Despite the many excellent settings of this coming Sunday’s Entrance Antiphon, some congregations will not yet have the means to sing it in free-composed chant:
I am the salvation of the people, says the Lord.
Should they cry to me in any distress,
I will hear them, and I will be their Lord for ever.
However, every congregation in the world can sing the following, because they already know the tune. I’ve rearranged the antiphons for nearly all of the Sundays of the year, setting them to a single metrical scheme.
I am my peoples’ saving power.
I hear their cries in their distress
Forever I will be their Lord.
Eternal is my faithfulness
The same tune, such as Duke Street, could conceivably be used every single week, or, for variety, different tunes may be used, perhaps seasonally, such as Conditor Alme Siderum during Advent, Jesu Dulcis Memoria during Lent, and Lasst Uns Erfreuen during the Easter Season.
The goal of the Hymn Tune Propers project is to give access to sung propers to those congregations that might otherwise miss out on the proper texts of the Mass altogether. It is a compromise solution, a bridge to Gregorian chant itself, but one that can be started immediately, in every parish.