Mass XII (Potiron, with corrections and transposition)
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,663
    I would like to start Mass XII later this year for more or less the second half of the Sundays after Pentecost, as my pastor and I both feel that we need more variety.

    I transcribed Potiron's 1927 harmonization, correcting the rests and therefore the rhythms of the harmonization to eliminate the pre-1940s/early 50s practice (Carroll describes in his chironomy book Dom Gajard's changes, the ones that classical Solesmes singers know now, wherein one takes on the barline a breath of one or two pulses according to the value of the following note, but before the rest could be taken before or after the barline). I also made some values more clear: either ties were changed to longer notes when it doesn't affect the ictus placement and reading, and I changed some dotted quarters to tied quarters and eighths when this makes the melody hard to interpret correctly. I also transposed it to the keys that are friendlier IMHO for the congregation.

    More people should know this Mass so I put this out for everyone's benefit!
    messe_12_potiron.pdf
    132K
    Thanked by 3StimsonInRehab CHGiffen Roborgelmeister
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,971
    It is a charming little Mass. I'm teaching it to my schola, for one of our upcoming "neither polyphony nor orchestral" Sunday masses. (Part of me is tempted to use it for one of the masses on Christmas Day, since the Gloria intonation bears an uncanny resemblance to God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen.)
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,663
    Oh that’s fun. And of course you’d notice that.
  • Ted
    Posts: 217
    It is not just by Potiron, but is a collaborative work by Dom Jean Hébert Desrocquettes and Henri Potiron. Potiron later complained that the 1929 accompaniment was excessively complex and, moreover, that chant accompaniment theory had evolved. Because of this he put out in 1950 a simplified version, the Kyriale Abrégé, but it did not contain Kyrie XII which was rarely sung in parishes at the time.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,663
    except there are parts e.g. the three Amen formulae choices, where I hear a little bit of Potiron: we pretty much exclusively use his accompaniment for Vespers and Benediction except for a few items that I have to get from Clear Creek and the other houses of the Fontgombault family, so I know his style pretty well…and while I mostly like it, I can say one thing: he probably does a better job later on sticking more closely to the mode (the Gloria here feels like his work but he can’t seem to figure out if he should prefer the modern tonic or the note for the final).

    Well that was a mistake, I think, if he really felt that way. He should have redone the whole thing (and someone should put out the abridged version anyway, in the meantime).
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