At a minimum, the content of Cantus Selecti would be useful (it has several repetitions, notably for Benediction, and I think you've included most of them, but I think that having one book would be useful, if you're actually going to put it in the pew or at least to the schola).

Regarding the Solesmes signs: it would probably make the book a non-starter for the target audience. Yes, there are people who sing a sort of mensural chant and who never touch the Solesmes editions (Bruno de Labriolle, in France, for example) or people who do other things, like proportionalism (Patrick Williams has posted some really nice examples of this!). This isn't the place to rehash the arguments (my thanks to Patrick for his observations and to Dr. Weaver for his contributions as well) but the overwhelming majority of people using the TLM use the Solesmes signs in some way, even if they don't exactly follow the classical method (Dr. Weaver observed this on the Square Notes podcast; I have been in this situation, where the dots and episemata are the only guideposts, but the ictus is not used due to ignorance, except for one very important use, at the salicus!)

In fact, I note that Fr. Weber does not like them (unsurprisingly, since Fr. Columba Kelly was an expert in semiology, and Fr Weber is also a monk of St Meinrad's) but adapted them for his English chant. So much for not using them in vernacular chant after all.

Anyway, one might ask if removing the signs is easier than simply ignoring them, but then that leads to other questions related to the Vaticana edition…which is all to say that there are solutions for the few who might not be interested in the Solesmes signs, whereas it would be extremely tedious to add the signs back for the rest of us, particularly the full-time TLM places for whom the Solesmes signs are a part of the dealio.

@MatthewRoth
I have taken quite a lot from Cantus Selecti, but I didn't necessarily give it greater weight than older books by Solesmes (there are a couple from different years titled Cantus Varii). I found some of the chants to be more desirable than others, so I picked the ones I liked best (and could imagine actually using). For example, there are a couple dozen different tones for O Salutaris, but I think including all of them would have been excessive so I picked the eight that I liked best. I'd guess I included about 80% of the chants found in Cantus Selecti.

Are there any chants in particular that you think I shouldn't have omitted? Or are you just suggesting the inclusion of everything from Cantus Selecti?

I suppose Cantus Selecti is the main book of ad libitum chants on the market right now, although I don't know how many people actually use it. I imagine that most people just print out the individual chants that they want, and that most people would continue to do that even if my book was being available for people to buy.

As far as the Solesmes signs go, I certainly see your point. That is really the main reason that I am so hesitant. On the other hand though, if I don't drop them (and I oppose them in principle), who will?

The selection of chants looks good.

I think Matthew's suggestions are all good (and thank you for your kind words, Matthew). As for the rhythmic signs, why not print versions with and without, as Solesmes did in the years after the Vatican commission? One advantage of using LaTeX and Gregorio is that it's pretty easily done with \greprintsigns{all}{disable}, although some spacing may need to be tweaked.

Of course the signs aren't as popular as they once were, as people take other approaches to chant. Still, retaining them as an option may make the book a little more useful, especially for congregational use with something like the Kyriale. Without rehearsal or at least long-term familiarity, there may just be too many open questions at phrase endings when a congregation reads through something like Credo III or Asperges.

\greprintsigns{all}{disable}

What?!? This Exists!?

Well, that settles it nicely then. Thank you Dr. Weaver.

We'll have rhythmic signs for everyone who wants them now (which appears at the moment to simply be everybody), and if God ever wills for me to direct music at some parish, I will then produce copies without the rhythmic signs using the convenient little command (and perhaps some slight tweaking).

I'm glad it's helpful. I can't tell you how many hours of work knowing that command would have saved me if I'd learned it sooner.

I know that Cantus Selecti is available, but it takes ages and ages to reprint and ship.

Plus, I like killing two birds with one stone as it were. If we could print only an occasional Gregorian piece in addition to the prayers that my pastor uses, we would be in great shape. We don't have permanent things in the pews (in fact, we don't have pews with book racks at the moment), so while even a library cart is not an adequate solution at the moment (and we have no storage for a parish-sized order), this would be great.

I currently put the Mass number and some details (Ky. mode VI or I, ad lib II, and so on) on the hymn board, so for Benediction, I could put something, which would be great.

As I don't control things, there's no guarantee of purchasing anything, but there is a market, and having the complete Solesmes Kyriale (even without the Dumont Masses from the appendix) is really important. We do more than just the usual Asperges (no shame on those who do just that); I know some ambitious places do all three!

Before John XXIII changed the rubrics: When the Te Deum is said in the office, the Gloria is said at Mass, and therefore the ending is Ite, missa est. A couple of votive Masses have an exceptional Gloria (the Angels always, BVM on Saturday, BVM in Advent by indult with the Rorate Mass…). But when the Te Deum isn't said, the Gloria isn't said, and therefore Benedicamus Domino is said (you'll notice too that in Lent, the collect of Vespers is the oratio super populum, because conventual Mass is traditionally said, on fasting days, after None; John XXIII moved all Masses to after Terce, and for consistency, Benedicamus is said even on ferias of the year, when Mass follows Sext, but nothing need follow Sext).

@OMagnumMysterium
The Society of St. Bede, does not make any copyright claims on the website... Although I do realise that in some places we would be considered copyright holders.

Most of the pieces are using music that is public domain and texts that are also public. So only the typesetting would be considered copyright. I do realise that some pieces the magnitude of the editorial input would be grounds to claim copyright.

The aim of the society is for the Liturgical treasures of the Church that have been forgotten to return to use, so claiming any sort of copyright would be against our aims. Everyone so far that has commissioned, printed or used the materials have put a short thanks such as https://gregorian-chant-hymns.com/sources/

At least the newly produced music being uploaded should have details of where the text and the music has come from, for the older pieces we are producing new editions with that information.

I hope that much more material that is partially completed will appear this year on the website...

One other thing I think about is the melodies of the hymns, should we use the Roman melodies, the monastic, the Dominican or melodies from the ancient manuscripts in a hymn book? We have produced some hymns set to multiple melodies, but is that a good use of limited time?

Now that I think about it, only the Priest (or Deacon at Solemn Mass) would need the Benedicamus Domino, so is it really necessary to include it in a Kyriale? The choir and congregation would respond with the same Deo Gratias whether the Priest chants Ite or Benedicamus. Do any of you know of Priests who have a Kyriale up on the Altar with them? Our priest just used a little card with the different tones for the Ite printed out on it. He also has one for the Gloria and Credo. I imagine some more musically inclined Priests would just memorize the tones.

However, including the Benedicamus would be the standard convention (assuming that you include it), and it would be suitable for the organist if he or she is able to play based on the square notation. Plus the Ite is not taken from the Kyrie in the cases where Benedicamus Domino was previously given, so the relationship is obscured, and being able to have ONE resource used by both the DM (who may or may not be the organist) and the people, if not the schola or choir too (remember, it's not uncommon to have people who are in the choir but who are not singing propers at a given Mass, if ever — let us leave the politics of that aside…). So including the Ite with its response, then you'd do the same for Benedicamus Domino…

I really, really don't like departing from what the Vatican edition or Solesmes did in cases like this. Also, the congregation should have the text (even without the translation) so that they figure out when the minister sings Ite and when he doesn't.

Thank you. I like most of these suggestions very much. Although I am very attached to the standard melody for Sacris Solemniis. Maybe I could include both.

I think because of copyright I am going to have to sift through the book carefully (instead of just randomly pulling things from GregoBase, as I had been doing). That, combined with going back to school Monday, is going to slow down the project significantly.

But I am very grateful for all the feedback.

My Kyriale is Latin only, as it is planned it will be published in Germany / Switzerland...

For a Hymn book, aimed at a choir perhaps no translations are needed, they can be distracting. For a book for use by the congregation translations would be a very good idea, it is a shame that so few people know the beautiful texts that are being sung. Of course with translations they really should be all by one translator, in a book. Swapping between different translations would be incongruent (but possibly unavoidable).

Pentecost
Qui procedis is missing the end (I know the setting in Solesmes books also does not contain all the stanzas)
Trinity
Profitentes Unitatem
End of the Liturgical Year,
https://societyofstbede.wordpress.com/2014/11/23/last-sunday-after-pentecost/

For the saints I will really need to think, I suppose it is best to choose the saints first and then look for the Hymns! I do like the Ambrosian Hymns found in the 1939 Liber vesperalis Mediolanensis.
I like how you have the Decus Morum, with its little jokes at the end of each verse. This style of hymn was quite popular, and this seems to be the only hymn of this style to remain in the Liturgical books.

Translations take up loads of space and cause lots of problems. I am still thinking about the Hymn books we want to produce... I think it is a good idea to follow the various Solesmes (Desclee) books and not include them.
Latin instructions are very nice, but my Latin is not good enough to write them, so I only copy the instructions.

The Office Hymns of the Latin Church, usually fit a metrical text to a melody. This text tells a story or gives instruction. Some hymn writers took this further and wrote rhyming texts an example of this is St. Thomas Aquinas. Others made acrostics so that the First letter of each verse spelt out a word, a similar device is with the Veni, Veni Emmanuel (I will be here tomorrow) see the last page of this

The Decus Morum uses another device, notice the last line of the first verse (Christe Redemptor omnium) the second verse has Exsultet caelum laudibus, third, Aeterne Christi munera, forth Summae Deus clementiae, fifth Vexilla Regis prodeunt etc. they are all the first verses of other hymns.

About blackletter fonts:
(1) the computer versions of these are generally unattractive
(2) they proclaim "affectation", like a sign with fake "colonial" spellings of Ye Olde Soape Shoppe
(3) they were already superceded by Roman fonts in missals as early as the 1600s, so why imitate a style from the 1400s?
(4) If you want, you can make a personal edition with a font you like and print it via Lulu, so you don't have to use it in the edition you offer to the public.

Before you offer anything for public use, get proofreaders: I think I saw an instance of "pronuntiation".

Good luck with the project!

Yes. 1,000x better.

I take advantage of LetterSpacing in fontspec for all caps titles in case you don’t do that already . And “sæcula” is missing the “æ” and therefore the accent in the Benediction prayer, fyi.

Yes, I've realized that the character for an accented æ is completely missing from this font, so LaTeX just left out all instances of that letter. I will fix that, and the consistency of ae versus æ (as well as a lot of other things) once I do my second pass.

I am not sure if there is anything I can do about the alignment of words with neumes. What is the most egregious example you found? LaTeX is aligning the vowels with the first note of each neume. Perhaps there is a way to change it to align the center of the syllable, although I don't know if that would be a good thing or not.

If anyone else has opinions about the font options it would be great to hear.

Hmmn, I see. Do you have a suggestion of how I might fix it? I can't think of anything except increasing the neume spacing across the board, which I don't think I want to do, because then the chants will take up more lines and not fit nicely on the pages the way I arranged them.

Looking back at the previous draft, the same issue was there, but not quite as bad, because the Alegreya font is a bit more compact.

Elmar, do you have an opinion on the fonts?