Propers for the Assumption
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    Looking ahead to the Feast of the Assumption, I noticed that in the Graduale Romanum and the 1961 Liber Usualis (the one on the Musica Sacra site), the Propers for Mass that day are:

    Int. Signum Magnum
    Gr. Audi, filia
    Al. Assumpta est Maria
    Off. Inimicitias ponam
    Com. Beatam me dicent

    But in the Chants Abreges on the MS site, as well as in a copy of the Liber I have from 1938, we have these:

    Int. Gaudeamus Omnes
    Gr. Propter veritatem
    Al. Assumpta est Maria
    Off. Assumpta est Maria
    Com. Optimam partem

    Anyone know when and why these were changed?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,519
    Were new propers composed after the dogmatic declaration of the Assumption?
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    Kathy, I'm guessing they were, since in the Triplex they have no handwritten neumes, but I'm curious why it was thought necessary to do this.
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    Yes, new propers were introduced when Our Lady's Assumption was dogmatically defined in 1950. I haven't researched whether they were newly composed or why that was done.

    For a TLM (1962 Missal), a schola director needs to make sure everybody has the post-1950 propers. For the post-Vatican II Mass, either version may be an option, at least for the Introit.

    For feasts introduced for the hundred years or so before Vatican II, there seem to have been new propers provided, whereas since then, there seems to be more use of commons or re-use of chants. For instance, the propers for the Feast of Christ the King, which was introduced in the 1920s, were newly composed or adapted. I guess the thinking is that the old chants are part of the authentic repertoire, but the new ones are not. Wasn't there some discussion along these lines a couple weeks ago about propers for Feast of Sacred Heart?
  • dvalerio
    Posts: 341
    > whether they were newly composed

    They are adapted, often centonized, from authentic chants. See e.g. the references in the page margins of the Graduale Triplex.

    > the old chants are part of the authentic repertoire, but the new ones are not

    Hence the recent tendency to «more use of commons or re-use of chants».
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