Making the Graduale Romanum accessible to most parish choirs

PeterJ

Dear all,

It strikes me that a big roadblock to using the OF Graduale Romanum in the parish setting is the sheer volume of chant that needs to be learnt for any given Mass.

The GR chant, in small doses, is quite doable for many cantors/choirs (if they have a little experience of chant already, e.g. from singing the Ordinary) - I believe the problem for most choirs is the sheer volume of the content, which is quite intimidating.

I have been wondering - looking at the Introit and Offertory in particular - whether it might be possible to truncate the antiphon and shifting the remaining text into a psalm tone. This might sound a little brutal, but for the Introit especially, to my ear, the chant for most antiphons have a point mid-way through when they can be reasonably satisfactorily ended (perhaps with a little minor tweaking in a few instances to help this along).

I attach an example for 1 Advent - what do people think? I have "cut-off" both the Introit and the Offertory. I envisage the antiphon being sung at the start, after "Verse" 1 and 3. (I have also simplified the Offertory just a little bit for the choir I have in mind.) I have used the Office psalm tone for the Offertory "Verses" as I think this works well with the meditative nature of the more melismatic Offertory chant (and nicely contrasts with it).

(I am not looking at the Communio as I figure most choirs already have communion motets and communion hymns in their repertoire, so just singing the Communio on a psalm tone seems a pretty good solution. I have not done anything to the Gradual or Alleluia as I think most parishes - including the one I have in mind - would just use a responsorial psalm for the former and a simple setting for the latter.)

My motto here is that the best should not be the enemy of the good.

What do people think?

Kind regards

P

Update: 30/11/12. New version attached for Advent I-IV. (On Advent IV I have gone off-piste a little.) Alas I have not had time to put in organ parts too.

Protasius

For Gradual and Alleluja one could use the Simplified Gradual by Richard Rice.

Patricia Cecilia

Peter, in Latin (EF) for the Graduals, Alleluias, and Tracts, that work is already done in the Chants Abrégés, which you can download from Musicasacra
here.

There are helpful comments in the pdf, mostly translations of the French directions (good translations :-).

There is also the Rossini Propers of the Mass, which are all the Liber Usualis chants set to psalm tones, with sets of five-to-six Sundays having the same tone for all of the Introits, all of the Graduals and Alleluias (set to one tone), et cetera. These have organ accompaniments, so that you can always use the same tones with English texts or a combination of Latin and vernacular.

A similar work in English is The English Gradual of Palmer and Burgess (the same psalm tone for every Introit, every Gradual, every Alleluia etc; all in modern notation). Their corresponding work of putting Douai-Rheims/KJV-style English to the actual LU melodies is The Plainsong Psalter (Gregorian notation). The version of TEG for the NO propers is C. David Burt's The Anglican Use Gradual (Gregorian notation).

All of the above except The English Gradual (which is superceeded for the NO by the AUG) are downloadable from Musicasacra.com at http://musicasacra.com/communio/.

It all depends on where you want/need to start and if you want to use Latin, English, or a combination.

PeterJ

Patricia, I hadn't seen the Chants Abrégés before, so thanks for that. This certainly looks an excellent resource if you want more manageable Graduals, Alleluias, and Tracts for the EF.

However, I suppose the point of my posting was more to look at the Introit and Offertory for the OF and to ask whether truncation of the Introit and Offertory antiphon chant could be used to make the Introit/Offertory GR chants a bit more accessible for most parish choirs - something of a cross between Rossini's Propers and the Graduale itself.

francis

look at adam bartlets new missal. i believe he did exactly what you are hoping to do.

PeterJ

I am thinking more about truncating the actual chant found in the Graduale Romanum (rather than just truncating the text and setting it to new music). So, as in the example attached above, the GR chant for Int "Ad te levavi" follows the actual chant given in the GR but comes to a stop after "non erubescam" where (it seems to me) there is a natural break in the chant. The remaining text of the antiphon is then put into the solemn psalm tone ("neque irrideant me...non confundentur").

The idea being that if you can do this with the Introit (and similarly with the Offertory, perhaps with a "sensitive" simplification of some of the more tricky melismas) you create a sort of "stepping stone" into the GR itself: you reduce the sheer volume of chant that confronts you when you try to learn the GR chants for a Mass, but you also end up singing something which is pretty close to being the real thing.

I would say that most parish choirs I work with (who have a little experience chanting) could probably manage to learn the truncated Int and Off versions I attached above during rehearsal (maybe two rehearsals) alongside practicing the usual stuff (a communion motet, responsorial psalm, hymns, Ordinaries, etc), whereas there's no way they could learn the full Int and Off from the GR - not without an unrealistic number of rehearsals! I wonder if others feel the same.

I appreciate that there's a lot of fantastic resources (both old and new) out there for singing the Propers (e.g. Rossini, SEP, Lumen Christi Missal, etc). But surely getting into the actual chant of the GR itself remains the long-term objective here? This is what I'm thinking about really; whether we can get closer to this objective specifically (even if singing the full GR will remain permanently out of reach for most of us)?

Just wondering what people thought if this approach (and whether it has been done before for the Int and Off).

Ted

Peter:
I agree with what you are trying to do in principle, to eventually sing the full GR, using this stepping stone approach. My only reserve would be where you break to resume on the psalm tone. In the case of Ad te levavi, your break is on the final of that mode, so it works out. That may not be possible with some other introits, as it would mess up their modality.

Perhaps another way would be to provisionally use the Rossini propers as the main music source, but have the choir learn a full GR introit regularly according to their abilities and the amount of time it would take. Eventually you will get a GT repertoire going, as most of the chants recur yearly. This will take time, in terms of years.

Either way, I think that once a choir gets used to singing from the GT, it will become easier and easier the next times.

ProfKwasniewski

I think everyone here is aware of the potential problems of abbreviating the authentic chants. It seems that if you are in a situation where you are permitted to do the full chants, it would be better to take time to learn EITHER the Introit OR the Offertory in full, rather than curtailing them. The chants have a certain musical, theological, and liturgical integrity as they stand; their lengths are (more or less) perfect for the liturgical action of a solemn Mass, particularly when augmented by verses.

That being said, if there is a situation where you are able to sing the Latin propers and yet the singers are not yet capable of singing them in full or of learning them in time for the Mass, your approach is better than English propers of any description or Rossini propers in Latin. This, because Latin is the Church's language, and these chants are the Church's chants par excellence. Retaining the language and the chant idiom already gives your project the right ethos for the Mass.

Where I, personally, see a huge benefit in your hybrid is for those rare situations where DAILY Mass is chanted by a Schola -- as occurs at Wyoming Catholic College on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, when the Schola sings the Introit, Offertory, and Communion for the Ordinary Form. Sometimes the Introit and Offertory chants can be too long for a daily Mass without incense. Precisely this week, the 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time, the Introit ("In voluntate tua") and the Offertory ("Vir erat") leave the priest waiting for quite some time, which leaves me feeling that the antiphons are sort of taking over instead of accompanying the liturgical action. Fortunately the priest doesn't mind, but if I had a choice to sing a simplified Offertory along the lines you've given samples of, I would do so.

In short: if you prepare more of these, could you send them to me? I'd put them to good use!

Mark P.

Remember, in the OF, the Introit can be shortened to the antiphon alone, if necessary. I can quote chapter and verse from the GR if required.

john m

I think rather than truncating any chants, I would prefer to use the available rehearsal time to learn complete and authentic chants as they appear in the Graduale, but perhaps prioritize them, using the options offered in the GIRM for the other Propers. For example, sing the Communio from the Graduale every Sunday (these are the shortest, easiest chants in the book and singing the proper Communio every week is well within the bounds of possibility), chant the Introit and Offertory on feasts and Sundays when there is incense, and the rest of the time use simpler settings such as the SEP or the Simple Choral Gradual. As the singers build up a repertoire, begin to move beyond this minimum.

I think there is a case to be made for having some choir members form a Schola, with its own weekly rehearsal slot, to concentrate just on the Graduale. Not every volunteer choir member necessarily wants to spend the entire rehearsal on Graduale chants every week - most of them joined because they want to sing actual choral music. Propose a schola, a subgroup of the choir, for singers who are really interested in chant. They can handle the more difficult chants. The full choir can be asked to learn some chants throughout the year but concentrate their efforts on the Ordinary and on polyphony. There is no conflict between schola and choir - any choir member who wishes to join the schola is free to do so. That way, the Propers are being addressed and everybody is happy. We've been operating on this basis in my parish for about 12 years without a problem.

Ben

You might also look into the graduale simplex. It seems to be something that might be just what you're looking for. I'm attaching some of the antiphons from Advent, Mass I as an example of the overall level of the chants.

(Yes, I'm aware of the double-clef issue in the Offertory, this is obviously not as the book portrays it. This is just a very quick rendering.)

Graduale Simplex - Mass I (In, Of, Co)

Carl D

I like John M's approach, we've been doing some of that. When we just don't have time for the entire scholar to learn everything, we limit the numbers. Just the women sing the verses, just one cantor sing the verse on the Gospel Acclamation, etc. Everybody gets a chance to sing, but not so much as to melt down.

canadash

As someone in a choir with newbie chanters, and in a parish with some reluctant chanters, I think this is marvelous. Thank you! Please post, or let me know where I can find them!

ProfKwasniewski

PeterJ,

Any chance you'll be posting these here or somewhere on a regular basis, or is this just experimental?

Peter

PeterJ

Thanks to everyone for lots of interesting and helpful comments! I, too, am not suggesting this is in any way ideal, but simply that this could be a useful tool for certain circumstances, and a useful stepping stone.

May I pick up on just one or two of the thoughts so far (working my way down the thread)?

Ted - yes, you are right: there are some antiphons where there needs to be a little bit of sensitive "tweaking" at the point where the proposed break in the antiphon occurs in order to truncate it reasonably happily. But so far I haven't spotted too many that are all that troublesome to do this with (perhaps I am being over-confident?). For those antiphons which may be difficult or undesirable to cut off like this, another solution would seem sensible if the GR seems a little out of reach (e.g. a Rossini Proper, or something along those lines).

(I am uneasy with the idea of "tweaking", by the way, so this isn't something I suggest lightly; but I figure it may be a better alternative to this wonderful book just sitting on my shelf gathering dust!)

ProfK - thank you very much for your comments. I think you have touched on just the scenario I have in mind in your second para. I'm thinking of a situation where the musicians are probably a bit short of time, and perhaps not quite experienced enough to pull off a full Introit, for example, and would perhaps be overly daunted by it. (Hmm... this rather sounds like a good description of me!)

I understand your point that curtailment inevitably damages the musical and liturgical integrity (although I hope not critically so). However, as the remaining text of the antiphon is not lost (it is put into a psalm tone) and the text is broken at a natural hinge, may I suggest that the theological integrity of the Proper is not particularly affected? I suppose it does unbalance things a little by perhaps "de-emphasising" some of the antiphon text by moving it to a psalm tone, but nothing too severe, I hope?

Yes, I would be very happy to churn out some more. I can't properly focus on this until mid-November though, if I may ask for some more time before I come back with more?

john m - I too like the idea of focusing on the more "accessible" Communio, but as many parish choirs/cantors of my experience have nice communion pieces lined up (and communion hymns, of course) I think this leaves us with something of a glut of resources for Communion (not a bad thing, of course!) but something of a drought for the Introit and Offertorium. Particularly the Offertorium.

Ben - thanks for posting those for people to use. You have anticipated me a bit here because I was going to use the GS chant Adv II Int (Rorate caeli) for the appropriate Sunday in Adv. Rorate caeli is an example of a GS chant which is just that bit longer, and has a bit more too it, than the other GS chants. However, although I respect the GS, I have issues with it, which I would prefer not air just right now (and in any event I suspect it will soon be superseded by the Graduale Parvum).

canadash - I will do my best to post more (as I say above, this might need to wait a few weeks though).

Thanks again for the comments so far. Please continue to chip in!

PeterJ

Sorry, ProfKwasniewski - I missed your last comment before posting the above. I guess my motive here is to gauge opinions before taking things further (and to see if anyone knows of this having been done already). I hope to have a shot at working on some more in a few weeks time.

canadash

Thanks for the response Peter. Your work is much appreciated.

ProfKwasniewski

Splendid. If you do generate more, please drop me a line at
pak@wyomingcatholiccollege.com.

I'm likely to see your posts here, but I don't visit the forum very consistently.

And to your question above, I don't think the theological integrity of the prayers is damaged in the least when the full antiphon is given. Perhaps I would say that the subtle musical interpretation of the prayer is not fully present, but this is far from being a deal-breaker, otherwise the Church would not even permit the texts to be sung as motets or as psalm tones.

Richard Mix

The theological integrity of the text is also respected if one adopts a tree-friendly approach by passing out the original chant, learning as much as proves feasible in the given rehearsal time, and continuing to the end recto-tono. After all, why use a one-size-fits-all model when it comes to dumbing down? :-P

Other strategies that have been tried include adapting all texts to the Gaudeamus tune, as the California missionary Narciso Duran did, and adding once-a-month choral propers, as we are starting to do at St. David's. As I may have mentioned, I'm not a fan of psalmtones.

hartleymartin

The text of the chants is what remains most important. You can chant them recto tono if need be, but this is meant to be a last resort before not having chant at all.

Using Psalm Tones for the entire chant makes sense. It is an adaption of traditional church music, especially if the antiphons are beyond the current capabilities of a parish choir. Vatican II did call for simplified typical editions suitable for use in parishes, and several options have arisen, but there is no standard version yet.

Hence, I am generally in favour of falling back on a Psalm tone if the chant is too challenging for a parish choir.

john m

PeterJ - we chant the Communio proper immediately after the Domine non sum dignus. At that point the celebrant is communicating himself and in most parishes nothing else is happening at that moment. It is a moment made-to-order for the introduction of chant, since no one can object to having any singing taken away from them. We generally conclude the chant as the people rise to go to Communion, and switch to a Communion hymn or psalm with an antiphon.

MaryAnn Carr Wilson

Peter, I think it would be better to chant the full Introit OR Offertory than truncate both. What you are describing to me seems rather awkward.

I'll tell you what has been working for my schola. (IIRC, it was Prof. Mahrt's suggestion.) When I took my current job as DoM, I was tasked with implementing full propers. The choir had been singing the Gregorian Introit and Rossini for everything else.

I've been adding one proper per year, taking considerable time to study each genre within the proper chants.

Coming in half way through the year, in '09 we solidified Introits and worked on style. In '09-'10 we learned all the Gregorian Communions, sang the Offertory psalm-tone, and used the Chants abreges for the Gradual, Tract, and Alleluia. In '10-'11, we tackled the Offertory. These were such a step up in difficulty from the Introit and Communion, we spent '11-'12 reviewing. In retrospect I would have introduced the Alleluia before the Offertory. This year we are off to a very good start with the Alleluia.

It's been musically rewarding, interesting from a liturgical point of study, and team-building to take on one new proper every year. My .02.

IanW

"When I took my current job as DoM, I was tasked with implementing full propers."

That's the critical thing: a parish taking on a musician with the appropriate competence and pointing them in the right direction. The rest follows.

Mark P.

@MaryAnn: In my opinion, the Offertory in the GR can be very soloistic due to its melismas. I admire your chutzpah in taking these on.

PeterJ

I have attached an updated version for Advent I-IV to the original posting at the top of this thread.

It occurred to me that I could probably add in some side-by-side English versions using the texts from the Gregorian Missal. I have been looking at Mr Ford's excellent "American Gradual" and have used this to get some initial ideas for how to get the English texts to work properly when set to the abbreviated chants (but obviously I am using a quite different English translation, so the chants I have produced are different).

I thought that perhaps this could then act as a "stepping stone" not just into the GR, but also potentially into Mr Ford's wonderful book (for those who use the vernacular).

Here's a little example from 30 Ordinary Time.

What's the verdict - any more comments? Could this be useful?

Adam Wood

Potentially a wonderful resource. I'd like to see where this goes.

What program are using for engraving? The typesetting is a little funky, which might limit its mass appeal.

PeterJ

My typesetting method is enormously backward, I'm afraid, Adam. I'm using a very old music notation program (which I've used for yonks and I like because of its flexibility) but it doesn't deal all that well with text. So I'm using good old Word to help things along (shock, horror!).

I can probably try and iron out the bits that seem particularly "funky" - now would be the perfect time for me to sort them out. May I ask what in particular strikes you as unappealing or odd in the formatting?

Adam Wood

The first thing I noticed was the shape of ties and slurs.
The lyric extensions are dashed.
The spacing of notes/words is wonky.
Some staff lines are thicker/darker than others.
Drop caps on music collide with the staff that follows.

May I suggest:
http://lilypond.org/

Ben

I would also suggest lilypond for this project if you plan to publish it. It creates very nice scores.

Adam Wood

The other wonderful thing about Lilypond is that the files you work with are text-based, and so can be open-sourced much easier.

PeterJ

OK chaps, so I've put the project on hold in order to take a look at lilypond, and thanks for the suggestion. I'm afraid I haven't found it as nice and intuitive as GABC and Gregorio. How long does it normally take you to churn out a score on lilypond (in this sort of modern-take-on-square-notation-esque sort of form)? How long did it take you to get up to speed with the program?

My problem is that I'd dearly like to press ahead with this project but I feel in something of a quandary. There seems little point in me churning out a whole ton of material using my GUI if people think it isn't well presented. But on the other hand, I'm pretty speedy with my GUI method, and so I could realistically make progress with this project in what little time I have to do it in. If it takes more than a few minutes to program a lilypond score then I am going to struggle to get anywhere with this.

chonak

Well, it takes more than a few minutes to produce a score with any program. This took me 15 minutes with Lilypond:

CHGiffen

It surprises me a little that, with the ease of use and appeal that GABC has for chant engraving, more people aren't using ABC notation for traditional notation. Like, LilyPond and GABC, the user prepares the music to be engraved in a text file. For single voice music, such as chant rendered in modern notation, GABC is probably just as easy to use as LilyPond. Of course, GABC can be used to engrave more complex music, such as polyphonic choral music.

PeterJ

Chonak - thanks for that, may I ask if you could share your code for that example?
(and by the way thank you for your wonderful online Gregorio engraving page)

PeterJ

...and on another note, if anyone else out there likes the idea of an Abbreviated Roman Gradual, and would like to collaborate, I would be delighted - just drop me a message via this forum. Happy Christmas to all. P

chonak

Hi, PeterJ--

You can pick up the file at this link.

Incidentally, I used the "frescobaldi" program, an editor for lilypond files, to create it. To add the verses, I would create a separate lilypond file; and then use the "lilypond-book" software to combine the two into a single document.

irishtenor

For what it's worth, I didn't have any problem at all using the scores that PeterJ has produced so far. There are some things that aren't perfect about them (Adam Wood's critiques are valid) but they're definitely acceptable for use, in my opinion.

PeterJ

Thank you to everyone who has provided useful comments on the formatting. I've spent quite a bit of time putting some lilypond code together which seems to be producing some really nice results.

Some more chants for (the fast-approaching) Ordinary Time will follow very soon in the new and improved format!

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