Propers in english in chant
  • jdambuul
    Posts: 17
    Does anyone know of a good resource/book/collection of the Propers for Mass (viz Responsorial Psalm, Communion Antiphon) in a simple chant tune?
  • By Flowing Waters: Chant for the Liturgy, on sale for $9.98 a copy!

    http://www.litpress.org/Detail.aspx?ISBN=0814625959

    http://www.pford.stjohnsem.edu/ford/by-flowing-waters/index.htm

    I am prejudiced, of course.
  • Google on “Anglican Use Gradual” for another option that is more akin to the idea of “proper” chants.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    The Anglican Use Gradual is only minimally satisfactory in regard to settings of the propers, mainly because the difficult chants are generally replaced with Psalm-tone settings. We used one of those for an Introit at one of the Holy Week liturgies, and the text was perfect, but the melody was just Mode VII recitation.

    Dr. Ford's book is an excellent resource and actually contains propers to use at most Masses of the year. By definition, no book of substitutes is ideal, but BFW is a great place to start (or continue) a movement towards chant in your parish and with your choir. Plus it's a bargain . . . the Graduale Romanum is not.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    I have to second Yurodivi's comment. Our schola is learning to sing propers, and frankly, some of them can't handle both the chant and the (to them) unfamiliar words. We've been using BFW for several months now, and it works very well - we get practice singing pointed psalms, and the congregation gets exposed to antiphons rather than hymns.

    We did use the Anglican Use Gradual on a couple of occasions: once for the Reproaches on Good Friday, and once for the upcoming Pentecost after reading Dr. Mahrt's recommendation of the Communion Antiphon for that day.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,803
    Contact Fr. Weber. I have many of his Mass settings in simple chant form.
  • I'm finally going to get a copy of BFW since we are doing an English chant Mass soon, but the sale price at LitPress is offset a bit by $7 shipping charge. It's a little less at Amazon if you order enough for the Super Saver Shipping. In any case, I'll soon have one!
  • Lest anyone be deceived, BFW is not a resource that contains many “proper” chants, in the sense that “proper” means “appointed for a particular day”. What it generally gives are seasonal chants to be sung at the entrance, between the readings, offertory, and communion.

    I am surprised Dr. Ford didn’t mention his “Psallite” project, which (IIRC) is essentially a new Mass proper. It has “proper” texts appointed for entrance, responsorial psalm, and communion for each Sunday (and solemnity and feast of the Lord) of the year.
  • jdambuul
    Posts: 17
    Thank you to all who have replied.

    I am looking for not just seasonal psalms, but for the propers "for the day" in a simple chant form. Does this seem to be more of what is in the Psallite project as opposed to the Flowing Waters? Is the Psallite project finished and available for purchase?

    What is Father Weber's name/website and the title of his book? Does it have proper chants or just different settings for the ordinaries?

    jdambuul

    I am sorry for the late reply... this is my first time writing on the forum...
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    You can find out more about Psallite on the Liturgical Press website, www.litpress.org There are music samples and an introductory video. Although the idea behind the series is noble, I find most of the music trite and not in line with the ideal of Gregorian chant. That is, the music is all in 2/4 or 3/4 time - no groups of two's and three's here. There are suggestions of modal music, but these are interrupted by dominant and chormatic harmony. And it does not pass my near fool-proof (there are a few noteworthy exceptions) lithmus test: syncopation. It's no wonder Dr. Ford first suggested "By Flowing Waters," which at its core is a translation of an official liturgical book, the Graduale Simplex. Until we have an offical English translation of all the propers, I wouldn't spend too much time having the congregation learn antiphons from a cellection like Psallite. You could, however, have the choir (two or more people) chant, for example, the offertory from the American Gradual (St. James press, $99 with permission to reprint freely).
  • jdambuul,

    Perhaps the attached comparison of the contents of the Graduale Simplex and the Graduale Romanum will indicate that the former DOES contain many sets of propers.

    Blessings,
    Paul
    07a Graduals Contents 27a.pdf
    21K
  • Paul, thanks for that comparison. It's nice to know that I will be able to use the OT9 Propers. I may do an adaptation of a couple of Graduale chants if I have time, but I want to do a chant Mass completely in English as a demonstration at a completely OCP Parish.
  • jdambuul
    Posts: 17
    So if I buy the By Flowing Waters then I will have all the chants that are listed as contained in The Simple Gradual but they will be in English?

    What is an OCP parish?
  • OCP = Oregon Catholic Press
  • francis
    Posts: 10,803
    jdambuul:

    Fr. Weber's project is posted here:

    http://www.adoremus.org/0207ChantResources.html
  • jdambuul asked:
    So if I buy the By Flowing Waters then I will have all the chants that are listed as contained in The Simple Gradual but they will be in English?

    Yes, and even more: Some of the chants will also be in their original Greek or Latin; there are also most of the Jubilate Deo chants; the readings tones of the Ordo Cantus Missae; the Apostles' Creed in question and answer form in the Ambrosian style (BFW 626) for use during the Easter Season; and one Englished chant from the Roman Gradual (the Antequam nascerer of the final commendation and farewell, one of the oldest parts of the funeral liturgy, BFW 546)
  • Michael O'Connor wrote:
    I want to do a chant Mass completely in English as a demonstration at a completely OCP Parish.

    Let me encourage you to do this and let me hear how it went. We do this at our seminary every Monday evening and it remarkable how the experience takes us to a deeper place. The music is in service to the text of the Word of God and helps the Word get down into the heart as well as to express the heart's deepest longings (Colossians 3:16).

    If you are allowed (or allow yourself) to be ambitious, pay attention to the performance notes for each of the chants (BFW, pp. 417–428) and avail yourself, your schola, and your assembly of the distinctions between the solo and ensemble voices in each psalm.

    And if you are feeling really ambitious, add the doxology (BFW 627–634) at the end of the the entrance procession, the communion procession, and even the offertory procession, during which all bow (and even all SING), rising for the final iteration of the antiphon. THAT will take your liturgy to a new place!

    And if you are feeling really ambitious, put your schola in albs in the entrance procession, the offertory procession, and at the end of the communion procession. On the few occasions when this has happened at the seminary, one really experiences the nobility of the Roman liturgy.

    (We can dream, can't we?)
  • Paul,

    Actually we will do much of this. Not sure if I can manage the procession since we have only a couple of weeks to polish up the chants. We are planning to sing all of the readings (they are letting us do whatever we want) and adding the doxologies. My group is used to doing this for the EF Mass, so now they don't need to work out the Latin and the chants are a bit easier. I'll be sure to send a report.
  • jdambuul
    Posts: 17
    Dr. Ford,

    What is the copyright situation on your book? Would we need to purchase a copy for every person that was going to be apart of the small Schola that sings the chant?
  • We have just ordered 8 BFW for the cantors at St. john Neumann, Knoxville. We eventually plan to outfit the entire choir with them, once we have the The Parish Book of Chant in the hands of each and ever choir members...and paid for.

    noel at sjnmusic.com
  • jdambuul asked:
    What is the copyright situation on your book? Would we need to purchase a copy for every person that was going to be apart of the small Schola that sings the chant?

    For your assembly you are free to reprint everything mean to to be sung by them without any further permission. All you need to do is add the proper copyright notice (see http://www.pford.stjohnsem.edu/ford/by-flowing-waters/index.htm).

    For your choir you do need copies of the book. But I can grant you permission to experiment with By Flowing Waters by photocopying what you want to share with your schola, as long as you agree to destroy the photocopies after you have used them.
  • I for one will be asking the members of my group to purchase a copy. I'm sure that we will use it frequently.
  • jdambuul
    Posts: 17
    Dr. Ford,

    Thank you for permission to experiment with By Flowing Waters before we purchase copies for everyone in the Schola. Thank you for clarifying the copyright
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    Thanks for this discussion. I've had a copy of BFW since a conference in 2000 and could never sell anyone on it. But right now the only person I need to convince is me.

    While I'm shoving the neophytes in my schola toward neumes and Latin, I do have a heart. So this might be another way to give them a break from complexity and still have something that's not just an exercise. They're also having trouble mastering pointed text and these psalms, with their very clear pointing, might bring them along on that score.

    So keep reminding us, Paul.
  • jhoffman
    Posts: 29
    Dear Friends,

    I am new to this discussion and find most of the comments very insightful and helpful. I have been looking for a good setting of the propers for English text that correspond to the rites for a long time. If only the Church could publish something like the "Anglican Use Gradual" in two versions - one complex and one simple.

    Even adapting these settings can work to some degree.

    Thanks for the discussion,
  • a1437053a1437053
    Posts: 198
    The Simple English Propers!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    So where does it say that propers have to be chants? Is there an 11th commandment on this? I don't think so. I have used propers by Healey Willan and others, that were beautiful and effective.
  • I, too, enjoy and have often used the Willan propers. But, it should be known that Willan never used these settings in his church. He was a chant man--all the way.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    I use chant, too. However, some chants are rather dull and even ugly. I will use other music, too, if it is well-written and the text fits.
  • Can we choose not to "go there" yet in another thread ad nauseum? We always just end up chasing our tales. (Yes, that was on purpose.)
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    He's been in the wine cellar again. ;-)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,803
    Charles

    In my mind chant is the musical prayer of the Mass, is most natural to the idiom of the liturgy, requires no professional musician to be present, and can be employed by a priest and a one person congregation at any geographical point on or off the globe. That's why it's the best choice. However, polyphony shares a very close second because it is the first child of the plainchant form. But I would daresay there are less Churches that can or do employ polyphony just because of the musical resources needed. I recently read (might have been >•<) chant is employed in only 1% of parishes at the present, which means polyphonic choirs might be less than that. Would you tend to agree? Or do you think there is a greater use of the polyphonic form over chant?
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    From what I've seen, I think today polyphonic music seems to be much more common than chant.

    Secular choirs often sing polyphony for concert music, but not the same can be said for chant.
  • Francis, I believe I've echoed those very sentiments repeatedly here, Cafe and my blog. I've gone to five colloquia and three intensives, and we chant weekly, though not exclusively. So, I really shouldn't have to re-iterate my personal preferences for the musical medium that, were it within my power, ought to be solely employed.
    But I have neither been to the wine cellar this MORNING nor am trying to appear obstinate. I'm trying to remind ourselves and newbies/lurkers that we've debated these ideals and priorities hundreds of times over the years, that's all.
    As a pragmatist, I don't see much exhortational value in preaching to the choir here about chant pre-eminence. We all know too well that the slow and steady progress that IS being achieved can be quashed in a heartbeat with the change of a pastor, or the release of a rock-solid choir director or DM for unfathomable or unknown reasons.
    It's simple, really: someone with a modicum of interest, intelligence and a charitable, honest heart can tell if the music employed at a liturgy edified it with solemnity, integrity and beauty, not to mention humility (which is my personal bugaboo.) That same person could attend an "event" Mass featuring a Hadyn classical setting and discern whether they felt like they worshipped, or were relegated to being part of the audience at a show.
    'Nuff said.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,803
    Charles

    Yea... I guess those of us who are outspoken on 'pushing' chant are just trying to keep the RotR boat moving downstream, and not wandering off into some lagoon, especially on forums like this. Hope we meet some time soon.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    Francis, it depends on the season. During Lent, we use chant for nearly everything, and almost as much during Advent. Less, so at other times. We have polyphony, as well. The Anglicans perfected sacred music in English long ago, so their wonderful music is dear to us and often used. We are not a 100% Gregorian chant parish and have no desire to be. We have an EF mass weekly where that music is most in its element.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    Francis, thank you for defending the place of the chant in the liturgy of the Roman rite (both in EF and OF). This morning after the Mass, a man came to us and talk to us after a pause, "with your schola's Gregorian chant, I feel that I'm in church.'' He almost had tears in his eyes. This was so far the most strong word I heard from the pew people. Every week I hear people expressing their gratitude for having Gregorian chant in our liturgy, which make me think that they have been deprived of having the most sacred music in our liturgy by whims and tastes of some people.
    It seems to me that in this forum when the remarks are made to defend the chant and the Church's instruction is quoted, they are very often criticized as uncharitable, while negative things that are not helpful to restore sacred music are regarded as 'charitable?'. People know in this forum who defend Gregorian chant is not proposing 100 % chant in OF, but trying to find the proper place of the chant as the Church instructed against all the odds we have in our parish.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,803
    Miacoyne:

    Thank you for your encouraging words.

    It can only be a vain effort to steer people away from the desires of our Mother (Church), and one that will only appear foolish as time progresses. We MUST return to our roots, and GC is the root of prayer in the music of the liturgy. Our present circumstances will one day appear as the "silly blip on the radar screen of liturgical history" and will get nothing but a puzzling glance from the Church of the future as she becomes grounded once again in her traditions. The gates of hell will not prevail. I can almost hear them now saying something like, "what in the heck were the people in that era thinking?"

    Until that time comes, Serva Fidum.
  • I sincerely hope that no one permutated my lack of enthusiasm for avoiding another redundant discussion comparing the first place and efficacy of chant as the sacral language of the Church as an offense against those very principles. That would be an errant conclusion and evidence to those who doubt our convictions that we traffic in litmus tests to determine adherence to orthodoxy. At some point, we have to agree to disagree that one size does not fit all in a single moment of time.
    Subtle insinuations that not being a "true believer" in all things chant have no place to lodge in a truly Christian enterprise. Being a true believer is defined clearly by the word "Credo."
  • I have been posting my chant psalm settings for MWF daily masses, but not Sundays - on this site - Kevin
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,973
    Amen, other Charles. Orthodoxy is not defined by following chant, although I certainly have nothing against chant. My church is about the only Catholic church in the area that even sings it.

    On a completely unrelated note, I witnessed a minor miracle of sorts this morning. As the temperatures dipped into the 40s, the legion of the nearly naked showed up at mass fully clothed today. :-)
  • francis
    Posts: 10,803
    Charles, Charles and Mia:

    I will whisper my thoughts to you.