I use the entrance antiphons from BFW at my morning chant Mass throughout the year, usually with a Theodore Marier or Columba Kelly psalm from the Lectionary, the offertory proper from the American Gradual, and communion from Communio (with verses); the first two with congregation, the latter choir alone. I tend not to accompany any of these, although I did use an organ drone for "Alleluia, This Is The Day" on Easter morning and for the Veni Creator on Pentecost. Next year I'm thinking about trying some of the entrances at our other (mainstream) Masses as well, and think some light accompaniment might help ease the transition. I will probably just improvise these, since I often end up having to lower the key (not for the congregation, but for the cantor). Having just a couple sample accompaniments (perhaps in a few different styles) posted on the BFW Web site, though, would help provide an example for those less experienced with accompanying chant.

Today one of our Psalmists sang BFW 645 at two Masses, each with a choir singing the Alleluia response during Communion. He did a very good job.

This has taken some study, as I choose 645 for the ease of teaching the people the refrain, and since they sing the Alleluia verse with confidence, this seemed the way to go. Next week we will invite than to sing, adn then continue this for at least 6 weeks. At the first Mass,Mary Weaver [a mezzo in the Harmonia Quartet] sang the Communio for day and then when the Psalmist returned from Communion he began 645, so we had a good variety of chant at Mass including the Sanctus and Agnus Dei. We tend to eliminate hymns except for the Entrance Procession and the Hymn After Mass.

My reservations at starting with 645 now are the difficulty of the verses for the psalmists to sing. Each verse begins each line and ends each line with a different melodic element. We are comfortable with chanting on a note then ending with a melody, but in this case there are four melodies to learn. We did this in rehearsal by singing the ending of the second line through all the verses. Then the ending of the first line. Then the beginning of the second line and finally the beginning of the first line.

Then we started to put it together. in retrospect, I should have had one psalmist sing the first line and another the second....giving them more time to think. Keeping the entire chant rolling - our people have the habit of chanting away at a good clip, then halting and doubling the time for the last note before and all succeeding notes of the cadence - is made easier using the CD samples of BFW and letting them study it and listen to it over and over again seems to have cured that.

I finally broke down and using Finale wrote out the entire chant of 645 and was able to break down the verses into three sections....the first notes that start each verse vary in their adjustment to the text, so this gave them a graphic way to interpret and understand the coding, using italics, underlining and bold face that indicate which notes go with which pattern.

This seemed to help some of them a lot after hearing complaints that what was on the page was not what they heard on the CD. Later they began to realize that what was on the page was what they heard on the CD.

So, if I were to begin again, I might start with a simpler one, as most of them are, that has verses the are a constant note ending with a cadence. But doing this one first may have influenced them to study harder, figure it all out and then be better prepared for more.

I do not have the accompaniment for this one done yet, but am working on it. I have one psalmist who is very reliable but does want a reference of pitch to sing with.

Did people run up and tell us it was fantastic? No. But there were no immediate complaints, which is a milestone.

We continue to explore By Flowing Waters, the Chabanel Psalms, and The American Gradual and thank Ford, Ostrowski and Ford once again for all their work.

Who else out there is implementing these in their program?

noel at sjnmusic.com

Organ accompaniment for BFW - a wonderful work by the way - would be most useful. I know that flies in the face of the musical flat earth society, which will next probably want to throw out the organs to be more "pure." However, I use the organ to accompany with no apologies to anyone. I tend to use my own accompaniments for BFW, but I have never claimed to be gifted in that area. I am certain someone else could do a better job.

Just a note of thanks to Paul for the BFW chants. We used them in our OF chant Mass recently and the folks picked them up in no time. My schola particularly liked them. Oh yes, we sang every verse and used the doxologies for Introit and Communion (we sang the Gregorian Offertory set to English text), chanted the readings and all the dialogues and still ended in 50 minutes.

Withdrawn...

The music that comes from the Church, that we should be singing is in Latin in the Graduale Romanum.
You may find the propers from it in English in The American Gradual, carefully set to the same tunes.
The Graduale Simplex is easier music as well as alternate seasonal psalms rather than ever changing in Latin, based on Gradual Romanum.
By Flowing Waters is the Graduale Simplex in English, carefully set as well.

There's the Anglican Use gradual too. It's available electronically around here somewhere, I think.

Frogman, Where can such a document be found?