Cistercian hymnals
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    Are either the 1909 or 1952 Cistercian hymnals online as pdfs? I found a wayback link to a defunct site with scans of the 1952, but only the illegibly small thumbnails have been preserved. Gregobase appears to have scans of both, but like all their scans these are small images (480x663, nearing the limit of readability on a large PC monitor), not available as a combined document in a larger size.

    If someone here has it, would you be able to upload it (assuming there aren't permissions or copyrights preventing doing so)? I appreciate the help.
  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 350
    Every now and then I find myself missing the website and contemplating the idea of reaching out to the priest who as a seminarian once created and ran it and trying to arrange for reviving it (would he be willing to run it if someone else was paying the bills? would he be willing to hand over the data for someone else to run it?), but my need for the books was never so urgent as to actually do anything.
    But, to my knowledge, splendorveritatis.org never provided the whole books as documents, just a web interface for browsing large resolution scans of individual pages.

    I suspect the books may be available in the order-internal forum on Cistercian liturgy. https://www.liturgia-ocist.org/ It may be worth trying to request access or to ask for the books there specifically.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 411
    I do have the Nocturnale and Diurnale from that site as PDFs if that is useful to you. Altogether they are over one gigabyte.
    Thanked by 2DCM Chrism
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    Yes, I'd appreciate that, Gerald. Thank you!

    As I sing the hymns of the LotH and look for recordings, I find myself noticing interesting variations here and there. So I like to consult sources with different melodies of the same text, to keep things interesting. The no-longer-updated http://chantblog.blogspot.com offered melodies as found in the various Sarum uses and the Lutheran liturgy. The melodies are pretty close to the Liber Hymnarius, but with slight melodic changes, and frequently assigned to different texts. Aeterne Rex altissime (Office of Readings, Ascension), as used in the Sarum hymnal, is mostly the same but a wee bit more melismatic.

    I wonder what thoughts go into assigning a melody to a text? I've found at least three different settings of Deus, creator omnium out there.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 411
    .
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    @DCM When it comes to melodies we have Seasonal melodies. So the Hymns of the little hours would be sung to the Advent or Christmas melody.

    Other antiphonals have melodies based on rank of Feast. So the Dominicans have different melodies for the same hymn that would be sung on say Doubles...

    Some Antiphonals have a limited choice of melodies, so they are reused for different hymns more often.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 411
    After over 5 hours of uploading time:
    Diurnale
    Nocturnale
    Thanked by 3DCM CHGiffen AngelaR
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    Yikes, I'm sorry it took so long! But thank you kindly!
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    I've processed the two PDF files with a utility to reduce their size, so you can download the reduced versions at these links:
    Nocturnale
    Diurnale

    Thanked by 5GerardH CHGiffen ServiamScores DCM AngelaR
  • DCM
    Posts: 70
    That's very helpful, chonak, thank you.
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