Christmas Introits

Christmas Vigil

Today, you know the Lord
Will come to set us free.
And when the morning comes at last,
You shall His glory see.

Christmas Midnight

The Lord has said to me:
Today, you are my son.
Today I have begotten you.
I have begotten you.


Christmas Mass at Dawn

Light shines today; the Lord is born:
The wondrous God, the Prince of Peace,
The Father of all future times:
Dominion that shall never cease.

Christmas Mass during the Day

A Child is born for us today.
To us today is giv'n a Son.
Upon His shoulder, power rests,
The Counsellor, the Wondrous One.

I believe this is complete now for introits for Advent and the Christmas season. More to follow in a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, Adam Wood is working hard on a project of his own, with many Psalms versified as well as antiphons.

Please let me know if there are any omissions or if you would like to have something customized. Cheers!

Do you think this could be useful, expressing breathless anticipation?

My go-to hymn tune for 6686 is St. Thomas (williams). That would work better for the vigil than for the solemn Midnight Mass, tho, imho.

Hi, Chris.

My project is different from Dr. Tietze's, insofar as I am not setting the Psalms. I envision these antiphons being sung with Psalms in Psalm tones.

I agree that a seasonal tune would work well.

These antiphons are remarkably easy to recast into verse, by the way. I think that is because they were thoughtfully translated to be spoken. They tend to be iambic, which is a natural spoken meter in English, and they tend to be in four phrases, and not far from dimeter. The diction is already elevated yet simple and dignified, which is just what I aim for when writing hymns. All I have to do is find some synonyms to make the meter exact, and a single rhyme to link line 2 and 4. I'm not changing much.

Gavin, small suggestion: at the end of the first "measure", why not leave the tenor on the high D? That way, you avoid the parallel octave and you add the third tone to complete the G major chord. Just a thought.

Gavin, you are addressing a question I have had in the back of my mind for a few days: how do you match a Psalm tone to a hymn tune? Yours is an interesting solution, a Psalm tone that is in some sense an imitation of the hymn tune. It's simpler, though, a recitative. Interesting!

I don't read "Jerusalem / descends" as a rhyme at all. But I think if you switch lines 2 and 3 you will have a much better poem!

I think the 'off rhyme' is just fine, and second the switch! I find your lyric work lovely--thank you!

This is what I forwarded to Kathy earlier today, and we've since discussed the essential reasons I offered a "different perspective" on this setting.
The use of "LAMBILOTTE" (Come Holy Ghost) is obvously, at first glance, counter-intuitive for Ps.25 and Advent in general, compared to the obvious ease of CONDITOR or PUER NOBIS/VON HIMMEL HOCH.
But I based my tune assignment upon the text painting that occurs with the basically ascending melody , 5, 5, 5, 1 etc. that is inherent in LAMBILOTTE.
One could build a defense of the tune use based upon some other considerations, Immaculate Conception, Guadalupe and of course, Annunciation, but that wasn't the deciding factor. The melody/text relation and familiarity with the tune by all Catholics I believe argue in its favor over the immediate cognitive dissonance re. Pentecost.

The verse shown below was an attempt to find a middle ground between a "psalm tone" approach, and a gradual verse without melismas, combined with a motivic resonance to the hymntune, however couched in a chant medium. Please ignore the barlines, didn't take time to eliminate them.

In the land of "let a thousand flowers bloom" this approach is still in concert with the principals of Musica Sacram. But you may feel free to argue against these approaches.

Sorry, Francis, I'm not following your point here. Do you mean the avoidance of the strophic antiphon, or deficiency in the verse? And really, I don't love to argue, I just don't hesitate when so engaged.

delete

I would like to thank everyone for their contributions.
Also to remind folks that if you are looking for metrical versions of hymns for the office, the Mundelin psalter has the the office hymns for every day of the year in CM or similar metric. Very singable.

THANK YOU!!!!!!...I doubt I can convince the choir to sing the Propers on Sundays anytime soon.....but on weekdays there's no choir....that might be a discreet introduction....! Your work is wonderful!
FP

Weekdays Dec. 17-Dec. 24

Dec. 17

Rejoice, rejoice, O heav'ns above.
Exult, O earth, forevermore.
Because the Lord is coming soon
To show his mercy to his poor.

Dec. 18

Behold, the coming of the King,
For Christ is coming to abide.
He is the holy Lamb of God
By John the Baptist prophesied.

Dec. 19

The one who is to come will come
And he will come without delay.
Our land will know his pow'r to save
And ev'ry fear will flee away.

Dec. 20

A branch shall sprout from Jesse's root
And glory fill the earth abroad.
All flesh shall see his saving pow'r
Shall see the saving pow'r of God.

Dec. 21

The Lord and Ruler shall arrive
For he shall come with us to dwell
Because he will be God-with-us.
His name shall be Emmanuel.

Dec. 22

O lift your heads, lift high, you gates.
You ancient doors, to heights anew.
Behold, the king of glory comes.
Rise up, and let him enter through.

Dec. 23

He shall be called Almighty God,
The child who will be brought to birth,
For us he comes, and blessing brings
For ev'ry tribe upon the earth.

Dec. 24

Behold, the fullness of the years:
When times at last their course had run,
Our Savior came into the world;
Into the world God sent His Son.

I'm in awe of the introits. They are Scriptural, theological, intensely hopeful.

I feel we don't have to talk about negatives anymore. It's not so much that some songs are better than others. We can keep approaching the proper, proper Propers.

Anyways, the above versifications includes Long Meter (8.8.8.8) adaptations of the Entrance Antiphon for every day through Advent, unless I am missing a feast or two. Please let me know if there is something missing that you would like done.

I hope to finish the Christmas season soon. Cheers!

After Kathy Pluth set forth her "Hymn Tune Introits" idea, I wrote to her and we exchanged a few e-mails with the idea of putting together her Metrical Introit adaptations with Psalm verses (from the Revised Grail Psalter) set to Anglican Chant music that I have been composing. To get the ball rolling, I have already set the Advent I Introit and Verses, utilizing the hymn tune "Conditor alme siderum" together with an arrangement from Penitential (Anglican) Chant music that I have employed in the past during Lent (I plan use this music both for Advent and for Lent settings of the Introit Psalm verses).

Two PDF scores for this initial pairing are attached, one with the tune for "Conditor alme siderum" that most Catholics are familiar with and one with the ever-so-slightly different tune that comes from the Sarum plainsong and is prevalent amongst Anglicans (the only difference is in the fifth note of the tune). Kathy and I feel that having both versions makes this work equally accessible to tradtional Catholics and Anglican Use Catholics alike.

The chants are in their original "key" (F major/D minor) and match well the Mode IV tonality of the "Conditor" (transposed), even though the final of the chant is invariably on F and not on A. I thought about putting the "Conditor..." down a perfect fourth in its natural place, while keeping the chant where it is. This also works modally and places the Antiphon in a better vocal range, although the initial and final E in the resulting hymn tune then serve as the leading tone (dominant) into the F of the chant. It has even occurred to me that (say for the last time through the hymn tune) it could be sung in organum with the second voice pitched a perfect fourth below the written notes.

Kathy and I will be working the kinks out of the formatting process. In this version, the chanted verses have been rather carefully set as they should be sung (like speech!), and I may continue this process with all the chants for the major seasons and feasts (but simply use Anglican pointing with single and/or double chants for Ordinary Time). In particular, note the "three beat" measures in both the second and third verse groups: they would normally be notated with just two beats, the pointing indicating that two syllables are sung to one of the beats, although in chanting one should not sing these syllables twice as fast.

Chuck

Advent I - Sarum.pdf
Advent I.pdf

How far have you gotten with the verses?

Kathy,
It occurred to me to ask: inasmuch as the Offertorio "restates" the same psalm proper as the Introit, what is your take on using your metric verse as an Offertory?

I certainly would be joyful to hear from those who find this concept useful in their ministry setting. either here or at hymnwriter (at) gmail

Thanks!

Charles, thanks for these! Is there a typo on the notes of the second phrase of Advent I (square notes)?

I don't suppose these are being updated for Lent, by chance? I started the SEP introit with my parish recently, but am getting feedback that it is too much too soon. I would love to start with some hymn tune introits!

Oh, awesome!!! This will be most timely. I look forward to it eagerly.

I haven't done this with Communion antiphons yet. I could--but I haven't.

The reason is that there is a limited market for these texts. And the reason for that is a kind of snobbery on the part of music directors.

No offense. Hear me out on this one.

So I said to a priest who doesn't read music: "Sing this entrance antiphon." Now if I had given it to him with musical notation, he wouldn't have sung it. He wouldn't have just ignored the music. He would have ignored all of it.

But because it had no musical notation, and I told him to sing it to Creator of the Stars of Night, he did.

Now we as musicians don't feel comfortable with this sort of thing, because we feel that people should only be singing things written in the music-text hybrid notation that makes perfect sense to us.

Four times now I've talked with excellent publishers about publishing this music, and all have been interested, until we got to this one question. What about the music? What music are we going to write and print underneath the words?

The publishers are judging, rightly as it seems to me, that music directors will not buy text-alone products. I understand this and in part sympathize. Music is a liberal art, and people learn to read music as they sing, and that is all good. But, for those who can't sing--and it is hard for us as musicians to get into their heads--musical notation is a turn off.

The Hymn Tune Introit project is for just such people: non-musicians. Asking entire congregations of musically illiterate people to learn brand-new antiphons every. single. week. is difficult. Asking them to do this when the very idea of singing antiphons is foreign is almost impossible. In many congregations it is simply too much to ask.

That is why propers are almost universally not-sung. Because that first step is too difficult.

So as a kind of training wheels, to get people used to the idea of singing propers, I just rearranged all the entrance antiphons in rhyming Long Meter form, so that they can be sung to whichever tunes are already known to a given particular congregation. Congregations' repertoires are different, and so a wide variety of options are possible. Printing musical settings would be completely counterproductive, because they would specify the music.

Specification is the opposite of what is needed here, because what is needed are options.

But since musicians really won't buy text-alone products, publishers won't publish them, which is a roundabout explanation of why I haven't written a cycle of Communion antiphons.

I appreciate your interest, truly, but I have a lot of irons in the fire just now and wouldn't have time.

I suppose my other hesitation to doing Communion antiphons is that they aren't actually necessary.

One could easily take the Responsorial Psalm resource that they usually employ, pull out the 8 ad libitum Communion Psalms, and sing them in rotation. In fact that is my recommendation for the very first step towards propers. It's very low-confrontation, and at a time when people aren't necessarily eager to sing out of a book, while they're in line for Communion.

Has anyone done this sort of work on the communion antiphons?

Sort of. Not set to hymn tunes, but simple enough responses, accompanied, with psalm tone verses, all at the snappy url:

communionantiphons.org