Lamentations - Cantors' Edition
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Last year, Simon Paul of Schola Cantorum Amsterdam very kindly sent me a photocopy of a 1934 edition of the beautiful Lamentations taken from Spanish codices.

    I have reproduced these in the Meinrad font, and integrated them with the Lamentations from the Liber Usualis, to form a booklet I hope will be useful for cantors singing at Tenebrae services.

    To view or download go to my web page. I've highlighted the document by bracketing it with red asterisks.

    I hope to put up some mp3 samples soon.

    Any corrections/comments welcome.
  • dvalerio
    Posts: 341
    Thank you for this excellent resource!

    There's a typo on Friday: Feria V. [sic] in Parasceve...
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Thanks dvalerio + well spotted.

    Corrected.
  • maestrodicapella
    Posts: 129
    Excellent. Bravo.
  • dvalerio
    Posts: 341
    If your are looking for typos in booklets other than that of the Lamentations, please notice that, in the booklet with the 12 prophecies, in the second prophecy, the C-clef is misplaced in every single score save the first.
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Thanks again dvaleri:, yes - corrections on other doc.s most welcome. I've updated both the 12 Prophecies doc and the Lamentations doc (a couple more errors fixed).
  • Simon
    Posts: 153
    Hugh deserves significant kudos for his work. There are some beautiful melodies here - dating from the 11th to the 13th century - for the Lamentations that are useful for services as well as concerts. Any one contemplating the singing of Lamentations in the next week or two in service or concert - and who has a good cantor - will have the audience blessed by these wonderful melodies.
  • Felicity
    Posts: 77
    Hugh, thank you for all your work.
    Deo Gratias!
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    just to let you know that I've put up on my web page just now (Monday 11 April) what I hope is the final corrected version. (Link in first post)

    Thanks very much for advice re. corrections: esp. to Simon for going over it with an eagle eye and spotting half a dozen or so errors.

    Thanks all, and a happy and holy Easter
  • MarkThompson
    Posts: 768
    Hi Hugh,

    I had a look, just for fun, through some of your booklets. Am I right in thinking that you took a lot of the translations of the Latin from some Anglican source? Like, for instance, the Coverdale psalter from the Book of Common Prayer? It's extremely noticeable when you try to compare it to the Latin. So you get things like "Ut quid, Domine, repellis orationem meam" translated as "Lord, why abhorrest thou my soul", and "Protexisti me" as "Hide me." It's obviously too late to overhaul everything for this year (and it's obvious you put a ton of good work into these), but for next year you ought to consider authentic Catholic translations.
  • Hugh
    Posts: 198
    Thanks, Mark.

    I can't recall the source for translations - you could well be right re. Coverdale. I might have time to re-jig them a few months hence.

    God bless for the days ahead.
  • Xavier_Maria
    Posts: 1
    I have searched long for the alternative tones (to the Liber), and was so pleased to find them here. All of them are truly beautiful. Thanks a tone...I mean, thanks a ton.
  • aldrich
    Posts: 230
    We used all of them when we had our Tenebrae this past Holy Week. The aura of haunting notes reverberating in a floodlit church (we had our Tenebrae at dawn so we can still have darkness) is heavenly.
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