Pontifical Commission on Gregorian Chant
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 534
    I’ve just found a reference in a text to the above-named Commission’s wish, apparently expressed in 1904, for a gradual for the use of small churches.

    Has anyone come across an original document on this point?
  • I'd love to know more abut this.
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,096
    Seems to be taken from minutes of the Pontifical Commission on Gregorian Chant (September 8, 1904). See https://www.scribd.com/document/44998405/Chants-Abreges. Source: Pierre Combe, The Restoration of Gregorian Chant. Solesmes & The Vatican Edition (Washington DC, 2003), p. 292
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,652
    Dom Janssens—with his eye toward the common practices of present-day liturgy—on 8 September 1904 “suggested preparing an abridged edition” for smaller churches [Combe p292]. Indeed, at the suggestion of Dr. Wagner, the Pontifical Commission on Gregorian Chant decided to create “more or less ornate recitative formulas to be adopted for the simple chanting of the Graduals, Tracts, and Alleluia verses” (Resultion #27, September 1904). This was never brought to fruition, but twenty yers later the “Chants Abrégés” would complete their desire. These easier formulæ are being mentioned here because they seem consistent with proponents of the “practices of present-day liturgy.” Indeed, Dom Horn even seconded Dr. Wagner’s motion that the chants between the Epistle and Gospel could be omitted in “small churches in non-Latin countries” [Combe p292]. • You will want to read the 29 June 1906 letter which Dom Janssens sent to Max Springer on behalf of Pope Pius X. [ https://www.ccwatershed.org/2022/11/09/vatican-commission-on-gregorian-chant-biographies-on-its-members/ ]
    The ref. to Combe is to The Restoration of Gregorian Chant: Solesmes and the Vatican Edition. This book was originally published by Dom Pierre Combe (a monk of Solesmes) in the 1960s.
    Thanked by 2FSSPmusic CHGiffen
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 534
    Many thanks, svanroode and a_f_hawkins.

    I don’t know that I’d draw the line as neatly between the Commission’s expressed wishes and ‘Chants Abreges’ as is set out above though. It is certainly one set of “more or less ornate recitative formulas” but not the only solution. I wonder what the ‘more’ ornate formulas would have been. The Simplex produced decades later points to a deep quarry for exploration.
    Thanked by 1Paul F. Ford