One of the problems that many parishes with a good music programme faces today is how to sing the Divine Office, especially Vespers. For many years Solemnes has been threatening to bring out a revised Vesperale for common parish use that addresses the problems music directors face: namely how to sing the Office effectively. Some choral parishes, like the Brompton Oratory have maintained the pre-concilliar form of Vespers partly out of continuity, but also in the absence of any meaningful alternative while others such as Westminster Cathedral have addressed the problem by commissioning a Vesperale for their own use.
About 18 months ago I arranged a choir to sing choral Vespers, and it was a task of Herculean proprotion. Firstly comes the problem of structure. The main point of refernce is the Liber Usualis which has all of the chant for a Sunday Vespers (P250 if you care to reference) with the 5 psalms and antiphons that would have been sung in Ordinary Time (commemrative or votive offices can be comiled from the antiphons and psalm tones contained throughout the LU). The new rite of Vespers only has 3 psalms, one of which is a canticle (of the Lamb) which is not used in the old rite. There is the additional problem of the second psalm rotating on a 4-weekly cycle in a way that the old rite didn’t.
The Liber does have each of the psalms in common use set to all 8 plainsong modes, however when taking the antiphons in the modern calendar and adding them to the psalms from the Liber you may find that you are singing an entire vespers to a particular mode, or that in going onto the next psalm a jarring shift in mode is necessary in order to use the correct antiphon with the psalm. Then there is the next problem of finding the appropriate short responsory, or a short responsory at all.
One of the other major problems is the Magnificat. In parishes with limited resources (both in terms of numbers and/or ability of the singers, or the stock of the music library) an antiphon in a less common mode creates the difficulty of selecting a polyphonic Magnificat to compliment it. In a choir of experienced and competent amateurs or professionals there is an abundance of settings, however some of them can be fiendishly complex or aurally difficult to comprehend without good pitch and sight-reading skills where they are written in uncommon modes (such as mode 7). If your resources are more modest then it begs the question of how do you cope? Do you omit the sung antiphon and say it in order to insert a Magnificat the choir knows or sing the antiphon with a plainsong Magnificat, or omit the sung antiphon and magnificat altogether and concentrate on a motet to sing afterwards?
Then there comes the issue of the Canticle of the Lamb. You won’t find it anywhere in the Liber. Neither will you find many of the antiphons that go with it (in fact I’m not sure any of the antiphons for it are in the Liber).
Westminster Cathedral addressed these issues a few years ago by commissioning Peter Wilton to compile a weekday and Sunday Vesperale of the existing chant and composing new chants to plug the gaps. It works incredibly well, sounds fantastic and I won’t at all admit to “borrowing” the problem antiphons and Canticle from it because I’d get into trouble. But there you go, needs must.
The need for chant to meet the requirements of a new vernacular mass are pressing and urgent given the relative pace with which the translations are coming, and the opportunity to get chant into the parishes ahead of the horrors we could be exposed to by the likes of Paul Inwood if there were to be a musical vacuum. Once we have passed that stage, I would suggest the next thing to do is to extend projects like Watershed and the Simple Propers into an Office that is workable at parish level.
May I pose a possible solution in the Mundelein Psalter, a joint project by Rev Douglas Martis and Rev Samuel Weber, OSB? We use it every day for Lauds and Vespers at the Liturgical Institute, and for every conference. It is not simplistic, but simple enough to be easily sung by all. (And I must admit, I am particularly fond of its setting for the Canticle of the Lamb).
http://www.usml.edu/liturgicalinstitute/projects/psalter/psalter%20home%202007.htm
I had never heard of it, but will look.
The ANTIPHONALE ROMANUM II is a Vesperale for Sundays and feasts and was released in 2010. In the US it is available here:
http://www.paracletepress.com/antiphonale-romanum-ii.html
yes, both are wonderful resources. Both are very expensive. Neither is online. I consider this to be a tragedy in both cases.
There are many resources posted at musicasacra.com/forum
I second the recommendation of the Mundelein Psalter as a resource for regular and frequent celebration of the Divine Office in English. At $50 and 1344 pages, it is a hefty investment for a parish, but I purchased enough copies for both our the choir gallery of our suburban church and our choir room.
We celebrate chanted Lauds, Vespers and Compline several times a week whenever one of our choirs is gathering, and I invite our parish staff, every parish committee and group that is willing to come to "the choir" to pray the Divine Office. The architectural "choir" in our church becomes the liturgical space reserved for the choral praise of God by assembled members of the parish church in a variety of configurations.
These choral celebrations of the liturgy also become of the source of identity and mission for the choirs of our schola cantorum, and a means of creating a receptive culture for cantillated prayer, which I hope will translate into our celebrations of the Mass. All this made possible for us by The Mundelein Psalter.
Saint Meinrad Archabbey has some very good resources (including Vespers settings that, if not usable in their entirety on a particular occasion, could nevertheless be a source of canticles and psalm settings), and more and more of them are available free or for not much money. If you contact them about specific things you need and can't find, they might be able to supply those, too:
http://www.saintmeinradmusic.org/Pages/Products1.html
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Christian Prayer has these antiphons and chant tones for psalms and canticles. There are countless resources for this music before you get to the concert stuff.
I recommend reading the General Introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours to get a handle on what can be adapted and done with Vespers.
Others have sung the praises of the Mundelein Psalter, and I will as well. We've been using it at the Co-Cathedral in Tallahassee. It is not part of the overall music program, but has been an effort of individual laity (with our Deacon sometimes in attendance). Our little group of non-professionoals has handled it quite well, and we've been growing steadily. It requires very little initial rehearsal.
There are few complaints I have heard about it. Some people may not like that it is very repetitive (although this is wonderful for ease of learning). Others might complain that the psalm tones aren't "authentic". I'm more concerned about actually making the singng of the Hours (in our case, Sunday Vespers) doable, right now.
I currently have Antiphonale Romanum II on back order. Once it arrives, I hope to start setting the antiphons of the Antiphonale paired with English Psalms in Weber tones. My instinct tells me it would provide a good balance.
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As I read this, I see that your main problem was starting with the Liber usualis. The Traditional Roman Office and the rather new Liturgy of the Hours are quite different. Start with the texts in Christian Prayer (and other web sources that figure all this out for you) if you want to do the LotH. Readers here know my thoughts on this. Since the laity have no obligation to the LotH, groups may use any office form they wish. I personally prefer the pre-1962 Office. A reading of Dobzay's The Bugnini Liturgy will offer some good reasons for this. Good luck in any case. Other posters have recommended some good sources.
I also see that you want to do a choral office. Keep in mind that you don't really have to match the Magnificat antiphon with a choral setting. You'll end up wanting to use a transposition anyway, so unless it is a Renaissance setting "at pitch", use whatever you like. You won't notice any issues, unless you start on a strange pitch for the antiphon as a result. In that case, just transpose.
If the Antiphonale Romanum II is thought too expensive, there is always the excellent work of Steven Van Roode, freely downnloadable:
http://www.transitofvenus.nl/LiturgiaHorarum/
Shame on you, Keith, for the personal dig at Paul Inwood at the end. With that kind of cheap remark you make it clear that you're not trying to persuade anyone who disagrees with you. It's just shallow cheerleading. You can do better.
Yes, Keith.
I must say that there are plenty of resources for Vespers. There is indeed a setting of the Canticle of the Lamb – in Latin – in the new Antiphonale Romanum, vol. 2.
I would recommend using either the pre-1962 or the Vatican II Liturgia Horarum – and not trying to mix them on your own. If you desire the Vatican II calendar, but wish to use more Psalms, the Antiphonale Monasticum I, II, III (2006-2008), arrange the Benedictine scheme of Psalms (weekly vs. monthly) in the format of the Liturgia Horarum.
For an example of how I have done the Litugia Horarum for Vespers, you may want to take a look at the packet I put together for the O Antiphons last month:
Advent Vespers 2010
@ Copernicus,
Maybe you could use a modified version of Paul Inwood's "Alleluia – Ch Ch" to rebuke Keith. You could call it "Alleluia – Tsk! Tsk!"
(I find that less ridiculous than hearing Inwood's version proceeding the gospel reading during holy mass, anyway.)
Anonymous, are you telling me you've ever heard Paul Inwood's piece (intended for use with children, if memory serves) sung before the Gospel during a Mass? No, I thought not.
I strongly recommend the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Baronius has an edition with all the music. My family has found it to be both easier and more consistently satisfying than the Liturgy of the Hours.