Chants for the Dedication of a Church
  • Does anyone happen to have a Solesmses edition of the chants for the dedication of a church? I only have the Ritus Consecrationis Ecclesiae published by Desclée in 1902, and the chants given are the very terse Regensburg melodies.

    St. Mary's, Norwalk is being dedicated after an extensive restoration of the sanctuary overseen by Duncan Stroik. The original plan had been simply to bless the new portable altar, and to wait to rededicate the church until the next phrase of the restoration (repainting, restoration of the reredos, commissioning triptychs for the side altars, installation of a rood beam, etc.) is completed; but at rather the last minute the USCCB has decided that the dedication must occur now. If anyone should happen to have any of the below chants, I would be most grateful if he would e-mail me: music@stmarynorwalk.net. (Of course, finding the chants which best correspond to the appointed texts for this rite in the Ordinary Form -- necessary in this instance because of the freestanding altar -- requires considerable searching through the books for the '62.)

    For the depositing of the relics:
    Sub altare Dei (mode vi)
    Corpora Sanctorum (mode i)

    For the anointing of the altar and walls:
    Introibo at altare Dei (mode iv)

    For the incensation:
    Stetit Angelus juxta aram (mode viii)
    Ascendit fumus aromatum (mode iv)

    For the lighting of candles:
    Plateae tuae, Jerusalem (mode i)

    Corpora Sanctorum, Introibo (in another mode), and Stetit Angelus all appear elsewhere as antiphons for various other occasions in the Office; but I should be most curious to know if there are more melismatic, or at least different, settings intended precisely for a dedication.
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 860
    I sent David the chants as a PDF file (8.3 MB), too big to upload here. If anyone else needs them, they can email me.