Early efforts to produce English Propers

I’m a collector of efforts to sing the propers in the postconciliar period. I’m completely thrilled to receive this original and privately circulated work from the early 1980s. It is a real piece of history.

The composer/author Pat Cunningham explains:

Between 1980 and 1984 I did a collection called Chants for the Church Year, using the Ordinary form propers for years A, B and C in standard notation. It was reviewed positively by Msgr. Schmitt in American Organist. His choir at Fr. Flanagan’s Boys Town used them for a while before he was ushered out as music director.

I attach the Palm Sunday propers, as they exist. Msgr. Schmitt questioned at the time my use of stems and flags, which I agree now were not necessary and may be distracting.

The music was originally suggested by Col. Roger Darley, when my wife and I were organist and choir director at the Main Post Chapel, Ft. Sam Houston. Later, when the Anglican Use parish, Our Lady of the Atonement, was formed in San Antonio, we assumed the same posts there, and, week by week, set the chant to the Anglican Missal words (generally). The work was published between 1982 and 1984.

The text was typed on a typewriter and the music hand-engraved.