Gregorian Alleluias (OF)
  • jpal
    Posts: 365
    Before I reinvent the wheel --

    Has anyone compiled all the discrete alleluia melodies in one place (without their verse formulas)? If not, does anyone at least know how many unique melodies are rotated throughout the OF liturgical cycle?

    I'm wondering if it is worth it to compile all the alleluia melodies in one file, teach all of them at the beginning of the season, and then just review each one as it comes up. I would just give the cantor(s) the copies with the verses, and everyone else can have their master copy with their markings etc. However, if there are too many unique melodies, it won't be worth it.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Are to talking about the Melismatic Alleluias from the GR, or the Three-fold Alleluias from the Simplex or Antiphonale?

    PRIMA PARS

    I did some work in trying to find how many Alleluia melodies are in the GR (my table for this is sitting on my desk at home, so I may have to double check a few things) and these (roughly) are my findings:

    A few recycled many times (the Mode VIII melody from Advent I; the Mode II melody from Christmas; and a Mode IV melody - these are all presented in the PBC-2nd ed.), some came up a couple of times (the mode VIII melody from Christmas Vigil; a Mode II melody in the Common of Saints; and a couple Mode VII melodies) many during ordinary time only came up once (mostly in Mode VII - all vaguely related becuase of the melodic formulae common to Mode VII, leaps of a fifth at the beginning, etc).

    Now, of the ones that repeated the most, mode VIII and mode II, those repetitions occurred mainly in the various parts of the common of saints; some of the repititions also occurred as the First Alleluia between the lesson and epistle during Paschal-tide, and would not be used if the Resp. Psalm is sung; so basically you're looking at learning something like 45 Jubiluses (Jubili ?) that only occur once during the year, which would be a lot to digest.

    We have been singing the Alleluias from the GR (almost) every day for the past couple of years, and thought about doing something similar to what you describe, i.e. having a booklet with them all so I can just say "today we will sing Alleluia 14"; but it seemed superfluous since "Alleluia 14" would only occur on one Sunday of the year, I found it better to just put it in the packet for the Sunday's Propers that I give to the Choir.

    SECVNDA PARS

    If you are talking about the "Simplex" alleluias, there is a page on the musicasacra site that has all of the Three-fold Alleluias from the Graduale Simplex listed. http://media.musicasacra.com/media2/alleluias-simplex.pdf. I think there are 12 melodies in various Modes and of various levels of difficulty, though all are, of course, simple.

    There are also eight Tripple Alleluias in the Lumen Christi Missal (one for each mode). These could obviously be learned easily at the beginning of the year and then pulled out when they are scheduled.

    FIN
    Thanked by 2jpal CatherineS
  • jpal
    Posts: 365
    I was indeed talking about the melismatic Mass alleluias in the GR. I had suspected that it was not a very realistic plan -- as your research demonstrates! Thank you very much for all that information; it actually answers a lot of things I was curious about.

    If you happen to have that table in a digital format and would not mind sharing it, I would love to see it.

    Jon
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,148
    If you happen to have that table in a digital format and would not mind sharing it, I would love to see it.

    As would I and presumably many others here.
    Thanked by 2Chris Allen BruceL
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,075
    starting a new thread based on this one -
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