Very nice!

Here are two newly typeset scores I just did, one copied directly from the picture above, and one to which I added Solesmes rhythmic signs:
http://liberreader.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sanctissimus-namque-gregorius.pdf
http://liberreader.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/sanctissimus-namque-gregorius-with-ictus.pdf

We have just finished our choir practice, we will do this on Sunday. (EF)

Is it licit in the EF? I thought you must go directly from the asperges' collect to the introit? There's no "option 4"...

Is this licit in OF masses? I wouldn't use it this year, but in the future perhaps. And maybe an English translation, leading into the SEP Introit. It's a really beautiful "intro to the intro."

Interesting. I've never done an organ interlude there, usually just begin with the introit straightaway.

Btw, Ryan, I know it's licit in the OF because almost anything's licit in the OF :)

I sing the Dies Irae as a sequence at Requiems anyway. ;-)

Please review the Forum Etiquette Guidelines.

I appreciate Fr. Krisman's point; to be honest, I didn't even think of the rubrics issue and thought it was a singable text in the 1908 Graduale Romanum, not just an illustration, as Father pointed out. Hope someone can weigh in on this definitively. It's a very interesting question.

Just for the record, dear Father, I do not and have never advocated a single instance of "blatant disobedience" to liturgical norms, and if you ever find an instance of my advocating such on this forum, I'd appreciate it if you would bring it to my attention.

The point I'm trying to make is very simple. The Schola Saint Cecile in Paris were discussing the trope; it's also on the gregorianbooks.com website and the Monks of Solesmes have a recording of it so I just assumed (my bad!) from the fine reputation all these people enjoy that this was a legitimate option.

Actually, the reason I brought it up was I wanted to learn more about it from more knowledgeable people than I, and I remain hopeful someone can shed light upon it.

This is exactly my point. Sweeping generalized negatives are almost always taken the wrong way.

I fail to see on what basis this bit of sarcasm made any sense.

I also learned that the frontispiece of a book could be the vehicle for the promulgation of law.

Is someone proposing that it is unlawful to sing a troped introit?

Great idea.

If its a useful endeavor, why don't you share YOUR thoughts as to why it would be wise or unwise to include this in today's liturgy?

Fr Krisman

I don't know whether your comment refers to me? but having read the 'rubrics' in the Liber and the rubrics in the Missale Romanum 1962, I can not see anything referring to what can be sung before or after Mass. Note I have not read Fortesque on this matter as I do not have a copy.

In the EF troped Kyrie are banned by I think "TRENT", but not if you use the Sarum Rite or other Rites that allow troped Kyrie.

Now a troped Introit... if you mean singing the verses, this is allowed, the 1962 Graduale Romanum has the verses for the Introit of Palm Sunday and of course the 'Psalmorum' has verses for most if not all of the Introits of the year.

As I understand we can sing a song before and after Mass in the EF, this can be a former processional Hymn (Salve Festa Dies) or something in English from a Hymn / song book.
In England it is the custom to sing the Marian Antiphon after Mass, rather than a Hymn - song.

If there is a rubric / law that prevents the singing of chants / hymns / songs it should be posted to this thread.

In the EF we are at least, in certain readings of the law, banned from singing in the vernacular during Mass, NOTE we never sing anything in the vernacular during our EF Masses.

Our intention this Sunday is to sing the extra chant before Mass starts, and then when Mass starts we will sing the Introit in the usual way. Note when the Introit repeats after the verse / Gloria ... we will sing the introit as normal not with the extra text which is only meant to be sung as an introduction to the Introit. Just as we could sing an entrance / processional hymn as an introduction to the Mass.

Once again I fail to find any law preventing this.

Fr Krisman

You may be right, it is a legend, but we intend to sing this in good faith BEFORE MASS, I do not believe that the person who wrote this music was a liar or even intended to lie.

I personally think that the text of "Silent Night" is a load of rubbish (my wife is Swiss German so my children sing this in the original German). but this song can be sung in English or German BEFORE or AFTER an EF Mass.

Furthermore this is sung during the EF Masses in Switzerland, this I think is illicit but the Swiss priests think that this is O.K. not that I would agree with them.

I am sure that if you looked at the various music we sing as motets during our EF Masses in England (U.K.) you would find many things to be unacceptable to your tastes. You may be right, some of the old Office Hymns we sing as motets express sentiments that are not part of our normal experience in the modern Western world.
We do not hand out translations so very few of our congregation understand what we our singing anyway so this it not a big problem. Most people come to listen to the music, of course they can and some do join in with the Ordinary.

If there is a rubric that forbids the singing of certain texts BEFORE Mass, do let us know and we will not sing this on Sunday.

N.B. We do not usually sing an Entrance Hymn before Mass, and usually start with the Asperges. On Easter Sunday we sing the ancient Processional Hymn Salve Festa Dies, before the Vidi...

Fr K:

1) The "story of silent night" isn't in an approved liturgical book. Whatever the purpose you think this may have held in the 1908 gradual, it was found in an approved liturgical book.

2) Again, we're talking about before Mass, not before communion.

Let's have a discussion, not create our own strawmen.

Do you think the men who put together the 1908 Gradual wanted you to sing the text found in the art as a part of the Mass? If they did, why wouldn't they also put that text in front of the introit for the first Sunday of Advent?

Also, the following graphic is allegedly going to be printed in the 2024 Graduale Romanum, but I don't think it is intended to be sung during - or before or after - Mass.

It's amazing to trace this back to the manuscript! It says in the footnote that some of the words had to be read with ultraviolet light.

I did a little digging of my own and found this program from the Schola-Sainte-Cecile for the First Sunday of Advent, 2009, which includes the Trope L'Introit following the Asperges.

We sang this today, all went well and no one complained!

We even had a few unexpected guests, the senior MC of the Latin Mass Society and two directors of other chant / polyphony choirs.

The plan is to do this again next year.

Oh! Was reading Summorum Pontificum and realized St Gregory the Great is mentioned (3rd paragraph):
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/motu_proprio/documents/hf_ben-xvi_motu-proprio_20070707_summorum-pontificum_en.html

« Eminent among the Popes who showed such proper concern was Saint Gregory the Great, who sought to hand on to the new peoples of Europe both the Catholic faith and the treasures of worship and culture amassed by the Romans in preceding centuries. He ordered that the form of the sacred liturgy, both of the sacrifice of the Mass and the Divine Office, as celebrated in Rome, should be defined and preserved. He greatly encouraged those monks and nuns who, following the Rule of Saint Benedict, everywhere proclaimed the Gospel and illustrated by their lives the salutary provision of the Rule that “nothing is to be preferred to the work of God.” In this way the sacred liturgy, celebrated according to the Roman usage, enriched the faith and piety, as well as the culture, of numerous peoples. It is well known that in every century of the Christian era the Church’s Latin liturgy in its various forms has inspired countless saints in their spiritual life, confirmed many peoples in the virtue of religion and enriched their devotion. »

We sang it before the Introit at our EF Mass. It took the place of an organ interlude while we waited for Father to vest after the Asperges. It was quite nice.

As the chant historian Peter Jeffery states in his admirable book 'Translating Tradition' (which tears apart Liturgiam Authenticam) "Contrary to much popular belief the tropes were not banned by the Council of Trent - they were simply not included in the 1570 Missal..."

There is a Missal in Lambeth Palace Library from either 1574 or 1576 that has a musical appendix that includes several troped Kyrie settings and a troped Gloria for Marian feasts.

Until, Fr. Ron Krisman can show otherwise, I believe his suggestion that tropes are banned is in fact incorrect, and I challenge him to show the evidence from canons supporting that they are banned as a fact.

" Secondly: Summorum pontificum confirmed juridically that the Latin Church had lived for some four decades under the dominion of a lie. The Vetus Ordo had not been lawfully prohibited. Much persecution of devout priests and layfolk that took place during those decades is therefore now seen to have been vis sine lege [force without law]. For this so long to have been so true with regard to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, which lies at the heart of the Church's life, argues a profound illness deep within the Latin Church. And the Big Lie was reinforced by multitudes of Little Lies ... that the Council mandated reordered Sanctuaries ... that the Council mandated exclusive use of the vernacular ... The de facto situation created by the Big Lie and the Little Lies combined ought not to be regarded as normative. Its questionable parentage must give it a degree of provisionality, even (perhaps especially) to those who find it comfortable to live with. The onslaught upon the Franciscans of the Immaculate suggests that there are those, high in the Church's administration, who have still internalised neither the juridical findings of Summorum pontificum nor its pastoral call for harmony."

One can compare in many aspects of reforms associated with the Holy Ecumenical Council of Trent to the reforms associated with Second Ecumenical Sacred Council of the Vatican. In both cases, popular consensus does not represent reality.

Holy Tradition is bigger than you or I. It is an unstoppeable timeless force for good.

To bump or not to bump,
that is the question
which from every good chum
an answer beckons.
True, when in a slump
the forum seems to be,
to get us over the hump
one can with glee
into the archives jump
and sort of reckon
that his favourite lump
of long gone pickins
will all doldrums trump,
and, as a beacon,
guide us past the stump
of topical ennui
to thus from scholastic dumps
our spirits free.

(This is in no way a grump over Ben's bump.
Rarely has a bump been so cleverly, yea, so smartly,
so sensibly and appropriately pumped from out the bowels of our archival dump.)

May this Adventine introit the harbinger of a new year of chant growth in all our churches be!

Thanks, Ben.
(Perhaps this scrumptious bump should become an annual Advent Sunday treat.)

But we now use the Tridentine Missal..., o.k. some of us could use the Sarum that of course still has tropes of the Ordinary.

Does any Missal still in use have a troped Ordinary?

Of course the the Trope referenced above is a Troped proper, of which a whole volume of the Analecta Hymnica is dedicated.

Anyway we sang this again this year (it is before Mass so does not effect the Rubrics)

*bumpity bump bump*

We are singing this at our Society chapel next Sunday. Right before the Introit. Found this out today, right after we locked down our polyphonic mass for Midnight Christmas SOLID. (This is what happens when you have six former choir directors in your choir.) It's great to be alive.