Categoria: Cantus Gregorianus

The Gregorian Missal

All the world knows that Americans are peculiar people when it comes to language. If it is not in English or if an English translation isn’t nearby, we tend to treat the text as if it belongs to someone on another planet. Foreign tongues boggle our minds, and rather than get busy and actually learn another language (never!) we just toss it aside.
It’s my own private theory that this tendency has long hindered the dissemination of the church’s music in the United States. The Graduale Romanum, the official songbook of the Roman Rite, is entirely in Latin.
Hand it to a typical musician and it will not penetrate their brains. It’s not the Latin in the music so much as the absence of English. Call it ignorance or bigotry if you want but it is a fact of reality. Latin chant will never go anywhere in this country until singers can feel a sense of ownership over the meaning, and that means translations.
This is why the CMAA produced The Parish Book of Chant as the new book for people. It opens up the Latin chant tradition to all English speakers.
The complementary book for the scholas — the book containing the propers of the Mass — is the Gregorian Missal published by the Solesmes Abbey in France. This book is a treasure, a glorious thing to behold. The running headers are all in English. All Latin texts are translated. And this allows the great revelation to unfold: here is the music of the Mass.

(from Sing like a Catholic by Jeffrey A. Tucker, p. 180)

Nuova Musica per la Liturgia Eucaristica

Sabato 19 ottobre 2019 -Ore 17:00
Sala Locatelli Via Arena, 9 Bergamo (città alta)
TAVOLA ROTONDA
a cura di: Cristian Gentilini e Andrea Talmelli

Quale liturgia per quale musica?
Relatore: don Gilberto Sessantini (Priore della Basilica di S. M. Maggiore in Bergamo)

Scrivere musica e scrivere per la liturgia
Relatore: Pippo Molino (Compositore)

Il ruolo del Maestro di Cappella ai giorni nostri
Relatore: Roberto Brisotto (Direttore della Cappella Civica della Cattedrale di Trieste)

Unum loquuntur omnia: la percezione della Forma
Relatore: Umberto Bombardelli (Compositore)

Link

The Musical Shape of the Liturgy

The reforms of the liturgy resulting from the Second Vatican Council have greatly increased the freedom of choice of liturgical music; the council also encouraged the composition of new music for the sacred liturgy. However, every freedom entails a corresponding responsibility; and it does not seem that, in the years since the council, the responsibility for the choice of sacred music has been exercised with equal wisdom in all circles. To judge by what is normally heard in the churches, one might even conclude that the Church no longer holds any standards in the realm of sacred music, and that, in fact, anything goes.
The council did not leave all up in the air, however, and if its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had been seriously heeded, a living tradition would still be alive everywhere, and we would have added musical works of some permanence to the “store of treasures” of sacred music. The council laid down some rather specific norms which can serve as a basis for developing an understanding of sacred music and thus for choosing wisely.
In its chapter on sacred music, the council declared that the solemn sung form of the liturgy is the higher form, that of all the arts music represents the greatest store of traditional treasures of the liturgy, that music is the more holy insofar as it is intimately connected to the liturgical action, and that Gregorian chant is the normative music of the Roman rite. Moreover, in speaking of innovations in general, it required that new forms derive organically from existing ones.

From Sacred Music 102, no. 3 (1975), reprinted in The Musical Shape of the Liturgy by William Peter Mahrt (2012)

Ad Orientem and Music

The liturgy is Christocentric; it is the action of Christ offering himself to the Father. As the action of the Body of Christ, the whole church offers it, it is in that sense anthropocentric; but, being offered to the Father, it is more importantly theocentric. The synthesis of the two poles is centered upon Christ, true man and true God.
As sacred liturgy, the Mass has a transcendent object—almighty God—and an ultimate goal—happiness with him. But since the liturgy takes place in the here and now, these aspects of transcendence must be expressed in human terms, using human means. Two of the means, space and time, give rise to two important aspects of liturgy—the stance of the priest at the altar and sacred music.

(…)

Sacred things need to be differentiated, so that one kind can be distinguished from another, and so that the more sacred can be perceived as distinct from the less sacred. Thus by spatial differentiation the eastward direction is priviledged over other directions, and the image of Christ over other images.
Time is also used in the liturgy to differentiate the sacred, in kind and degree, and to express the transcendent, particularly through music, the pre-eminent art of time. Important times of the day, Lauds and Vespers, are emphasized by receiving services with more music and slighty more elaborate music. Each day is distinguished from the others by different pieces of music (propers), and the major days easily become associated with their propers. Especially Holy Week and Easter are distinguished from the rest of the year by their unique music.
Likewise music contributes to the sense of the sacred by structuring the time of the the rite it accompanies. By being based upon a sacred text, set to a sacred melody, performed for the duration of a sacred rite, it projects the sense of the sacredness of the rite itself, and extends this in time; the time of the rite by itself would be amorphous, but the addition of music expresses the purpose of the rite by giving it a temporal shape and direction.

(…)

What orientation and music have in common, then, is addressing the transcendent: ad orientem by being a part of a notion of space that is itself transcendent, that is, it is directed to East, not as a geographical direction, but a transcendent one; and Gregorian chant by avoiding the emphasis upon the regular passage of time that is oriented to transcending earthly time and indicating or intimating heavenly time, eternity.

Editorial by William Mahrt in Sacred Music Volume 136, Number 3 Fall 2009 (freely downloadable issue here)

Gregorian Chant in Practice & Performance – SJU Philadelphia

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2019, 2 – 4PM
Gregorian Chant in Practice & Performance
Gregorian Chant in Theory & Practice: David Hughes, an internationally known chant teacher and choral director, will lead a workshop on fundamentals of chant at 2 p.m. on September 3 in the Nicoletti Music Studio’s Theory Room. At 6 p.m., he will direct a service of Latin Vespers in the Nicoletti Music Studio’s Ensemble Room. Beginners and experienced singers alike are welcome to join! Free admission.

Type of Event: Concert, Workshop
Affiliate School: College of Arts and Sciences (CAS)
Target Audience: All
Location: Nicoletti Music Studio (Maguire Campus)
Room/Location: 2:00 PM in Theory Room, 6:00 PM in Ensemble Room
Sponsor: Department of Music, Theatre & Film
Contact Email: kgomezzi@sju.edu
Contact Phone: 610-660-2277

Parish Book of Chant

The Parish Book of Chant is published by the Church Music Association of America as a unique resource for choirs, priests, families, and congregations who seek to sing and understand the universal musical tradition of Catholic people. It is a 6×9″ hardbound volume, 350 pages, with a very beautiful cover and outstanding print quality. It is published under the Creative Commons attribution license 3.0, which means that you can copy, distribute, record, or distribute electronic files with no restrictions and no license whatsoever. It is published as part of the commons of the faith.

It has been developed with the hope of bringing to life, in every parish and home, what the Second Vatican Council called a “treasure of inestimable value,” which is our Gregorian tradition of song.

It is compiled and expertly typeset by Richard Rice (Communio) with the assistance of the CMAA and many people involved in sacred music in the United States.

It is available direct from CMAA or from Paraclete Press. If you have questions or special requests or want to place a bulk order, call the CMAA at 505-263-6298.

You can examine the entire contents in this full PDF.

Among its features:

  • It contains a complete order of Mass for both the Ordinary form of the Roman Rite and the Extraordinary form, in side-by-side Latin and English. The Ordos include the sung responses of the people and celebrant. In this respect, it serves as an ideal resource for parishes that use both forms or simply hope to emphasize the relationship between them.
  • This edition is dramatically improved over the 1st edition with expanded Kyriale, Sequences, litanies, Communion Propers, full chant hymn verses, ribbons, tutorial, and the fully and updated ordo to the ordinary and extraordinary forms of the Mass. It is a marvelous production, essential for every schola because it includes all the basic chant repertoire.
  • It contains the full Kyriale, which is a collection of chants that make up the “ordinary” of the Mass: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. These are the main sung parts of the Mass that are used throughout the year and the parts that all people are invited to learn and sing. This includes the full Credos in addition to many Mass settings that have been beloved for the dominant part of Catholic history all over the world.
  • It collects 71 Latin chants, with English translations, that are for occasional use in Mass in various seasons of the year, such as hymns for Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost, as well as Marian hymns and chants for funerals and other occasions. These are hymns that constitute the most serviceable of the repertory, have inspired composers for 10 centuries, and have been in the minds and hearts of Catholics for generation after generation.
  • All music is set on four-line staffs with newly typeset neumes that make the music crystal-clear for singing.
  • It includes a 7-page tutorial on singing chant that is invaluable for the beginner and can also teach the more advanced singer. It teaches understanding of signs, melodies, style, rhythms, and modes, all in a very brief section at the back of the book.
  • Additional features include the order of service for Benediction, Gospel canticles, litanies, and Alleluias for both forms.

These features were chosen with the parish experience in mind. There is no existing resource that combines them into a single volume: the Mass, the people’s music, tutorial, and translations. Again, this is not a reprint but a newly created book that offers the core of the people’s Gregorian music. This book could be the most valuable resource yet produced to help Gregorian chant assume its “pride of place” in Catholic liturgy.

It is our sincere hope that this book will make possible the full integration of Gregorian chant, as sung by the people, into both forms of the Roman Rite in English-speaking countries.