The Advent project
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    This is an interesting scholarly book on the origin of the annual cycles of the propers. Partly readable on googlebooks: http://books.google.com/books?id=QHfxtBEGMPwC&lpg=PP1&dq=advent%20project&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q=&f=false
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 857
    A GREAT book!
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    yes, a must-read!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    The thesis of the book, as well as I understand it, has to do with the initial composition of the proper cycles in the Roman Mass. Rather than being the organic development of hundreds of years, it was instead a deliberate composition project--one that lost steam after the Ascension chants were completed.

    The book is the last work of a top scholar, and a good read.
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    I have read it once and am in the process of reading it a second time. McKennon suggests that sometime in the mid to late 7th century the schola cantorum in Rome set about adjusting and creating chants for the temporal and sanctoral Propers of the Mass, before that time there were certain chants already associated with particular Masses such as the Haec Dies for Easter and perhaps a pool of psalm chants that could be used for the Graduals and tracts. He even proposes that the Communion chant is not from the time of Augustine but much later. I find his reasoning compelling and also believe the oldest Proper is most likely the Gradual.
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