Seasonal Psalm Tones? - Lent, Easter
  • probe
    Posts: 96
    Currently, about once every five weeks, I chant the Responsorial Psalm (which otherwise is simply read) and I find the Bévenot Tone 1 easy for English text. I am now wondering if the eight Gregorian psalm tones are applicable at any time, or are there some suited to penitential seasons like Advent and Lent, or joyful times like Easter? I remember from a previous discussion that one caution is that they are designed for Latin stress patterns and are hard to adapt to the random stresses of English. In particular, whichever I pick has to be easy enough to fashion a phrase for the Response to be heard by the (largely non-singing) congregation once or twice and then taken up in the response to the psalm verses.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,537
    FWIW, I've never heard of the Gregorian tones having a *seasonal* character. Even the Tonus Peregrinus, perhaps casually associated by some people with penitential texts, is paired with non-penitential texts.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,356
    The tonus peregrinus is penitential because of its composition and usage by certain composers for falsobordone settings. But it’s regularly used with ps 113 on Sundays (Mondays for the Benedictines) and then in certain offices of feasts with the Benedicite or psalm 112.

    The tones don’t have a seasonal or festive or penitential character per se. The same tone 2 used for the Benedictus of the office of the dead and the burial rite is used again with the Magnificat of the Circumcision (this is where it’s helpful to not conflate tone and mode: I would agree that the Ego sum is from a branch of the family that is more mournful than the Magnum haereditatis). Tone 8 shows up at both Tenebrae and on feasts.

    Tone 8 probably works best in English if one must use the vernacular, but beware of monosyllabic endings especially at the mediant.
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  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,945
    We use seasonal Gospel Acclamations, but in general I (too) think the tones are better matched to the appointed Psalm. A model for making English Responsorial Psalms out of Gregorian tones is Richard Crocker's Gradual Psalms and The Plainsong Psalter. While free to preview, Arlene Oost-Zinner's The Parish Book of Psalms adopts a seasonal plan and a more cumbersome unpointed layout.
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  • Gregorian
    Posts: 9
    Am I right in understanding that you are looking to write your own Gregorian Psalm tone settings of the Responsorial Psalms in English?

    Unfortunately I have not been able to find a music resource for the Novus Ordo that uses the genuine Gregorian Psalm tones but with English text. Fr. Weber's Propers do make an effort to implement this for Introits/"Entrance Antiphons" and Communions, which proves that it can be done. Unfortunately, his edition has nowhere near as many verses of the Psalms as other resources, for example the Simple English Propers (but these resources in turn have other issues, such as not using the original Psalm tones). After taking a brief look, it seems that The Parish Book of Psalms that Richard Mix has linked above does a reasonable job of setting the English as well, but again, perhaps could do with more verses.

    As a result, a colleague and myself are working to compile a volume of genuinely Gregorian Psalm toned verses to suit the Antiphons in Fr. Weber's Propers. We are also including Gregorian Psalm toned Responsorial Psalm Antiphons and their verses to try and plug this gap. From my very brief experience with this so far, I think the key is to understand where the cadences of the Psalm tones are supposed to land relative to syllables in the text, when trying to fit the tones to English. (e.g. how many syllables from the end does the terminatio begin, and which syllables do each neume land on?)

    This is something that I don't understand very well yet, so have started a thread to look into it. The Psalm toned Doxologies that you can find in the front of the Liber Usualis have served as a good starting point for this and have given satisfactory results so far, but I have a suspicion that it is more technical than this.

    In any case, I think training choirs with Gregorian Psalm toned Propers and Psalm verses is a key stepping stone in training them to sing the more complex chants found in the Graduale Romanum (so that they develop an "ear" for the different modes - the English tones don't seem to work as well for training inexperienced singers). So I wish you well with this project!
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,537
    Unfortunately I have not been able to find a music resource for the Novus Ordo that uses the genuine Gregorian Psalm tones but with English text.



    That is what Theodore Marier did in his setting of psalms and scriptural canticles in Hymns, Psalms and Spiritual Canticles.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,356
    I think people should just start singing in Latin but I will say that the rules for pointing psalmody are in the antiphonal and the Liber Usualis. Those may be applied with more or less acceptable results in the vernacular. But you seem to be asking about the more ornate tone used for the Mass.
  • probe
    Posts: 96
    Thank you all! I'm not looking to compose, just wondering if I should use a specific tone for different seasons. Now I know there's no connection.
    This is strictly vernacular, it's the reading of the responsorial psalm in English at Mass in a small town parish. I'm the only one of the readers who does that, the rest simply read. No choir involved though I do ask the Schola to sing the one line response to each verse to encourage the congregation to join in. The Schola otherwise sing the Kyriale and one communion hymn, nothing for the Propers. So far we know Mass VIII, about to start XVIII for Lent. Lots to learn!
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