New English / Latin Entrance and Communion chants
  • PeterJ
    Posts: 90
    NB PLEASE SEE UPDATED VERSION FURTHER DOWN THE THREAD


    Dear friends and colleagues,

    Please find attached something I have been working on - some new English/Latin settings of the Entrance and Communion antiphons of the Mass in modern notation (for Advent, Christmas and the first few Sundays of Easter).

    Last year I wrote a number of "Anglican Chants" which I adapted from the chants selected from the Gregorian repertoire. For each mode I wrote an "Anglican Chant" for the office psalm tone, Mass psalm tone, a few other chants adapted from here and there, and one or two "short" chants. These chants are a half-way house between Gregorian chant and "true" Anglican chant - but a half-way house which I think works well for the peculiarities of the English language.

    I have used these chants here.

    For the psalms, with a goal of simplicity in mind, I am often using seasonal psalms from the Graduale Simplex rather than the psalm found in the Graduale Romanum (I think there are quite a number of benefits to doing this). The mode is usually taken from the Graduale Simplex.

    The result is an English-Latin Gradual which – I suppose – is something of a cross between a bilingual Graduale Simplex and a bilingual Graduale Romanum.

    I am an organist at a few local churches, and I have been using these settings with the choirs / cantors that I work with. They seem to have gone down well, with not that much more practice time being required than one would need to prepare a hymn.

    The full version of this work – which covers the Entrance and Communion antiphons for Sundays and principal Feasts of the entire liturgical year, as well as a selection of settings for the commons – is nearing completion (at the time of writing, the English settings are complete with the Latin settings for Easter, Ordinary Time, other Feasts and the commons left to go). However, this is still very much a work in progress and I would therefore be grateful for any comments.

    I wish you all a very happy and holy Easter.

    Best wishes,

    Peter Johnson

    p.s. If you are new to “Anglican chant” then please take a quick look at the initial tips I have provided in the introduction.

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    [DELETED FOR THE MINUTE - but please drop me a note if you wish to use.]
    Thanked by 3noel jones, aago Patricia Cecilia miacoyne
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Ignoring the wonderful ways in which the Anglican church and its music liturgy evolved was undoubtedly one of the stupidest errors made during VAT II.

    Rather than reinventing the wheel, appreciating and using Anglican Chant which can be simple or very complex as you choose, which makes it challenging to the best choirs and accessible to all, even congregations, is to be commended and supported. Thanks, Peter for your excellent work and commitment to a valuable project.

    If you have, for whatever reason, never looked into Anglican Chant, do take a bit of time and look over what Peter has written, including his explanations of hos to sing the chants.

    Ignoring the wonderful ways in which the Anglican church and its music liturgy evolved was undoubtedly one of the stupidest errors made during VAT II.

    I expect to see more thanks up there on this post....Don, Don, are you out there?
    Thanked by 1Patricia Cecilia
  • JennyJenny
    Posts: 147
    This looks wonderful. We have been using the Rice Simple Choral Gradual and your work can give us a great new choice!
  • PeterJ
    Posts: 90
    Noel & Jenny - thank you both very much for your comments.

    Noel - I wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments. I remember you wrote an excellent article on this subject a couple of years ago which resonated with me enormously, and I would encourage anyone who hasn't already seen it to check it out:
    [http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/08/guest-column-on-anglican-chant.html]

    Please note, I will shortly be posting a selection of some of the "Anglican" chant tones themselves (in modes I-VIII) should people want to take a look at them / put them to use.

    As I say, this is still very much a WIP, and I would warmly welcome any comments. If people would prefer to contact me directly with thoughts (rather than make an online posting) then please feel free to use the email address provided on page 2 of the attached doc.

    Thanks, P
  • PeterJ
    Posts: 90
    Dear all,

    Please find attached the latest version - the English chants for the entire liturgical year (+ major feasts + commons) .

    I have been tinkering quite a bit since the earlier version attached above - hopefully a few things work a bit better now.

    As I noted above, I was working on a Latin side-by-side version, but I'm afraid I'm not convinced that the Latin chants were entirely working. Therefore I am going to park this part of the project for a while and perhaps come back to it at a later date.

    Enjoy.

    All comments welcome either on this forum (preferably) or via email (email address is included this time in the Introduction).

    Thanks,

    Peter

    p.s. Copyright permissions pending (and they may take a while still) I hope to make two printed versions available through lulu - one using the Grail psalter, one using the Revised Grail psalter (as above). I will post an update once this is done.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen PatrickJones Curatus_in_partibus
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