Posted on by Adam Bartlett

Simple Propers for the Season of Lent

Download Simple English Propers for the Season of Lent:

Production for the SEP project is really beginning to push forward. Our goal is to have the book in print in time for the Summer CMAA Colloquium and other seminars and conferences. Please keep the project in your prayers!

11 Replies to “Simple Propers for the Season of Lent”

  1. Adam, thanks so much for these! We have been using the Introit and Communion antiphons for a while now, and this week will begin to sing some of the verses with the Communion antiphon.

    Is there any chance you will be setting one or more of the antiphons and psalm verses for the Distribution of Ashes? This would be most helpful. Thanks!

  2. Jeff–For this particular book we decided to stay within the confines of the three processional propers: Introit, Offertory, Communion. It is very tempting to begin taking on things like Ash Wednesday, Holy Week and so forth, but this will have to come in another form. I agree though that these would indeed be very helpful!

  3. I'm really intrigued by these. I like how the simplified setting highlights the mode more explicitly than comes through in the Gregorian setting. Yours retain the Gregorian mode and display it more vividly just because of the nature of the music and text. So it would appear that large parts of Lent are dominated by major modes, signalling a certain peace and a certain bright outlook – which is not what we might expect according to the cliche view of Lent. A hymn for entrance might begin "Forty Days and forty nights" dreary dreary dark and sad. But these settings of yours have a brightness to them. Why? Well, the modes signal something interesting. In Lent, Sunday is a feast day, something of a relief from the penance of the weekday. Sadly, these days we tend to want to cram the whole of Lent into Sunday Mass, but this threatens to reverse the character of the Sunday itself. These settings help restore that sense of quiet joy that we've lost since the propers fell out of use.

    This is very exciting. I'm intrigued by these especially. I hope they are widely used.

  5. Thanks Jeffrey for your thoughts. I have also noticed the tendency in the chant for what we would consider to be a "happy" mode to be used in the seemingly darkest of times. I think of Christus factus est–Mode 6! This mode makes us moderns feel calm and assured. But the Gregorianists used this for a different end. I also have observed that Mode 1 is far and wide the most common mode, the sort of "general-use" mode. For us today we would default to the major mode and use Mode 1 for things dark and dreary. But not the Gregorian composers! Very interesting to observe.

    "Now you must stick by it or face massive humiliation"

    If fear of humiliation is what will get this thing done I will risk it!

  6. We have been practicing the Introit for Septuagesima "Circumdederunt me", and it is in mode V, very Major-y, not at all what modern ears and sensibilities would expect for "the groans of death surrrounded me"!

  7. Jeffrey – I've been puzzled by the elaborateness of Mass XVII for Advent and Lent. Your comment provides great context.

  8. I'm a bit confused about how to put words at the cadences of Psalm tones. Maybe it's explained somewhere?

    For example, Introit of the first Sunday of Lent is in mode VIII and I can't find the Psalm tone used here in office Psalm tone chart that I have (a copy from the chant workshop). Are the boldfaced syllables for the final notes (so the final note often times get two syllables?) and Italicized ones for moving notes? How the flex with dagger move? ( for example, 'his pinions' in Introit of the first Sunday of Lent.)

    Thank you and sorry for so many questions.

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