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Posted on by Adam Bartlett

Simple Propers for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

In an effort to get a bit ahead of the game with the Chant Cafe Simple Propers Project, we offer now a set of simple propers for next weekend, the 29th Sunday in OT, along with a few demo recordings:

Download Simple Propers for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

Because we were able to put these together a bit earlier, my newly formed parish schola had the opportunity to sing through these at the end of our rehearsal last night in preparation our singing of them of them next week. I brought along my Zoom H4 recorder in hopes of recording examples to share with the CC community, but it malfunctioned and gave me the opportunity to see how the recording feature of my new iPhone works.

Just a quick note on these recordings: This is not a musicological demonstration, or a professional choral recording–It is a quick run through of simple antiphons at the end of 2 1/2 hours or rehearsal for some of us, and after 12 long days of work. My point in saying this is not necessarily to offer a sort of disclaimer for the recordings, and not only to demonstrate the antiphons themselves, but also to show that a completely volunteer group of 12 singers in an average parish music program, at least half of whom had little to no experience actually singing chant even two months ago, can prepare and sing dignified settings of the propers of the Mass in a very short amount of time, amidst the usual circumstances of life. These are factors that most typical parishes deal with, and will have to weigh when the consider singing propers in liturgy for the first time. After singing these same formulaic melodies for a few months though, my own choirs and also average parish choirs can sing the propers with even more success because the melodies are already learned, and what changes is the text. I will say that if this can happen at my own parish that was singing out of the Gather book only two short years ago it can virtually happen anywhere.

So here are a few recordings for next week’s offering of Simple Propers from the Chant Café, recorded by a volunteer parish schola in formation on a cellphone in less than 20 minutes. I’m actually pretty happy with the result.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Your Law Is the Object of My Mediations

This weekend’s communion chant is Aufer a me, and I still happy with what I wrote on this some time back, so I’ll reprint this here. It is such a wonderful thing to return to these chants year after year. One can greet them like old friends (real friends, not Facebook friends).
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Anytime the topic of Gregorian chant comes up, the conversation immediately veers in two directions: why can’t this material be in the vernacular, and why can’t we just sing in modern notes? The communio this week, which conveys an intoxicating spiritual power, is a good illustration of why both of these paths seriously diminish the glories of chant. (Here is a recording that is very good.)

We begin with a plea that moves unusually quickly through a long opening phrase: no breaks, no “downbeats,” no time signature, and very effective use of vowel and consonant sounds to match the words. Put this in modern notation and you lose the visuals, the phrase, and, ironically, make it more difficult to place the consonants. Now look at the word “contemptum” in which the first “n” sound closes on the lower note (which is small, a liquescent in the Gregorian notation). I can’t think of a way that this unity of notes and music can achieve the same effects in modern notation.

Now move halfway through, beginning with “nam.” This last phrase is a singer’s dream but only as written. It feels and sounds just like what you expect of meditation. It captures the sense of private, contemplative, concentrated prayer. The intervals are short and the changes in notes are a perfect match with the text, and it is a long and uninterrupted phrase. What you certainly do not want here is a sense of bumping through the notes one by one, as you might get in modern notation. Also with the neumes you can enjoy the visual presentation of what it means to meditate.

As for language, it has been put into English somewhere, but it just can’t capture all that is here. Isn’t it time that we all just acknowledge that the presentation of Gregorian chant is at its highest glory in precisely the form that it has come to us through the ages?

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

More Missal Chant Recordings

The National Association of Pastoral Musicians has recorded some Missal chants from the new translation. Find them here. (“Recordings of chants from The Roman Missal © 2010, National Association of Pastoral Musicians (NPM). All rights reserved.”)

The Church Music Association of America’s versions are here. (“Recordings of chant from The Roman Missal that you can borrow, sell, propagate, or anything else. All rights freely shared with the world.”)

They do make for an interesting comparison.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Two Commentaries on the New Translation

Jerry Galipeau is feeling ever better about the new translation.

“At this point in my own journey with the new translation, that I am seeing this whole development as much more organic. The only way that the new translation is really going to take root here in the United States is if we give people solid information; solid knowledge directly from the sources. We need to lay it all out for people. We need to show them that there are significant differences between the way the Latin was translated into English and the way the Latin was translated into many of the world’s languages.”

What he is getting at is a point that is so far being avoided for understandable reasons. He senses that the best way to explain the coming change is to show people that this new translation is an improvement, not just a change but an upgrade. I think he is exactly right.

Already, some priests are making their own videos to demonstrate this. Here is an example.

Posted on by Adam Bartlett

Simple Propers for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

Download Simple Propers for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C

This week’s installment of “Simple Propers” are a continuation in our experiment in music resource production. As Jeffrey has so deviously shown, I am indeed still working on the melodic formulas that will eventually be used for an entire cycle of antiphons to cover the liturgical year. The plan is to have 8 formulas for each proper–the Introit, Offertory, and Communion–one in each mode for each set, so this will total 24 melodic formulas. The hope with these formulas is that they will be able to meet the diverse demands of the English language while remaining within the bounds of the laws of the Gregorian compositional language. The goal is to arrive at melodies that can adapt to virtually any English text, and the result, it is hoped, is that average parish musicians, even congregations, could learn these melodies and sing them easily to a variety of text settings. Compiling these formulas has not been easy, and the work is far from done, but with the guidance of Fr. Kelly I have great hope that they will be a success.

As Jeffrey has shown, the Introit formulas seem to be mostly stabilized, although there could be changes made to them in the coming weeks. I’m pulling together the communion tones, and the Offertories are still largely unfinished. So in the mean time I will continue with the “simple settings” always, which emply St. Meinrad tones, and there will be cases (such as this week’s Offertory) where this is the only setting available.

While we’re posting handwritten manuscripts today, let me add one more. Here is this week’s offertory harmonized in 4 parts according to the Meinrad Tone accompaniments given by St. Meinrad Archabbey:


It occurred to me this past week that this sort of arrangement may be incredibly useful to the “trained parish choir”. This sort of edition could be seen in continuity with many of the resources that parishes are currently used to, such as Respond and Acclaim, et cetera. There could be the benefit of having it in modern notation (accompanying, of course, a chant edition), the 4-part harmony could be a simple organ accompaniment, or even could enable 4-part singing for choirs that are used to singing figured choral music. Since many such choirs are not very familiar with the non-metered style, this perhaps could serve as a bridge to the chanted style, while retaining some of the elements of the current common practice. The benefits are that parish choirs could sing the propers in a somewhat familiar fashion, there could be an immersion in Gregorian modality, and a practice of singing non-metered music. I sense that if a parish choir could sing this beautifully then this would be a big step toward singing more elaborate settings of the propers.

Take a look at this arrangement and try to invert some of the harmonies. I found that this can add a very nice contrast. This arrangement can very easily be sung in the following ways:

1. Swap S and T (cantus firmus in the tenor)
2. A up an octave (becomes S), B up an octave (T), omit T, keep cantus firmus in A [becomes SAT with high soprano]
3. S down an octave (T), A up an octave (S), T up an octave (A), B unchanged [becomes SATB with high soprano]

There could be other possibilities such as harmony in just two voices. These harmonizations seem like a real treasure, and I’m glad that I’ve discovered this approach. I think that I will try it with my own parish choir!

Lastly, if anyone among our readers is able to typeset this score in an engraving program I would be most indebted to you. For the life of me I can’t find a reasonable way to do this. If anyone could find a solution and share a template I would be most grateful!

I also hope to get the propers for 29OT out within the next few days in order to keep us a little ahead of the game.