Missale Romanum - Chant is native to the Mass
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    Ok, for anyone who asks for proof that Gregorian chant is the native music of the Mass, even after 1970, here are some images from the Missale Romanum itself (ed. typica 2002). Right-click on the images, select "View Image," to see larger versions.

    First, here is the first Sunday of Advent. Notice the first item: the introit, "Ad te levavi."



    "Ok, Pes," you say, "that's an antiphon, but there's no music. Where's the music?"

    As you flip through the Missal, you will eventually come to the night before Christmas day, where you will find this:



    "Anecdotal evidence!" you sniff. Well, keep turning and you will come to entire sections like this:



    Moreover, you will notice that the chants of the Missale are directly related to chanted Ordinaries of the Mass dating back to at least the 10th century, and which are represented in the Graduale Romanum:



    "Uncle!" you cry, and then with wild eyes exclaim, "But this was all done away with when we switched to English!"

    Oh, really? Then why does the Sacramentary (produced later, by ICEL) have things like this?



    The only rational conclusion is that Gregorian chant remains, even in English, the native music of the Mass. There is no evidence whatsoever to the contrary.

    This post is brought to you by "Those of Us Who Can't Afford a Big, New Missale Romanum for Private Study Purposes."
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    Also, it seems to me that if congregation wish to show solidarity with their priests and pastors, they could do so by singing along with them, in the same musical language. Show support for your priests by chanting with them! Anything else is a loose approximation.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    I always thought it was strange when a priest would chant part of the Mass, such as the per ipsum, and we would respond with some sacro-pop ditty "Amen" which had nothing to do, musically, with what he had just chanted.

    It's weird. Like switching from one song to another when you're not done playing the first. Like reading Shakespeare and inserting a random paragraph of Dr. Seuss. Who comes up with these things?
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    Who comes up with these things?

    Individuals.

    Chant is gentle. The priest quietly chants something recto tono, and the congregation responds in kind. It all folds together, like the ebb and flow of water.

    What you describe, which is all too common in my experience as well, is coarse and jarring. Rude. Careless.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Incongruous. Obnoxious. I'm sure we could both go on forever.
  • godfrey
    Posts: 21
    Pes,

    Might you happen to be Canadian as I happen to recognize the photo of the English Missal from the 1983 Canadian Sacramentary?

    As an aside, notice the notation for the introductory dialog, it is a bit different than the American version. As close as I can tell, the American version is based on the Ferial Tone in the Latin Missal and the Canadian is based on the Solemn Tone.
  • Pes
    Posts: 623
    godfrey

    Not Canadian. It's interesting that the Canadian Sacramentary looks similar. The one I photographed shows all the signs of being cobbled together: different forms of notation, different typographical fonts, odd disjunctions in margins, etc. It's as if it were compiled by various things that happened to be lying around.

    An unflattering comparison: there's a hymnal in a local church where I live that, back in the 70's, was literally bound together mimeographs (remember?). Those same hymnals are still in the pews! Reading it is like opening a faded vegan cookbook on some bead-festooned balcony in Berkeley, California. I suppose such a hymnal amounts to a "new tradition," but it's much to be pitied that to make it, a thousand years of prior tradition had to be thrown out.

    Now, it's a museum piece.
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