto suo. Ditto the Offertory In te speravi and the Communion Ecce sic benedicitur, to say nothing of the Tract…

    In any case, I wonder if people just use the Latin propers in this case, because this mismatch is sort of bonkers.
  • trentonjconn
    Posts: 543
    Are the wedding propers for the ordinariate or OF forms not Deus Israel, In Te Speravi, and Ecce Sic?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,962
    In the OF, they have several options, like the chants listed above, and the problem is that Palmer-Burgess didn’t set the nuptial Mass, but they did need some of the propers used elsewhere in the liturgical year that are also assigned to this Mass in the 1974 gradual, i.e. the suggested chants above. Setting the Alleluia & paschal double Alleluia gets one closer, but not all the way there, if one would rather use the five perfectly legitimate propers from the preconciliar form. :/
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Up until a few months ago, when I gave a lot of things away, I had the nuptial propers done up in a nice pamphlet - using Old Church English (otherwise known as Prayer Book English). The pamphlet included P-B, psalm tone, and Anglican chant versions. Now I wish that I had them so that I could send copies to Liam. There was one that didn't appear in P-B, so I Englished it from GR myself. Sorry I can't be of help here.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,372
    trentonjconn - no, Deus Israel and Ecce sic have both disappeared from the corpus of authentic chants. The Graduale synopticum does not even list Deus Israel, and gives no neumes for Ecce sic.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,962
    ^The problem is that the chant books themselves, not what scholars would like to be the books, give more options than that. (Fr Ruff once left an interesting comment on PrayTell where he mentioned that most cathedral conservatories and many groups of laypeople in Europe were using such resources to sing chant, in addition to or in lieu of the Graduale Triplex, but I have to observe that a) the liturgy is a laboratory of academic experimentation when you do this and are not content to settle in on something for the sake of worship and, secondarily, the people and b) the religious clearly don't — Praglia still publishes dots for pity's sake! — nor do many, many other groups who sing from the preconciliar books…)

    We could solve this problem by going back to something like the Sarum arrangement, which was a votive Mass of the Trinity.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,372
    MatthewRoth if by "the preconciliar books" you mean just those published after TLS, between 1908 and 1961, then these were always a work-in-progress. The Council asked for this work to be progressed, but the current (1988) OCM shows that it has not yet been finalised (could it ever be?). If you cast the net wider then Deus in loco sancto is a Trinity Introit from Aquitaine, so in the Anglo-norman imperial tradition.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,962
    Yes, but the problem with doing that is that this is not how the Roman rite received that text…It's for a green Sunday.

    It's one thing to change the neumes (though I don't think the academy will ever be content with that either). It's another to also change the texts for…reasons unbeknownst to anyone outside the academy. If Deus Israelis really a problem, then you need to find a votive Mass with "authentic" chant which works, instead of picking from all over Europe to find what you want and kind of sort of make it work. And surely that exists in the Roman rite as received…

    So, no: I entirely reject the premise of expanding the net wider!
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,372
    I see a fundamental divergence of view, I am not an ultramontanist, I do not wish the liturgy to be slavishly tied to the etiquette of the Papal court. The Roman Curial Mass had little regard for pastoral needs, ignoring the liturgical reforms called for by the Council of Trent and suppressing the small adaptations made throughout Europe was a mistake.
    [On the other hand what the Consilium did in throwing the baby out with the bathwater was a worse mistake.]
    As regards the Nuptial Mass, of course the Curia had no interest and neither did monastic liturgists, more importantly, the whole theology of marriage underwent radical development long after 800, particularly from the scholastics. Turning to Sarum, with its betrothal and its blessing of the nuptial bed was proposed by ICEL in the 1990s, but not well received in Rome.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw M. Jackson Osborn
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