Chants Abreges and its successor
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 568
    Having looked at both Chants Abgres and the volume that succeeded it in the 1950s, the two approaches seem in discontinuity with each other.

    Can anyone here account for this?
  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 443
    The latest edition of Chants abrégés known to Worldcat is 1949.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,681
    And the Graduale Simplex has a different approach again.
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 568
    Thank you, igneus… That would suggest that to consider the latter volume a successor to the former is a mischaracterisation.

    The principles behind the Simplex are quite different, not least of all because the propers are more properly termed ‘commons’, and the book prioritises any simple but ancient Gregorian form over a psalm tone for an antiphon.
    Thanked by 1novusgordo
  • igneusigneus
    Posts: 443
    So by "the volume that succeeded [Chants Abrégés] in the 1950s" you meant Graduale simplex? Graduale simplex was first published in 1967.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,681
    igneus - I assumed the reference was to https://media.churchmusicassociation.org/books/graduels_versets_alleluia_traits.pdf particularly because it has the same reference number 689 among Solesmes books.
    Thanked by 1igneus
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,681
    We know that the idea of simpler chants for small churches was dear to Bugnini's heart. And that he regarded his use of them in a poor Roman chapel as a success. I do not know whether he published an account of this, or what chant he was promoting. There may well be information in Ephemerides Liturgicae, SC 117 was presuably planted by Bugnini
    117. The typical edition of the books of Gregorian chant is to be completed; and a more critical edition is to be prepared of those books already published since the restoration by St. Pius X.
    It is desirable also that an edition be prepared containing simpler melodies, for use in small churches.
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,110
    The history of the composition of SC 117 has been extensively described and documented in Eckhard Jaschinski, Musica sacra oder Music im Gottesdienst? (Regensburg, 1990), pp. 165–172. The question of simpler chants for the propers predates the Council, but it was explicitly raised during the conciliar discussions. Initially, the possibility of singing the proper chants on a psalm tone was kept open, but this option disappeared from the final adopted text, on the understanding that the search should instead focus exclusively on authentic Gregorian chants.
    Thanked by 3a_f_hawkins igneus novusgordo
  • Palestrina
    Posts: 568
    Could you perchance direct us to an online copy of the pages you have cited, smvanroode? My attempts so far have been unsuccessful.
    Thanked by 1novusgordo
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