With respect, incantu, I disagree with these points:

"to avoid objections ("Now Thank We All Our God"), I would suggest using strictly liturgical hymns"
The main problem with this is that people are buying this hymnal (hypothetically) for the "objectionable" hymns. The ideal buyer wants to only use the best hymns when he has to, and give his congregation familiar hymns to sing as well as quality orthodox hymns. In short, this hymnal will be irrelevant and unpurchased if it doesn't have "Praise to the Lord", and it would then fail to make the larger point that GIA has no right to copyright that hymn.

"There might, for instance, be 6 or 8 musical settings of the Salve Regina - a great variety without a broad scope."
As a matter of personal bias, I dislike this feature in many hymnals. I'm a big fan of one tune per text. And with how much the successful Catholic parish would use hymns (once or twice per Mass), such repetition would be useless. This is, of course, a matter of my preference.

Gavin, I agree with you, for whatever that is worth. For that matter, I would like to see hymns of this sort go away, but they aren't anytime soon, and therefore they should be at least as available to the commons as the chant is now (to cite a point AVOZ made to me earlier today)

There are many public domain hymns in English and tunes from British and Scandinavian sources upon which no copyright is claimed. I'm from the Anglican diaspora, and I grew up singing many of these things (and plainchant in English). There are also a number of Eucharistic Hymns of the Wesleys which are profoundly catholic. Put that together with the translations of J.M. Neale, Caswall, Palmer, Moultrie and Catherine Winkworth and one would have a very solid and useful book.

Some years ago the Western Rite Parish of St. Gregory the Great of the Antiochian Church published a hymnal "The Saint Ambrose Hymnal" that is a real gem. Much of the hymnal is in the public domain, and apart from a few very Orthodox items, it reads as a successor to the sort of hymnal Winfred Douglas produced in the Episcopalian Hymnal 1940. It may prove to be a useful reference point as your project develops.

Perhaps some texts should appear without music so that one could change tunes depending on the meter of the verse ... or so that one may play -- without cause for confusion -- a hymn tune under copyright not found in the book or a tune from elsewhere in the book.

re St Ambrose hymnal, see:

http://www.stgregoryoc.org/
and page on hymnal link:
http://www.members.cox.net/frnicholas/Hymnal.htm

Rebecca Alford (of "The Saint Ambrose Hymnal") is also a gifted composer of hymn tunes. The SAH includes her marvellous tune "LaPorte".

Speaking of marvellous tunes: the tune "Nashotah House" in "The Saint Michael Hymnal" was written recently for Cardinal Newman's "Firmly I believe and truly" by the very gifted Anglican Canon who is professor of music and liturgics at the Anglo-Catholic/Episcopalian seminary Nashotah House. The tune is vastly superior is Shipston or any others paired with the text.

Also the Dominican Nuns of Summit, NJ have produced a very useful hymnal "The Summit Choirbook" and Sister Editor writes of her gratitude to those copyright holders who waived their fees. I suspect Sister would be willing to help with this project in regard to texts and tunes copyrighted by the Dominican Nuns of Summit.

'Fr Samuel Weber has declared himself dead-set against introducing Office Hymns into the Mass,"

Interesting. Maybe he doesn't want to mix the music of two different litrurgies and keep them seperate, so we don't neglect either one? (especially the Office in these days.)

All due respect to Fr Weber, but the Ave maris stella and Conditor alme siderum (and others) have been sung at Mass for a good long time. That horse left the barn during the Renaissance. Office antiphons also served as the texts for motets, which also were sung at Mass during the 16th century. Personally, I'd like to see a hymnal that offers a nice mix of the well-known and the "really should be well known". CMAA might find itself responsible for spreading some very fine hymns that were heretofore little known.

I have it, Jeffrey. Yes, along with the Air Force Hymnal, it was a serious piece of work for me at the time. Still have it, somewhere's in the office.

I like the messages above. I think the book should contain:
1.A good selection of Catholic hymns that have been sung for many years eg: Holy God We Praise, Immaculate Mary, a selection which will cover the Catholic hymns that people already know. Arranged for the liturgical year. (don't like an alphabetical hymnal - that's what an index is for!)
2. A choice of excellently written mass settings for congregational use. Schubert Deutsche Messe, Proulx masses, others of good quality,
3. English versions of the sequences
4. A selection of hymns for exposition and benediction, and a selection of office hymns (of course many of these are sung at mass as well)
5. A rich selection of Catholic hymnody that has been truly neglected in modern Catholic hymnals. Hymns by Faber, Caswell, Neale, the Tractarian and Cecilia movements.
6. The best of the modern repertoire.
7. A good selection of proterstant hymnody that is part of our singing repertoire- subject to careful consideration of theology
The models we are familiar with: Hymnal 1940 (and the great line of Anglican hymnals), Classic Lutheran hymnals (like the one that started this whole discussion) the St. Michael Hymnal
We do have great Catholic tradition of hymnody - as we resurrect chant, we can also redeem the rich tradition of our hymnody.
Now here are some other tough questions:
1. Do we include Spanish hymnody (can we really ignore this?) St. Michael Hymnal does include Spanish tunes.
2. So we include psalm responses?
3. Do we include readings or lectionary items?
64 comments in three days!!

Do any of you know the WESTMINSTER HYMNAL - Catholic - (out of print), which was put together by Richard Terry in Engliand. If you do not know of it, I greatly urge you to find a copy. A Catholic Hymnal along those lines, I think, would be just what is needed!

>>The goal is a 100% clean book, the distribution of which is unencumbered

yes, that would be wonderful. and much needed in this internet age.

Well, Richard, this is the #1 concern. I foresee no great marketing campaign. Essentially it comes down to a comment that AVOZ made to me the other day. The CMAA should do for hymns what it did for chant: free them into the common life of Catholics. Think what this will mean for the parish down the street. Sober, clear, good hymns in the commons as vs. what goes on now, and I mean what really goes on right now. Imagine this as a stepping stone. The fact is that even Mahrt, who is as strong an advocate of propers as exists on the planet, would like a bundle of hymns in English to use for various purposes. who but the CMAA to break the barriers and do what no one has done in 200 years?

I forgot to mention that much of this work is already done with sources such as cyberhymnal.org and hymnary.org! Cyberhymnal even has midifiles that can easily be imported into programs like Sibelius and turned into scores.

well, this might a case in which sharing could actually cause delays. Every day, constantly 24/7, Jonathan and Noel are trading files and text with relentless improvements while controlling for versions. It is fine for either to post to the forum what they are doing but no need to create delays and mixed up files and things, in my view. The entire thing can go up in an organized way and then everyone can comment. Also, when the complete index is done, we can share it with the group in the form of a spread sheet.

by the way, this thread has been of enormous benefit to these two!

Just a FYI, Linda Schafer, editor of the St Michael Hymnal says the tracking down adn securing of copyrights for a book of that size which contains a good portion of non-PD works is a task whose scale is simply not to be believed.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

The other internet source with a great deal of PD material is the Rev. Steve Benner's (Episcopalian) "Oremus Hymnal" and the URL is

http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/

I have the 1981 ICEL book and there is a great deal there (of course one would need to make original engravings which can be done in Finale as Steve mentions above).

Original texts or their generally accepted shape by "Mid-Century" ca. 1950 would be a genuine gift to the Church.

Richard's concerns remind me of a homily once given by my pastor about what a problem the homeless are. The homeless this, the homeless that. I think what he had meant to say was the problem of homelessness.

Likewise, I can't imagine that too many CMAA members object to hymns in general, vernacular or otherwise. The objection is with their being used in place of the chants of the Mass. I don't see too much of a problem with publishing a collection of hymns for the Office, prayer meetings, school assemblies, and private devotions as long as it isn't titled "Hymns for the Mass." As others have pointed out, there's a veritable tradition of singing a hymn after Mass that long predates Vatican II. If you've sung your 5+5 already, and hopefully the acclamations and responses, why not an Ave stella maris?

And chonak, I for one would like to see those other hymns!

I volunteer for the scrupulous alts remedial catechist position. No wows guaranteed. A good tailor is never noticed.

Who is keeping track of what needs to be done, and who's going to do it? Jeffrey, where's Arlene?

"Perhaps someone knows a hard-nosed traditional theologian who can wow us with his scrupulous alts and then release them to the public domain?"

I echo Chonak's concerns. Not to mention, it doesn't matter if Pope Benedict himself reviews the texts, it won't be good enough for some. At the end of the day, lulu (or whomever is "publishing" this) just has to say "don't like it, don't use it."

The point is to show off the treasure of free, public domain hymns. Not to show that we're better at bowlderizing the texts than OCP is.

I don't believe Chonak and Gavin have responded to Chrism's question.

Neale's translations are sometimes missing important theological elements that were in the Latin originals. Yet the translation is commonly considered the standard. Poetically they are superior, if sometimes markedly 19th-century in diction. Are these the translations this hymnal will opt for?

So it's okay to bowdlerize the Latin original, but not the English copy?

Yes, this is my understanding.

Here's another resource: The Hymns of the Breviary and Missal, 1922.

http://www.ccel.org/ccel/julian_j/hymn1.i.xxi.html

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