Ckcrow, Grace and peace from Our Lord Christ Christ to you!

I would first browsing here for directions on both lauds and matins:

http://saintsshallarise.blogspot.com/2009/05/learning-office-part-xb-sunday-lauds.html
http://divinumofficium.com/cgi-bin/horas/officium.pl
http://breviary.net, is the best online source for matins directions and propers, without question.

I would than suggest downloading a free, more authentic (though possibly less complete) version of the "Liber Responsorialis" :

The Great Responsories of the Divine Office, Paris 12044 in MS order, 12th c, Abbey of Saint-Maur-des-Fossés.pdf
http://deposit.d-nb.de/cgi-bin/dokserv?idn=98995241x

(saved as a .tgz, winrar or winzip will decompress the .pdf out of it on windows pc's)

This is I believe either all, or at least a large part of the Matins propers an actual Parisian monastery used 1000 years ago, no changes, no suppressions. I've been singing them lately and adapted a one into english quite nicely (Bruce E. Ford's influence ;-).
They are so easy to read and spectacularly beautiful ! I hope to use some at the upcoming assumption feast.
With motivation the ICEL and vatican could promote matins propers using that .pdf.

For myself, Matins is the final frontier, the most neglected, most elaborate, anti-novus ordo liturgy there could be.
Truly something created by people who truly dedicated immense time and effort to God, notably monastics and cathedral canons.

However, it doesnt have to be that difficult actually, a bunch of western rite orthodox former methodists do it all the time, but without any of the proper chants or tones and only 1 or 2 lessons, which does leave something to be desired...The Te Deum without its original melody is odd. But it is a great step to do that much.

And of course most Eastern Catholics/Orthodox have an even more elaborate matins they do before most of their congregation arrives on Sundays, just the clerics and choir mostly, and it works too ! They manage very week to do it. Orthos as its usually termed.

A comment in this forum earlier noted that one of the major problems of the current era is a lack of will (or "time") to learn our traditions amongst the church membership. The dioceses that have priests to promote and encourage it do well, the ones where it is discouraged by hierarchy do not tend to develop beautiful more holy liturgy very much.

I know that fine recordings exist of both Matins and Lauds.
I see them listed on the internet, but have a very limited selection and experience with recorded music so far.
The CD "Hildegard von Bingen - Laudes De Sainte Ursule" by Ensemble Organum is terrific.
I believe Ensemble Organum had some obscure proper chants for Matins on their cistercian chant cd.

Perhaps peruse through this list:

http://www.let.ru.nl/v.hunink/music/musiccatalog1.htm (Cistercian and Gregorian sections)
http://www.let.ru.nl/v.hunink/music/musiccatalog6.htm (pre-Gregorian section)

What you may end up with is partial matins recordings, but not the entire office.
the Solemses Abbey did some matins Responsory recordings as well.

Or ask at a university library. large universities often have excellent collections of chant CD's in their libraries.
their catalogues can be browsed efficiently through www.worldcat.org



Lauds and Vespers for Christmas CD by St Meinrad Archabbey is excellent, it is novus ordo, but not too far removed from tradition, an ideal example of english language gregorian chant in many aspects, it was much better than their Easter/Lent CD.

Certain matins chants have been added into lauds and vespers of monastic communities novus ordo office, due to matins being partially eliminated transformed into "vigils" (which is actually a common name for it in the late antique and medieval period, the name itself is fine)

Merry Octave of Mary Magdalen !

Re: the Office in OF or EF...

It occurs to me that, in those parishes fortunate enough to have Perpetual Adoration, it would be natural enough if adorers were to take up the various Hours. I just don't know if they do, or if that goes against the culture of silence during Adoration. But if you're already there in the middle of the night, doing something that's designed to be prayed in the middle of the night would seem like a good idea.

My parish has Adoration and a schedule of adorers, but I don't know much about it. (Especially since they installed the secret code lockpad thing, because I'm not the person to be able to remember even the simplest code. So I haven't dropped by the Adoration Chapel for several years. A lot of people don't even know we have an Adoration Chapel, since it's over in a blocked off corner of the parish center.) So I don't want to mess with a good thing, but....

It does occur to me that if people who want the Office done in a parish setting were the same people who signed up to adore at strategic times, there's nothing preventing those folks from saying or singing the Office together. Even if you were only doing one Hour (and hour of adoration) together once a week, that would be a start.

Of course, if your parish church is open during strategic times and nothing else is going on, you could just say or sing the Hours there, also. Even those sad people who freak out at a group saying the Rosary together can't freak out if they're not there to see it happening. Obviously at some point you would want to move into letting your pastor know you're doing it and getting permission to announce it in the church bulletin; but as a demonstration that things can be done, there's nothing like doing it together quietly, just from the pews, for a month or so.

Chris McAvoy -- thank you for the most helpful reponse! I'll be ordering the Farnborough Diurnal shortly, and immersing myself in the resources you've provided.

Maureen -- The idea of singing the office during Eucharistic Adoration is quite good- what an exciting time to be a Catholic.