A chicken-and-egg question: which chant came first?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    We've got an ordination here in Boston on Saturday morning (9 a.m. on CatholicTV.com), and we will be singing the introit Sacerdotes eius, from the 1974 Graduale Romanum on p. 448, with this text:

    Sacerdotes eius induant salutare, et sancti eius exsultatione exsultabunt.

    While looking for it last night in a couple of books, I found that it doesn't appear in the 1961 Graduale, but a very similar piece, Sacerdotes Sion, does appear, with this text:

    Sacerdotes Sion induam salutari, et Sancti ejus exsultatione exsultabunt, dicit Dominus:
    illuc producam cornu David, paravi lucernam Christo meo.

    The melody for the shorter piece is like that of the longer one, telescoped.

    Looking a little further, I found that Sacerdotes eius was taken from the 1908 Graduale, where it was on August 2 (St. Stephen I, Pope and Martyr). His observance was reduced to a commemoration in the 1961 Liber and Graduale, and the piece went away for a while. Then it was brought back in the Ordo Cantus Missae, while Sacerdotes Sion seems to have been dropped.

    Does anyone know about the relation of these two pieces? I suppose one must have been constructed from the other, but which?
  • Paul_OnnonhoaratonPaul_Onnonhoaraton
    Posts: 434
    MASS AND VESPERS usually includes a reference to "adapted" chants, telling where each came from. That is the only "practical" book I know which gives such a reference.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    The 1957 Mass and Vespers doesn't appear to have either piece.
    Thanked by 1Paul_Onnonhoaraton
  • SkirpRSkirpR
    Posts: 854
    In the editions from the 1970s editions onward, Solesmes seems to have been reluctant to include neo-Gregorian compositions unless absolutely necessary, substituting authentic Gregorian compositions with similar texts in those situations.

    My guess, based on this is that Sacerdotes Sion is the adaptation.
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    Sacerdotes eius is authentic.
    Thanked by 2SkirpR CHGiffen
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