My trick is to search Grove (now Oxford Music Online) by title. A few composer worklists are missing, though: notably Handl, who often is useful for 4 part choirs! A lot of DTÖ and other monument editions (sometimes even in G clefs) is appearing at IMSLP, http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

Of course the UF db is a list of prints and Mss, not editions. Don't forget Isaac. He wrote a complete set of propers (Choralis Constantinus) for the entire year!

Here is a start IMSLP

Louise Cuyler transcribed book 3 in the 1950s, which should be available in a good music library.

Singers need to reclaim the C clef...

Clefs? Clefs? What's this about clefs? Was it clefs in 9th century when Adelbart of York sang with heavenly spirits - unaccompanied, of course? It was not! Is outrage!

Fr. Anthony Ruff gives a brief history of polyphonic proper settings (including some composer's names) in his "Sacred Music and Liturgical Reform," pp. 547-551. (You can find these pages in the preview at Google Books.) This is based in part on a book by Walther Lipphardt, "Die Geschichte des mehrstimmigen Proprium Missae" ("The History of the Polyphonic Mass Proper") (Heidelberg: F. H. Kerle Verlag, 1950). According to Ruff (p. 516, n. 32), this book includes a "directory of available polyphonic settings of each Proper" – though by “Proper” it is unclear to me whether he means an individual proper (such as “Puer Natus” for Christmas) or a setting of the entire proper for a given day (a “cycle”). In either case this book looks to be a valuable resource - I have yet to get my hands on a copy.

Along with Palestrina, Lassus also wrote a collection of offertories but you might not know it, since it’s entitled simply “Sacrae Cantiones” (1585). (See this link: http://tinyurl.com/2ctg7fb) Unlike Palestrina’s collection, they don’t cover the entire year (Sundays of Advent and Lent only, including Lenten weekdays). But they are all for four voices and many are available on CPDL – just type “Lasso” and “offertory” into the search. In fact, entering “offertory,” “introit” etc. into the CPDL search yields many propers not included in Aristotle’s list, though the texts should be checked for fidelity to the liturgy.

Sam Schmitt

Heath, once I get done transcribing Civil War music for an upcoming recording, I'll take on some of the "standards" from Choralis, but one could try scanning into Finale or Sibelius and simply changing the clefs. I still think CMAA should promote clef reading at the next Colloquium. Almost all choral music up to the 20th century was written in C clefs. In order to explore music beyond what the big publishers (Kalmus, Universal, etc) put out, one needs to read C clefs. It's a great tool for your choir because they actually have to see the intervals and not just guess.

Michael, you are probably right but we are also blessed to live in times when moving clefs with software is super easy. So why not just rely on the tools we have?

The German composer Christian Erbach (ca. 1568 –1635) wrote some propers as well.

I've never sung his music, but have played some of his recorder canzoni. They are excellent and difficult.

Johann Joseph Fux (c. 1660-1741) wrote a number of propers for SATB available at IMSLP.

Edgy, Francis, edgy.