Personal introduction and Office hymns request
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    Hi, folks. I'm a new registrant who's been reading this forum for a few years as I try to resume a lapsed habit of saying the Liturgy of the Hours. I've also been trying to teach myself chant and this seemed like a good place to learn about it. I have a lot of you to thank for the resources you've contributed here and in other places, especially Steven van Roode for his LotH booklets, Kathleen Pluth for her beautiful hymn translations and Joerg Hudelmaier for his countless gregobase transcriptions.

    I don't know how to ping Kathy directly here so I wanted to post a general call here in hope she sees it, as I'd like to request some of her hymn translations, namely for the Annunciation tomorrow, and the Lent and Easter hymns. I sent an email a few weeks back to the address she posted here but it went unanswered.

    Finally, I wanted to ask if it would be appropriate to share pdfs I came across of the draft translations of the upcoming ICEL texts for the LotH (hymns, intercessions, antiphons). No skullduggery was involved in attaining these; they are on the open internet and I found them with Google (and you can too by searching "icel gray book hymns"). If I could dare to offer an opinion on their hymns, I find them to be dry, bloodless blank verse that are not going to incentivize a flowering of the sung English office. But nevertheless I felt the curious might like to see them anyway and judge for themselves.

    Hope you all have a nice weekend.
  • Fr_Buffer
    Posts: 13
    DCM, I don't have Kathy Pluth's contact information, but I'm sure someone in the forum will be able to help you. If you are interested in alternative translations of the LotH hymns, I have translated a number of them into verse, and you're welcome to take a look at this link:
    https://www.ubiclaritas.com/translations/

    Thanked by 1chonak
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,148
    If you click on the Kathy link (also found on any of her comments here), you will be taken to her profile page here, where there is an option to send her a PM (private message). Your private message will also be emailed to her, and it should elicit a response.
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 516
    Well, those aren’t final, so I wouldn’t spend too much time with them. The hymns went to the printers yesterday, so I hope to see them available for purchase in the near future.

    For the psalmody, we know the APC will be used in the US, so that leaves the antiphons—but I expect changes have also happened there since the grey books.
    Thanked by 1drforjc
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    I'm glad to hear there have been changes. I hope the musical settings have been revised as well, since many of the attempts to adapt the translation to the chant melodies were quite poor (Audi benigne conditor's was shockingly, nails-on-chalkboard bad).

    Thank you for sharing those, Fr Buffer! "Sol ecce lentus" is one of my favorites in the whole repertoire and your version is lovely.
    Thanked by 1Fr_Buffer
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    Kathleen Pluth has a website now, at https://kathleenpluth.com/ , with contact information and examples of her work.
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