More Ad Libitum Chants!

I choose all of them, ad libitum chants are one of my favorite things ever. I have been working on a book of Ad Libitum chants (plus Kyriale) for a while now, and I'm planning on asking for feedback once I get a good first draft finished. It is maybe 80% done now, but still missing some crucial sections, and has a lot of fine tuning needed.

The PBC is great, for certain audiences, but it's more geared toward your average parish, and those who are first starting to get into chant, so it has a limited (but still good) selection of chants. For TLM parishes that do full propers every Sunday and want to fill in extra time with ad libitum chants, it would be nice to have a wider selection to use throughout the year, which is why we need a book like the one I'm putting together below. It just serves a different purpose.

Unfortunately, due to physical limitations, we can't have all the ad libitum chants in one collection, since books have finite pages, and there are basically unlimited options for things that could be chanted. Any part of the Divine Office could be used as an ad libitum chant, any sacred text, any tone, etc.

Consequently, it is up to each director or compiler to choose the selection of chants that they judge best suited to their uses, which is an extremely fun and overwhelming task, considering the wealth of beautiful chants handed down to us throughout the ages.

Eternity is the limit!

@tomjaw
That is a cool collection at Society of St. Bede. Do they have a certain part of their website with chants for the other seasons? I've looked around their website a bit, but it looks like just miscellaneous tidbits (very nice tidbits). I don't see any grand list of ad libitum chants.

I see room for three books of chants.
1. A general books with Eucharistic, Marian etc.
2. A Temporal cycle book with Hymns / chants etc for the Seasons Advent examples
3. A Sanctoral Cycle book with Hymns / chants for the Saints.

I think from a practical standpoint, most people wouldn't want three separate books of ad libitum chants. Maybe you wouldn't use the Temporal and Sanctoral books at the same time, but you'd at least want one of them plus the general book, plus your Graduale Romanum. It makes for a lot of books.

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but these are the chant books that I think we should make exist for the traditional Mass:

1. Graduale Et Missale - A retypeset Graduale Romanum with text for the orations and readings also given, in Latin.

2. (Kyriale Et) Cantus Varii - A book of ad libitum chants for all three of the above categories, any other various chants desired, and maybe a Kyriale for good measure. If you choose 800 pages worth of the best ad libitum chants, you can make it all fit in one book, and still be as thin as the Liber Brevior.

3. Communio - A book containing all the Communion Antiphons, with all the verses from Versus Psalmorum Et Canticorum fully notated, as well as a large selection of ad libitum chants in honor of the Blessed Sacrament.

4. Offertoriale - Maybe. I think we need to give Offertory verses more use and respect, but maybe the best way to do that is not making one single book. Cool things could be done by using different styles, composing new polyphony to alternate with chant, etc. I think each offertory could be treated a bit differently depending on the sentiment of the liturgical year at that point.

Tu es Petrus is one of the few Jubilate Deo chants that didn't make it into PBC. Maybe it's the only one. Not sure. I just remember looking for it once and not finding it there.