Polyphonic Responses
  • ryancarrick
    Posts: 8
    Curious if the community could make some recommendations for polyphonic responses in Latin? Would be used primarily at the TLM (possibly even a Nuptial Mass), but adaptations from vernacular renderings are highly encouraged! I've found that Anglican Preces and Responses are especially beautiful (but I need it in latin), as well as some of the Byz Polyphony from the past couple centuries (but I've only have found in Slavonic/Russian/Ukrainian/etc.). Material from the Novus Ordo is also welcome, I'm just trying to avoid having to adapt something from vernacular into latin. I suppose material composed for the Office would be useful as well. I just need Et salutare tuum da nobis, Et clamor meus ad te veniat, Et cum spiritu tuo, Amen, Gloria Tibi Domine, Habemus ad Dominum, Dignum et justum est, and Sed libera nos a malo. Would just be nice to spruce these "common responses" up a little bit so they feel a little less common, and possibly sneak some music from other rites into the TLM!
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 3,017
    "Sed libera nos" and (iirc) the Sursum responses are in a source included in the new Lasso edition, vol. 25
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 839
    Byrd had some good stuff from when he had ad hoc choirs for clandestine Masses. I’m particularly fond of this particular Deo Gratias of his (when it’s not sung painfully slow. Listen at 1.25x speed). The chord at the end is sounds delicious.

    https://youtu.be/inVdKAnxOLI?si=zLan2VPX0E69rUvH
    https://imslp.org/wiki/File:PMLP248883-Deo_Gratias.pdf
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 256
    This page has some nice versions:

    https://schola-sainte-cecile.com/2014/12/24/adam-de-villiers-reponses-polyphoniques-aux-recitatifs-de-la-sainte-messe/
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,780
    Not that I was unaware of the Lassus but now I’m off to find the part books (I prefer to transcribe myself and then add ficta based on published versions). There’s some really neat stuff there.
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 166
    Here is a polyphonic response for the prayer of the faithful that works in arbitrary voice combinations as long as some men sing the bass voice.
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 839
    that works in arbitrary voice combinations as long as some men sing the bass voice.

    You don’t need men to sing the bass voice. You just need someone who has the range to do so. I am a woman and have no difficulties singing the “bass” voice. It’s not even that low.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 166
    @SponsaChristi Yes, and it even works when only sung with upper voices. In a random mixed congregation, however, I guess that the probability of having an alto that knows how to transpose a bass line is even smaller than having men that can read a bass clef ;-)
  • stulte
    Posts: 360
    We sang these as part of a 1st Holy Communion Mass several years ago.
    Preface_Solemn_Tone_SATB.pdf
    48K
    Thanked by 1StimsonInRehab
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 839
    I guess that the probability of having an alto that knows how to transpose a bass line is even smaller than having men that can read a bass clef ;-)


    Who’s transposing from bass clef? Why is mediocrity in basic musicianship skills tolerated in choirs? I do not understand this.
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 166
    Why is mediocrity in basic musicianship skills tolerated in choirs?

    There seems to be a misunderstanding. I thought that "polyphonic response" refers to a response by the congregation in the pews, not a choir singing instead of the congregation (howsoever you would define "active participation", this would be a far stretch IMO). That is what this setting is meant for and why it is set in such a way, that it works with anyone singing any one part, provided someone sings the bass part. The (new) "Gotteslob" includes several of such settings. As I found the polyphonic pew response GL 181 used in our parish for the Prayer of the Faithful dissatisfying, I thought that something more interesting yet still simple would be worthwhile.
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,367
    “Active participation is first of all internal…”
    Everyone doesn’t have to do every-thing.
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 166
    Everyone doesn’t have to do every-thing.

    If I understand the question correctly, it was about common responses. AFAIK, these are spoken or sung by the congregation as part of a dialogue with the priest. It seems to me that there is no ambiguity in GIRM Chapter II, §35:
    The acclamations and the responses of the faithful to the priest’s greetings and prayers constitute that level of active participation that the gathered faithful are to contribute in every form of the Mass, so that the action of the entire community may be clearly expressed and fostered.
    Thanked by 2Roborgelmeister novusgordo
  • stulte
    Posts: 360
    If I understand the question correctly, it was about common responses. AFAIK, these are spoken or sung by the congregation as part of a dialogue with the priest. It seems to me that there is no ambiguity in GIRM Chapter II, §35:

    The OP said this is for the TLM chiefly. The GIRM doesn't apply.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,703
    GIRM is in line with previous pre-NO documents when encouraging vocal congregational participation, for example Pope XI in 1928 Divini Cultus:
    In order that the faithful may more actively participate in divine worship, let them be made once more to sing the Gregorian Chant, so far as it belongs to them to take part in it. It is most important that when the faithful assist at the sacred ceremonies, or when pious sodalities take part with the clergy in a procession, they should not be merely detached and silent spectators, but, filled with a deep sense of the beauty of the Liturgy, they should sing alternately with the clergy or the choir, as it is prescribed. If this is done, then it will no longer happen that the people either make no answer at all to the public prayers — whether in the language of the Liturgy or in the vernacular — or at best utter the responses in a low and subdued manner.
    Thanked by 5novusgordo Chant_Supremacist Roborgelmeister StimsonInRehab CHGiffen
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 366
    @stulte posted a set of polyphonic responses that include the standard solemn tone and therefore would not necessarily take away the people's ability to participatively respond. (In my parish I suspect they would confuse people and dampen their responses, and I wouldn't use them for that reason, but that might not apply elsewhere.) Imho, if for whatever reason polyphonic responses are highly desired, then something like that should be preferred. Either that or teach the parts to the congregation.
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 256
    The ones I posted above from the Schola Sainte Cécile could also work with the people singing the melody!
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,117
    Would just be nice to spruce these "common responses" up a little bit so they feel a little less common, and possibly sneak some music from other rites into the TLM!

    Quite apart from the question of "active participation" of the congregation, my I suggest that you to resist the urge always to "improve" or "spruce up" the Gregorian responses and other simpler chants of the Mass? For big feasts there is a special solemn tone of the preface dialogue, but polyphonic responses at this point (and most other points in the Mass) in my mind disrupt the purpose of the back and forth between celebrant and choir / congregation. The chanted responses are not common(!) but have a perfection all their own - I've been singing them for decades and have not tired of them - and don't really need anything more. And they are something which a congregation can count on and "own" at every Mass.

    A choir member of mine once remarked to me that the congregation needs to hear things many, many (many) times before they are comfortable with them - much more than musicians tend to think is the case. It was a very valuable reminder. We musicians who can sightread music (or at least catch on to and remember music very easily and quickly) sometimes forget this. We yearn for variety, something "different" than last week or last year, whereas many people can feel disoriented and unsettled if the music changes too much. I understand we shouldn't do the same thing every single week. But given that our experience of music can be so much different than many of those whom serve, we would do well to err on the side of simplicity and repetition.
    Thanked by 4Chant_Supremacist probe a_f_hawkins novusgordo
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,780

    For big feasts there is a special solemn tone of the preface dialogue…


    We were once again lucky to have Fr Mark Withoos for Holy Week. He used the more solemn tone, and he did very well, but we find it so much wiser to use the solemn tone of the dialogue.


    We yearn for variety, something "different" than last week or last year, whereas many people can feel disoriented and unsettled if the music changes too much. I understand we shouldn't do the same thing every single week.


    We have had a hiccup this year, but we rotate benediction seasonally (although on Thursdays per annum, I keep it to DUGUET, ST THOMAS, and GROSSER GOTT). So both Thursdays and Sundays of Advent and Lent and Paschal Time have special music, as do major feasts, but they already know the mode III Pange lingua, and we use these on II class feasts where we normally don’t have choral music on Sundays: one, two, or three of the pieces might be polyphonic in those cases. And they’d get the Divine Praises (recited on weekdays).

    They do pretty well with things like the Benedicamus at Vespers, but I do love the Byrd enough now that I’m considering using it for II Vespers when we have the choir and where I would prefer to use the mode V tone (so, All Saints for example).
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 240
    ...and possibly sneak some music from other rites into the TLM!


    As one priest quipped to me (and I tend to agree with him).

    The other Eastern rites (Catholic AND/OR Orthodox) refuse to import Western styles music into the Eastern Liturgies. Why are we so insistent on importing their music to our rite, beside the argument "just because we can".
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