Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (in English)
  • aria
    Posts: 85
    I'm hoping to find the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary in English. Bonus points if it tracks the LU. I came across something here (which I can't find now) that was two pages and showed both Latin and English side-by-side. It's a good start for me but doesn't have the text as nicely lined-up under the notes as in the Liber. If I have to, I'll go ahead and do my own but even then I run into a problem... where's the music for the text at the end? (That is to say, what music do I use starting with "Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God..." and right on through to the end?) If weren't already obvious I'll just come out and say that I'm a chant newbie, so my apologies in advance for such a basic question. Thanks!
  • JonathanKKJonathanKK
    Posts: 542
    After the "Lamb of God" section of the litany, what you have is a versicle and a prayer ; in the Liber Usualis, the tones for such things are in the section "Common Tones of the Mass" or "Common Tones of the Office".

    For the versicle: LU p. 118. You want the third option, for use "in all other cases".

    For the prayer: LU p. 101. You want option b), the "Simple Tone". Note how + and * are used to indicate the different cadences; these are marked in the prayer already.

    Unnecessary footnote #1: for the prayer after the litany, the other option would be to use the "second ferial tone" as described on p. 99. Basically, the whole prayer is sung recto tono, but you drop a minor third at the end of the prayer, and the end of the conclusion.

    Unnecessary (and geeky) footnote #2: However, technically, in the second ferial tone, you pause at the colon and the semi-colon, rather than at the + and * which are marked for use with the simple tone. This is because you follow the directions for the first ferial tone, which call for pauses at the * and + as in the festal tone, and in the festal tone, these cadences are done at the colon and semi-colon.

    Vale in Domino,

    Jonathan






  • aria
    Posts: 85
    THANK YOU, Jonathan! Sorry for my late reply, I haven't had a chance to check this board in a few days, but please know how very grateful I am for you taking the time to spell this out for me!
  • davido
    Posts: 873
    Attached is a score I just did for our May crowning.

    Also attached is the version I was told that we were doing. Not sure where it comes from, but typography style is that of an official book.
    Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.pdf
    35K
    Litany of Mary.pdf
    270K
    Thanked by 1Don9of11
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,945
    So strange. That's not the official text, not by a long shot, and it's rather strange to see abbreviations, then entirely new invocations.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    It looks it was excerpted from the USCCB publication "Celebrating the Marian Year", 1987.

    Here's another, larger, set of excerpts:
    https://www.guerincatholic.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Rite-of-May-Crowning-USCCB.pdf
    (see pp. 8-10 for the litany; this version also contains unfamiliar titles).
    Thanked by 1Don9of11
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Davido,

    Semi approved or not, I think you should avoid using that version. Several parts of the theology are wrong, and some of those invocations show that the composer had a tin ear.
  • Arthur Connick
    Posts: 494
    There were three invocations added to the official text in June 2020 which are included in Matthew's link. Any editions from prior will be missing these.
  • davido
    Posts: 873
    Update for this year's May Crowning, now setting the official text linked by Matthew above.

    In C to match the ICEL missal style, and in G in case you want to accompany it in a lower key.
    Litany_of_Loreto.pdf
    37K
    Litany_of_Loreto - lower key.pdf
    37K
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