This video nicely displays two very different approaches to singing chant. The first is using the traditional edition and the traditional approach. The second uses the new edition of the Graduale Novum and the so-called rhetorical method of singing chant. I think might be the first video I’ve seen to directly compare the two. No doubt that partisans of one approach over the other will say that the singing is not as it should be, but there is enough here to get the sense. h/t euoeae
More English Chant for the Mass
I keep getting questions about other chant settings besides the Missal chants. There are so many, many beautiful settings. See this one.
Chant at Portsmouth University
There will be a short presentation on Gregorian Chant at Portsmouth University on Tuesday 25 October at 1830. The programme will include a practical demonstration of chant divided into 2 parts: the first part will be a talk and demonstration of a small sample of different types of chant. The second part will be Vespers from the Little Office of Our Lady (20-25 minutes). All are welcome to attend. FREE admission. The venue is Portland Building, Portland Street, Portsmouth PO1 3AH. For details please contact: catholic@upsu.net
From Schola Gregoriana
New Mass for Unison Voices
A note from Nick Gale, Director of Music, St George’s Cathedral, Southwark, UK
Readers of the Chant Café may like to make use of a great setting of the Mass (new ICEL texts) that I commissioned from international prize-winning composer Nicholas O’Neill. It was written to trial the new texts here in the UK and was used, with the relevant permissions, at the Panel of Monastic Musicians’ Conference in Quarr Abbey in 2008. It is now in regular use at the Family Mass every week at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark (London, UK).
As you will see, it is through-composed and, in the manner of many SATB Latin settings, it uses thematic material that runs through each movement – eg the D, F, G, A motif of the Kyrie is picked up in the Lord Jesus Christ section of the Gloria, the ‘fanfare’ motif at the opening of the Gloria is used in the Alleluia and the Great Amen etc.
The congregational parts are a little more taxing than most ‘refrain’ settings and the organ part assumes a reasonably competent organist (who can play pedals!), though Nicholas has said he will happily supply a manuals-only edition on request. The Dorian mode used in the outer movements and in the central portion of the Gloria may not be the most uplifting in the eyes of some, but I think it lends a wonderfully solemn character lacking in many vernacular settings. In my view this is a superb setting and I commend it to all who are looking for a robust, good-quality setting of the new Ordinary.
Nicholas has written several Latin settings of the Mass for a capella ensemble, SATB + organ and for ATB (div), as well as a great number of Latin motets and English anthems. He is available for commissions and his existing work can, for the time being, be obtained free of charge and on request via his website: www.nicholasoneill.com – his only requirement is that you advise him of where and when the music is being used for his records.
By way of background, in 1992 Nicholas was unanimously awarded first prize in the Norwich Festival Composition Competition. He won the Gregynog Young Composers’ Award in 1993, also sharing the Barbara Johnstone Composition Prize in 1995, while he has also been shortlisted for the William Mathias, Cornelius Cardew, Oare String Orchestra, Purcell and Vocalis composition awards. He has recently been awarded the 2012 American Guild of Organists Marilyn Mason Award for Organ Composition. He has been commissioned by a great many UK cathedrals and major churches, Oxbridge colleges and the UK Parliament Choir, as well as by individuals, institutions and ensembles all over the world. I hope you will enjoy his one-and-only setting of a congregational liturgical work!
The Missal Gloria with organ
Introducing the Lumen Christi Missal
Dear friends of the Chant Café, servants of the sacred liturgy and advocates of the Church’s sacred music tradition: I am very excited to introduce to you for the first time the Lumen Christi Missal, the first offering of the all-new Illuminare Publications.
The Lumen Christi Missal is a new kind of book for the pew. It contains everything that your parish needs to Sing the Mass, not Sing at Mass.
Here’s a brief overview.
What the Lumen Christi Missal is NOT:
- It is not a hand missal. It is a Mass book that equips your parish to sing the Mass.
- It is not a hymnal. It contains no hymns, only liturgical texts with musical settings that are suitable for a liturgical assembly.
- It is not a missalette. It is a permanent, beautiful, hard bound book that contains all readings, proper, ordinary and necessary liturgical texts for Sundays and Feasts, over the three-year cycle, set to be sung.
What the Lumen Christi Missal IS:
- It is a new kind of pew book, built upon the new English translation of the Roman Missal, which takes as its basis the “sung liturgy” envisioned and promoted by the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
- It is a complete pew resource that can be used entirely by itself, or in conjunction with a hymnal or resource containing hymns and songs.
- It is a book that embraces the authentic and universal sacred music tradition of the church and seeks to give Gregorian chant the “main place” in liturgical celebrations (GIRM 41).
- It is a book that is modeled upon the three-fold plan for congregational singing laid out in Musicam Sacram 28-31.
- It is a book that provides simple chant settings for parts proper to the congregation: The Order of Mass, the Ordinary of the Mass, Responsorial Psalms and Alleluias, and also simple seasonal settings of the Proper Antiphons for when the full proper is not sung by the schola or choir.
- It is a book primarily for the liturgy celebrated in English, though it contains several portions of the Order of Mass and Ordinary in Latin in their Gregorian chant settings found in the official liturgical books.
- It is a book that can assist your parish in a gradual transition toward the Church’s vision of the sung liturgy, solemnly celebrated, and allows a parish to slowly progress toward this aim.
- It is a book that is equally suited to a suburban or country parish or an urban cathedral, simply containing the Mass in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
- It is a beautiful, permanent, dignified, complete pew resource that speaks of the timeless beauty of the liturgy of the Roman Rite and will be available soon to parishes at an affordable price.
The Lumen Christi Missal is currently in preparation and will be available in the first quarter of 2012, just in time to replace your worn-out pew cards. If you would like to join our mailing and stay up to date on the latest news, updates and release details please click here.
The Lumen Christi Missal is the first book in the Lumen Christi Series by Illuminare Publications. The series will also include the Lumen Christi Gradual, a companion book for the choir, accompaniment editions and more, all coming in 2012!
If your parish would like to participate in our pilot program and receive the Lumen Christi Missal at a discounted price please contact us.
On a personal note, to Chant Café readers, this is a project that I have been developing for close to a year now. It was birthed out of my work on the Simple English Propers project, is infused with its spirit, and seeks to serve more broadly the renewal of the sacred liturgy in the English-speaking world. Illuminare Publications is committed to fostering sacred music as free gift to the Church and seeks to find creative ways to serve the liturgical apostolate in the 21st century through forward-thinking uses of technology and creative and non-conventional business models.
I will be posting more in the coming weeks and months on the work of Illuminare Publications, especially the Lumen Christi Missal.
I couldn’t be more excited about the new chapter that is now opening in the Church with the new translation of the Roman Missal. I hope that Illuminare can play a small role in this work that we are all doing together for the greater glory of God!
St. Ralph Sherwin Mass
The entire Mass can be downloaded for free or purchased with the Vatican II hymnal, which replaces the need for missalettes because it includes all readings.