Videos of Reenacted Medieval English Liturgies

A friend of mine brought to my attention some interesting videos recently posted on the YouTube channel of a man named Sebastian Nelson. In September of 2011, the School of Music at Bangor University in Wales staged the reenactment of three liturgies as they would have been celebrated in England in the early decades of the 16th century, two Masses and a Vespers. The church where these were done is called St Teilo’s, located in Llandeilo Tal-y-Bont in southern Wales; after being partly demolished in 1984, remains of medieval paintings were discovered under the whitewash, and the building was then restored to its current appearance, broadly as it would have looked around 1530. There are also people dressed in costume as ordinary laymen and women attending the ceremonies, including, e.g., a female pilgrim carrying a staff with a seashell on it, as a sign that she had been to or was going to the great shrine of St James in Compostella. Of course, not every detail is accurate, particularly in the third video, in which we see women singing in the choir dressed in cassock and surplice; their singing is particularly nice. The resolution of the videos is low, but still watchable.

The Saturday Votive Mass of the Virgin Mary, the text of which is very similar to that of the Missal of St Pius V, celebrated solemnly with a deacon and subdeacon. In the Middle Ages it was normal for the Ladymass, as it was often called in English, to be said every day in major churches, and in order to alleviate the tedium of singing the same thing every day, variants were introduced. At Sarum, a different sequence was added after the Alleluja on each day of the week; the one sung here is called Hodiernae lux diei.

A votive Mass of the Most Sweet Name of Jesus, as the devotion was called in medieval England, where it became very popular in the later 15th and early 16th centuries. This is celebrated as a typical chancel Mass, a Missa cantata with the priest and servers.

In the third video, a group of nuns (presented in the reenactment as pilgrims to the shrine of St David in Pembrokeshire, the westernmost part of Wales), sing Vespers of the Virgin Mary, which was also said daily, concomitantly with the Ladymass.

Anyone Interested in a New Ministry? Turning Prison Cells into Monastic Cells

Offering the Incarcerated a New Freedom

I was interested, along with many others, judging from the response of readers, to hear that a regular Latin Mass is to take place in San Quentin State Prison in California. What was especially exciting about the story was that 25 men from the prison volunteered to learn Gregorian chant and form a schola for the Mass; I understand even more turned up for the first practice. Read about it here: Twenty-five Inmates to Form Chant Schola for Regular Latin Mass in San Quentin Jail.

Let’s hope that the momentum for such a wonderful initiative will continue after such a heartening start. This story sparked off an idea in my mind for a ministry that could work in harmony with this, and which is a development of something that I have done in the past for veterans at the VA Hospital in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Wouldn’t it be great if prisoners were able to sing the Liturgy of the Hours, and could be taught to do so without anyone from outside participating? The Liturgy of the Hours is, as the Catechism tells us, the most powerful and effective form of prayer that there is after the Mass. This would enable them to sing in community if permitted, or individually.

A cell in San Quentin Prison

A Carthusian cell

I know that there a many prison ministries doing good work, but I don’t know of one that is liturgically focused in this way. (Please do let me know if any already exist.) Also, I do not have a lot of knowledge of what prison life is like, and so it may be that I am being naive about the possibility of this happening.

Nevertheless, I am wondering if enough people in the East Bay area, where I live, would like to meet regularly to form a small group to practice singing the Liturgy of the Hours; and then we can offer ourselves as a group to any institutions that might be interested - who knows, perhaps even San Quentin!

You don’t need to be an expert singer or even know how to read music. If you can hit a note and have the confidence to sing loudly in the shower, that’ll be fine. And, if you like the idea but live somewhere else… then perhaps you can take the initiative and do it yourselves. The more the merrier.

I envision that our group would sing in English and work with the Anglican Ordinariate translation and psalm cycle - it’s the simplest arrangement of the psalms to use if we have take materials in to the the people we work with.

Musically, I intend to use the Way of Beauty psalm tones, which are traditional Gregorian tones developed for English, and to use a drone and in some instances some four-part harmonies (Paul Jernberg’s wonderful arrangements). These all work naturally with mixed or all male voices and are easy to sing. My experience is that even the four-part harmonies are easily taught to singers at the level I have described.

The first goal is to establish a group of singers as a teaching choir which can sing the Office confidently, and then we will approach a variety of institutions with a view to passing on to others. The hope for the prisoners is first to make it possible for everyone to sing with us, then to train them to a level where they can do it without us; they could then even teach new recruits to join in without any help from us. These materials are simple enough for this to be possible and good enough, I believe, that they will want to make it happen.

If we get this far, then I see no reason why some of the people who want to go this far with us, would not also want to learn other forms of prayer that complement the singing of the Office, for example, contemplative prayer; and undertake spiritual exercises that will enrich their lives, such as those described in the Vision for You book. We could also offer some basic instruction in scripture so that they can understand the texts they are praying.

There are no vows here, no obligation to do anything we offer them. People go just as far as they are willing and able. But given that they have so much time, I suspect that those that feel the benefits of a little, are as likely to want to do much. There is, one might argue, a strict Rule of community already present, albeit enforced by rule of law. If this is informed by a program of liturgical, para-liturgical and personal prayer then the impact through grace might, I believe, be profound: on the individuals, on the community as a whole, and even on the society outside the walls. It would create, almost of necessity, a Carthusian-type spirituality, where most is done in solitude and the men or women occasionally come together to pray in community.

Some might wonder if the prisoners would want to do this. Well, the only way to find out is to offer it to them and see. I believe that some will want to given the enthusiasm for chanting the Mass. By God’s grace some will have happier lives and so seeing this will want to go deeper. After all, we worship God for our own sake, not for God, because we are happier for doing so. And this point can be made directly to the inmates: that all the personal prayers and exercises offered will deepen and enrich that act of worship and in turn its effectiveness in transforming their lives.

This ‘try-it-and-see’ approach, a bit like Pascal’s wager, can work. I know because it worked with me. This is the evangelization tactic used to convert me 20 years ago.

This has to be worth a try!

The first step is for a group of volunteer singers to meet and become proficient at singing the Office, leading others and teaching them to do it. (Any who think they would like to get involved, please contact me: davidicons@gmail.com).

A New Graduale Parvum to be Launched in England This Saturday

The Introits of the Graduale Parvum, a new work to support the use of Gregorian chant in parish churches, will be launched at St Mary’s College, Oscott, in Birmingham, England, on Saturday, April 21, at 11 a.m. See the poster below for the full schedule events for the launch, which includes a solemn Mass celebrated with the chants from this book.

The Graduale Parvum is a collection of Gregorian chant Propers for every Sunday and Holy Day in both Latin and English. It is wholly authentic – it uses the same modes as the Graduale Romanum and follows its texts precisely – but simple to sing, and well within the capability of choirs of any parish church. This launch of the Introits will be followed in stages by the other chants of the Propers. The work has been compiled and set by Fr Guy Nicholls, the Director of the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music, in conjunction with the Association for Latin Liturgy.

Christopher Francis, the Chairman of the Association for Latin Liturgy, writes “Although Latin is the core language of the Church, for most people’s lifetimes it has been usual for worship to take place in the local vernacular. For this reason, the Graduale Parvum is as much an English book as it is a Latin one. But it points the way to bringing that essentially Catholic language back into the Mass, whether as part of a mixture, with some chants in Latin and others in English, or in a fully Latin celebration.”

Archbishop Bernard Longley, who will celebrate Mass as part of the launch event, said “I welcome the work of the Graduale Parvum project and I hope that the Graduale Parvum will help and inspire all who want to enrich their parish liturgy with this extraordinarily significant and uniquely beautiful form of sacred music.”

For further information, or to attend the launch at Oscott, please email: enquiries@latin-liturgy.org. or call 0117 962 3558.

Using Drone Warfare in the Battlefield of Sacred Music

I am wondering if the experiences of choir directors out there confirm an observation of mine about the power of a drone - that is, a note sung continuously alongside the melody - to help engage people with sacred music in the right way? I have seen the drone used in both Gregorian and Byzantine chant to powerful effect. I suggest that this is something that could be used more, especially in modern churches which are not designed with an acoustic that naturally produces a harmonic resonance. In my opinion, chant requires that faint suggestion of harmony that such a resonance lends to it, as one might hear in a Gothic abbey, for example, in order to have full effect as sacred music. (I will explain my reasons for saying this later.)

Here are my thoughts as to why this might be. One of the attributes of beauty, famously listed by St Thomas, is due proportion. When something has due proportion, each part of an object must be in right relation to each other part in a way that is appropriate to the purpose of the whole. What constitutes due proportion in any particular situation is to a degree a matter of judgment, but there are geometric and arithmetical guidelines that can inform that judgment.

Beauty, it seems, is ordered by the number three. Going all the way back to pre-Christian classical culture, it was noticed that in the human response to things in combination -  that is, in relation to each other - a minimum of three things were needed to constitute some sense of completeness in the arrangement. If there are just two in combination, such combination can still be beautiful, but there is inherent within it a sense that it is incomplete.

This is most easily explained in the natural response of most people to the combinations of notes in music. When two notes are placed in a relationship to each other, it is called an interval, and when it is pleasing it is described as “consonant”, meaning literally, “sounding together.” However, it was also noticed that when people hear a harmonious interval, it still seems to lack something. If you ask the music theorist why this is, he will tell you that this happens because an interval can be the basis of either a major or a minor chord, and you don’t know which until the third note is supplied. When that third note is supplied, and a full chord is created and the sense of deficiency is removed. This suggests that we have hardwired into us such a pattern of the harmony of music.

The consensus on this differing human response to intervals and chords has never really been questioned. Even the most secular music schools of today would concur and use this as the basis for the theory of musical harmony, although they may then go on to reject consonance as a good, and promote dissonance, which literally means “not agreeing in sound.”

Because musical harmony could be described numerically, by considering, for example, the magnitudes of pipes or strings that produced the separate notes, the assumption was made that the same numerical patterns present in musical intervals and chords could be used in any aspect of time and space in order to make the culture beautiful. It is most obviously applied in architecture, in which the dimensions of buildings can correspond to them. In this 19th-century building in Annapolis, Maryland, we see traditional harmony in architecture based on the principle of three. It has three stories of different sizes; the harmony is made apparent by making the windows different sizes.

It is possible to represent an interval in architecture as well, as in this two-storey colonial house. After all, not everyone can afford to have a three-storey house!

However, even if you can only have two storeys, there are ways to incorporate the beauty of three into the building. Here, in this nicely proportioned modern townhouse, the basement has a smaller window, but it is deliberately designed to give the impression that it extends below ground and is longer, although largely hidden. In our imaginations, we create that third element to fit the pattern and imagine the basement extending well below ground. We naturally want to see that rhythmical progression where the first relates to the second as the second relates to the third. 

Generally, you see the magnitude of storeys reducing as you go up; this is perhaps analogous to the major triad. But you can have a minor triad arrangement as well in which the larger spacing is higher. In the picture below, look at the spacing of the horizontal lines that divide the spaces between the windows, and not just the window size.

Harmonious proportion was defined in Boethius’ De Institutione Arithmetica as “a consonant relationship of two or more ratios.” A ratio is a relationship between two magnitudes. Put another way, Boethius is telling us that proportion is an appealing relationship between two relationships.

This is why we need a minimum of three objects to descript proportion - we can’t have two or more ratios unless we have that many at least. Although the language which describes these proportions (he lists 10 in all) is musical, they are not all derived from musical harmony. They come from the observation of the natural relationships that contribute to the beauty of the cosmos, the human form, and the observation of symmetries that exist within the relationships between numbers and shapes in the abstract world of arithmetic and in geometry. (Note: the Golden Section is not traditionally included among them, despite what many people today assume!)

The assumption was that instrumental music was simply one manifestation of the principle of beauty that runs through all of Creation. For the Christian, these are all facets of the divine beauty that is embodied in the person of Christ.

Now, back to sacred music. The beauty of chant comes from the patterns of intervals that exist between notes from the melodyies which, if not heard simultaneously, are close enough in time that we connect one to the other, just as we can hear a chord in an arpeggio as well as directly in harmony.

Chant is most beautiful, I always feel, when sung in a church with an acoustic that provides resonances and echoes and which faintly harmonize with it. This allows the notes to merge and overlap more, and so enhance our sense of the two together. Also, we grasp on to that faint, suggested harmony, but it always leaves us wanting more because it is not fully expressed. When done well, it creates a longing that takes our imaginations to the non-material realm, and elevates our thinking to grasp the spiritual truths communicated by word and music in combination. When I hear this effect, I always imagine also that I am detecting the ghostly appearance of angels singing with us in the heavenly liturgy. This dynamic of drawing us in through beauty and then directing our imagination to the contemplation of heavenly things is built into the stylization of sacred art as well.

Sadly, many churches today do not have this kind of acoustic, and especially with carpeting, it is hard work to sing chant; in such a situation, this dynamic which draws us in and leaves us wanting more cannot operate in the same way. One way of overcoming this, perhaps, is to add a drone. It brings sacred chant to life, in my opinion. There may be reasons for this that I don’t understand, but I present the following as a possible explanation.

Adding the drone ensures that there are always two notes in relation. As the melody moves up and down, the relationship between drone and melody constantly changes as the intervals vary. In our imaginations, therefore, we grasp for a steadily changing variety of suggested major and minor chords. For this reason, chant in which the pitch of the drone moves relatively little is perceived as musically more complex than music in which the lower note moves much more, as in, for example, parallel fifths. I should say that the drone is striking when the acoustic is good too; shag-pile carpeting is not a necessary condition for the effect to be apparent!

We can hear the drone in this example of Old Roman chant:

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Psalms in Words, Pictures and Prayer

A new online course in Scripture is now available for the first time, offered as part of Pontifex University’s Masters in Sacred Arts. It is called the Psalms in Words, Pictures, and Prayer; we also see this three-credit Masters level course as one that might be audited as a stand-alone, as part of a mystagogical catechesis.

It examines the sung texts of the Divine Office, both the Psalms, which, according to St Thomas Aquinas, contains “all of theology,” and the various canticles of the Old and New Testaments traditionally sung as part of the Office. Each psalm and canticle is examined exegetically, with a focus on the historical context of authorship and composition, and then considered in light of its use in the traditional liturgical setting, including visual imagery related to the text in the illuminated manuscripts.

The Scriptural part of the course is taught by Fr Sebastian Carnazzo, Ph.D. and I will assist on those parts relating to the imagery.

I am especially excited to see this course offered. I hope that it will play a part in encouraging lay people to pray the Office in conjunction with imagery, so as to engage the whole person in prayer. As such, it is a complement to the book The Little Oratory, published by Sophia Institute Press. As well as being a Scripture class that is illuminated by pictures, it is an art class in which students will learn how both content and style of imagery can harmonize with the text in the context of worship.

The first class went live last Thursday at 12 noon, EST and it is offered weekly thereafter. Each class is recorded and uploaded, so you can come in at any time and take the class in your own time and your own pace. Alternatively, enroll and register at Pontifex University and then catch up and join us live in future classes.

As part of the class, we consider what part visual imagery has to play today. Do we need calligraphers and illuminators who can reproduce the breviaries of the past, or do we think as well about new ways of engaging people? I think that the developing pattern of people praying from smartphones represents a new opportunity for engagement with visual imagery that we haven’t seen before. It has never been easier to include high-quality images along with the text being prayed, as well as information about why the particular images are appropriate.

In addition to the enrichment of our students’ prayer lives, our goal is to see them contribute to the adoption of existing images in a way that it brings out the truths contained within the text for people today; this may even lead to the creation of new art, perhaps in a style that is designed to be smartphone friendly!

This man might not be checking his email - he might be praying!

In conjunction with this, I have created a short course, also available through Pontifex University, teaching people to Sing the Divine Office in English. This is not for credit but is intended for personal enrichment and for teachers, parish leaders, community leaders, and households. (Normally costing $99, this is offered free to any who sign up for the Masters in Sacred Arts “bundle”, by committing to pay for the whole program in 30 scheduled monthly payments of $300.)

No prior experience necessary. If you sing in the shower, then you can do this!

The course on singing the psalms is based upon the materials I developed to enable the students of Thomas More College of Liberal Arts to sing the Office daily; most of the materials for the course are available for free on the psalm-tones page of my blog, thewayofbeauty.org. If you need help in learning how to use them, then this www.Pontifex.University course will help you. It is designed so that you can learn to sing the Office and then pass it on to your household, school, parish, community or just sing in your personal icon corner! All the melodies are taken from traditional plainchant in the traditional modes.

Here we are singing the Magnificat:

Just to give an example of what might come out of this - I have a monthly potluck and Vespers for friends, and it is a wonderful social occasion enjoyed by all that builds community in a city setting. It helps us to reach for that Christian ideal where we are in the world but not of it! We use all the psalm tones and settings, and new people learn this in no time as they go along. We also started a men’s group in a local church offering fellowship and prayer, and it is beginning to gain attention; for example, the Catholic San Franciso newspaper wrote about it, here. Our group is now open to men and women!

To read more about this course, follow the link here; to sign up follow the link here.

Looking for Accessible English Polyphony? Check Out English Motets for the Church Year

Every choir director knows the problem. You have a number of people of good will but they are not music majors or professional singers. They need to hear their part many times before they get it. And there isn't a lot of practice time available. Yet there is a great desire for beautiful music to elevate and dignify the liturgy. We love to sing chant, of course, but we also want to bring in the polyphony, in the spirit of the old masters. What do we do?

There's more than one way to solve this dilemma. For example, an organist can discreetly accompany polyphony on the organ; perhaps only the sopranos and altos will sing their parts, but the organ will play everything. Another solution is to find more easily accessible three- and four-part compositions. There are many warhorses in this regard, some of which favor homophony but break out occasionally into polyphony. Examples of this type include Tye's "Laudate Nomen Domini," Hassler's "Dixit Maria," and Tallis's "If ye love me."

But Heath Morber has added a new tool to the arsenal. He has already enriched the choral repertoire with his book Bread from Heaven (reviewed here) and now he is back with another wonderful collection of two- and three-part music, English Motets for the Church Year: Choral Works Adapted from the Renaissance Masters.

The concept is simple: Morber has carefully sifted through a vast array of Latin motets and Mass ordinaries, has chosen sections where the composers themselves thin their texture down to two or three voices, and then has carefully adapted the melodic lines to English texts. He subtly modifies the rhythms and cadences to reflect the character of the English language itself, and provides multiple versions of the motets for different voice ranges. As an experienced choir director, Morber knows what you need: since the refrains are relatively short in duration, he provides psalm verses to sing in between repetitions. The result is a balanced and beautiful whole.

I can certainly vouch that parish and chapel choirs would greatly benefit from adding pieces of this book to their repertoire, especially when trying to prepare for Masses week after week. Indeed, I can think of about ten thousand parishes in the United States that would instantly experience musical elevation and edification if only they could stretch their horizons and, acknowledging that something is missing, insert some Renaissance polyphony. And, while I know Morber would say "bring on Latin if you can," he also knows that not every place or every situation is ready for this venerable tongue. There is certainly a dire need for good English-language music, as well, and in many situations one can imagine this book scoring a tremendous success where a more uncompromising insistence on the original language would raise hackles or draw too much attention to itself.

The music is superb; the texts are from Sacred Scripture; the entire project is in perfect accord with Sacrosanctum Concilium's call for good, holy, and edifying sacred music. Thank you, Heath, for editing another winner.

A full table of contents may be viewed at this site.

Fr. Samuel Weber’s “Propers of the Mass”: An Interview with Dr. Peter Kwasniewski by Roseanne Sullivan

This interview was originally published in the Homiletic and Pastoral Review, as part of an article by Roseanne Sullivan titled “Propers of the Mass Versus the Four-Hymn Sandwich.” It is reproduced here with the kind permission of the editors of the HPR and Ms. Sullivan.

Chant composer Fr. Samuel Weber, O.S.B., recently published a collection of chant settings titled The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities: Chants for the Roman Missal in English. According to Jeffrey Tucker at The Chant Café , “Fr. Weber is truly one of the greatest and most inspired Catholic music scholars, composers, and practitioners of chant in the English-speaking world.” In 2013, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone recruited Fr. Weber to found the Benedict XVI Institute of Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University in Menlo Park, CA for the Archdiocese of San Francisco.

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski was referred to me by Fr. Weber as a trusted liturgical expert and friend who could knowledgeably answer some questions I had originally submitted to Fr. Weber for an email interview.

You might be wondering, “What’s a Proper?” “What’s an antiphon?” “Who cares?” Only a small percentage of Catholics will have any idea of why chant settings of Mass texts in English are important, so I have written an accompanying article titled, “Propers of the Mass Vs. the Four Hymn Sandwich: Another Way of Looking at The Great Catholic Music Debate.” The accompanying article provides definitions of terms along with some background about how the singing of the Proper parts of the Mass has fallen into disuse as an unintended consequence of the introduction of Masses in the vernacular and why resources like Fr. Weber’s are needed to restore the Proper chants to their proper place in the Mass.

Question 1: Please tell us this first: Why do you think this resource is needed?
Dr. Kwasniewski: Ever since the introduction of the English liturgy, Fr. Weber has been among those asked to provide resources for singing the Mass in English. He had been been answering requests from individuals, parishes, and religious communities for many years. This new book takes care of all requests, as far as the Entrance, Offertory, and Communion antiphons go, as well as a number of other important chants for Holy Week. For this particular project of the Benedict XVI Institute, he provided the following for each of the antiphons:
•  Four levels of settings, so that one cantor or a highly trained choir would have options they could manage, depending on available talent, and
•  Appropriate psalm verses for the antiphons for those who would want them (and they are very helpful, since the same action in the liturgy can take a short time or a long time depending on many factors).

I know that Fr. Weber is also working on organ accompaniments in different keys, as well as SATB settings of verses.

The need for this resource is simple to grasp. The propers (as you no doubt explain in your article) are part of the basic structure of the Roman Rite of the Mass. They are ancient—we find them in the earliest manuscripts we have of the Mass, and they were handed down for centuries. They are part of our inheritance from the apostles, first bishops, and first Christian communities, who were steeped in Jewish worship, and for whom the psalms occupied a central place.

The Psalms came to be the very backbone of the Western liturgical tradition, in the Mass as in the Divine Office, because they are the very prayers Jesus inspired and then carried on His own sacred lips, sang in the synagogues, and offered to the Father on the gibbet of Calvary. There is simply no way to avoid the fact that these Proper chants are not a mere add-on or marginal feature but stand at the very center of our liturgical heritage.

In the days before the Council, when the Low Mass tended to predominate, after permission was given for hymns to be sung during the parts of the Mass where the priest prayed silently, the Propers were still always retained, albeit only recited. The Council asked for High or Sung Mass to become the norm—the Sung Mass as it then existed, where the Propers and the Ordinary would be chanted. But after the Council, chaos broke out, and the Propers, like many other treasures, were abandoned and forgotten.

I see a real parallel between what happened to the Propers and what happened to the man en route to Jericho, who was attacked and left by the side of the road to die. The priest and the Levite passed him by, but the Samaritan stopped, took him up and cared for him, and made sure the man would be restored to full vigor. Jesus identified himself with the Samaritan and asks us to do the same. We are now in a position to be Good Samaritans, take the Propers up again, care for them, and restore them to their fitting role in the Mass.

In short, if we would honor Our Lord and the traditions He Himself inspired in our Church, the Propers need to be restored to their place of honor in the Mass. This collection of chants makes it truly possible and practical to do so in the context of celebrations in English.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Organ Accompaniments to Fr. Weber’s Proper of the Mass Now Available

For those who are devotees of Gregorian chant and especially vernacular adaptations of it, surely Fr. Samuel F. Weber’s Proper of the Mass needs no introduction. (But just in case you haven’t heard about it, here is my review of it.)

When the book first appeared, naturally questions arose: Will organ accompaniments for the chants be provided? Will there be choral verses? Will there be a modern-notation version of the chants?

I am happy to say that Fr. Weber, in collaboration with Ignatius Press, has been making available, for free, organ accompaniments and choral doxologies and verses at his own website. You can find there, for instance, scores to cover the entirety of the Advent season, and more will be posted at regular intervals. (To peruse a wider selection of scores, drop the keyword “organpropers”and simply explore the site. It’s a treasure trove!)

Fr. Weber also informed me that he is working on the English Propers for Christ the King right now and that they will soon be posted.

New Arrangements for Vernacular Chants from Adam Bartlett’s Illuminare Publications

Many of you will be aware of Adam Bartlett’s chant compositions for the Propers of the Mass in the vernacular. They are in the Lumen Christi Missal and the Lumen Christi Simple Gradual, both available through his publishing house, Illuminare Publications. In addition, there is the Lumen Christi Hymnal, which has a selection of traditional hymns for liturgical and devotional use, and the proper hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours translated into English and set to the ancient melodies.

He has now published accompaniment editions for this material. For example, there are four part arrangements that can be played by organ or sung as SATB for choir, given for the chants of the Propers or the Responsorial Psalms.

For more information go to the Illuminare website: illuminarepublications.com/

I became aware of Adam’s music when I joined a choir in New Hampshire some years ago. We were a mixture of adults and children with varying degrees of experience of chant. We found that Adam’s chanted Propers were relatively easy to sing, allowed for a clear articulation of the text so that the congregations can understand it. Also, the priest was very excited by them, as he told me that to his pleasure and surprise the congregations were enjoy them and beginning to sing along.

Each Bartlett chant is modal and composed in the same mode as the Latin Proper from which it was translated. This means that they connect musically with original Latin propers. Therefore, when we sang the Latin after the English as a meditation, we found that congregations accepted them, and could thus be introduced to the Latin without being intimidated by texts they don’t understand.

I look forward to hearing these!

New Adoremus Bulletin out - featuring Adam Bartlett, Joseph O'Brien, Cardinal Sarah

The July edition of the Adoremus Bulletin is now out, produced under the leadership of its new editor Chris Carstens. Articles include translations of public statements by Cardinal Robert Sarah, as well as original articles by Adam Bartlett and Joseph O’Brien.

Many NLM readers will no doubt be aware of the great work that Adam Bartlett is doing for chant in the vernacular. I only found out recently the full extent of his work. His compositions are published by Illuminare Publications. He is creating excellent chants for the Ordinaries and Propers of the Mass, and responsorial Psalms available through the Missal, Hymnal and Simple Gradual. Furthermore, he is constantly composing, and four-part

arrangements for accompaniment and singing are posted on the Illuminare website score library weekly; they are available free of charge until they are published as a collection. Through the work that he and others are doing, I think that there is real hope for the establishment of an authentic tradition of chant for English language in the Roman Rite. His work sits alongside what is happening in the Anglican Ordinariate. One hopes that development in each will nourish the other in the future. I am great believer in the importance of the vernacular in the liturgy alongside - not replacing - the Latin, and among these English is in a uniquely important position at the moment. I have written here in the past of the importance of this not just in liturgical renewal, but also the evangelization of the culture (Has Pope Francis Saved Western Culture?). In his article for Adoremus, Bartlett considers the place of hymnody in the Liturgy of the Hours, not only by examining its history, but by providing a contemporary context for hymns in the upcoming edition of the Liturgy of the Hours in English. 

The second story, by Joseph O’Brien, tells of the newly-dedicated Newman Center church on University of Nebraska’s campus in Lincoln, and how beauty of the architecture and stained glass windows is intended as a key element in the liturgical formation of college students. While the images in the windows, for example, will communicate and reinforce the truths of the Faith through their content pedagogically, that is not their sole purpose or even their highest purpose. The beauty of the form communicates something that, to paraphrase of the Catechism, words cannot. Content and form combine beautifully in their profoundly thought out liturgical context, so as to encourage in the students a deep and authentic participation in the liturgy. This is the ultimate purpose of beauty in the liturgy. As Chris Cartens points out in his editorial, it is the transfiguration of the students through the worship of God in the Sacred Liturgy, as members of the body of Christ, that is the ultimate aim of this. One hopes that the new Newman Center in Lincoln will have lasting effect, so that many students will go on to be part of a growing body of people who will contribute to the transformation of the whole culture.

Book Review: The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities

The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities: Chants for the Roman Missal in English. Fr. Samuel F. Weber, O.S.B. of The Benedict XVI Institute of the Archdiocese of San Francisco. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015. xx + 995 pages. List $34.95. Publisher’s link.

THIS is the book so many choirs and scholas have been waiting for, I would even say for 40+ years. If you want to sing Propers (specifically: Entrance, Offertory, and Communion antiphons) for the Mass in English, and you would like to do so with chant melodies that are inspired by Gregorian exemplars and at the same time idiomatic and comfortable in their vernacular adaptation, Fr. Weber’s magnum opus does the job better overall than it has ever been done before. This is hardly a surprise, since Fr. Weber has been chipping away at the task — introit by introit, offertory by offertory, communion by communion — for over twenty years. It can be said without exaggeration that this book has been in progress for decades. It is the definitive book of English plainchant for the Catholic liturgy.

Content

First, the nuts and bolts. What exactly do we find in this 1,000-page volume?

1. An excellent Foreword by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (pp. ix–xiii), explaining why the Propers should have pride of place at Mass, how this fits in with Vatican II’s call for participatio actuosa, and how this book responds to the call for a renewal of sacred music.

2. An “Introduction concerning Chant Technique” (pp. xiv–xx), reminiscent of the introductions in older Solesmes volumes. Fr. Weber explains the fundamentals of chant (notation, neums, modes) in crystal clear prose for the non-expert, and offers a wonderful mini-treatise on the art of singing chant, with an explanation of how he has approached the task of setting the English language.

3. The rest of the book, divided into the Proper of Time (pp. 1–771: Advent, Christmas Time, Lent, Holy Week, Sacred Triduum, Easter Time, Ordinary Time, and Solemnities of the Lord), the Proper of Saints (pp. 772–917: solemnities of saints), Ritual Masses (pp. 918–67: ordinations and marriage), Varia (pp. 968–84: Asperges, Vidi aquam, Glory Be tones), and Indices (985–93).

The Chants 

The Proper of the Mass contains English chant settings for the Entrance and Communion Antiphons as given in The Roman Missal (2010), as well as Offertory Antiphons in line with the Graduale Romanum (1974). (I will return below to the question of the source of the texts.)

For most antiphons, four settings are provided, from complex to simple: (i) through-composed melismatic; (ii) through-composed simple; (iii) Gregorian psalm tone; (iv) English psalm tone. Cantors or choirs that are ready to tackle it can choose a more melismatic setting, while beginners could easily render the psalm tone; or the choice can be made depending on the length of the liturgical action or other factors. Verses are given for all the antiphons, as well. Other collections tend to presume either absolute beginners or advanced scholas, but Fr. Weber has arranged his book in a way that suits every possible situation, so that it’s easy to “shift gears.”

Jeffrey Ostrowski has already been posting recordings of some of the chants. Here are the four settings given for the Introit of Christmas Day, “A child is born for us.” Notice how close in spirit and melody the first setting is to its Gregorian model.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Future for English Chant

The new English Missal currently being rolled out throughout the world publishes more music than any previous edition of the Roman Missal. All of it is English chant - vernacular versions of traditional Gregorian chant. With this Missal, the Church has very wisely seen that if liturgical/sacred music is to have a future in the current environment, it will need to begin with the vernacular, not only for pastoral and pedagogical reasons but also because there is an inherent integrity associated with this genre of singing.

The Missal chants will cover the ordinary chants and dialogues of the Mass. This music is the foundational song of the new Missal. The International Commission on English in the Liturgy has given away sheet music for these chants and encourages their download and use. ICEL has also posted high-quality accompaniments.

It is a requirement that all pew hymnbooks now being printed including this Missal setting of the Mass. Many organizations such as the CMAA have posted tutorial and videos (see this page). For those of us who love sacred music and seek to teach it to a new generation, it is a fantastic thing for us to be able to say, with clarity and conviction, "this is the music that the Church desires for the ordinary form of the Roman Rite." Truly, this represents a sea change in what is arguably the most problematic area of Catholic liturgy today.

English chant is the great missed opportunity of the 1960s. A few composers worked to provide it following the council but the editions were spotty and entered into a contentious world of cultural upheaval and liturgical struggle. It was squeezed out during these years of turmoil. By the time the new Missal was finally promulgated in 1969, the opportunity seemed to have already passed - especially given that the language of the Missal was very unlike the vernacular translations that had commonly circulated for the previous 10 years. All these 40 years of wandering around have finally led us back to where some people thought we should have been immediately following the close of the Council.

Of course the ideal music for the Roman Rite in either form is found in the Graduale Romanum. This book as it applies to the ordinary form came out in 1974 - at which point the cause of all chant (whether English or Latin) seemed largely lost. But in order to have any hope of getting to this point, there will have to be several steps on the way that include: 1) making music that recaptures the primacy of the human voice, 2) making music that is based in plainsong and not strict meters and pop music stylings, and 3) making music the text of which is drawn from the liturgy of the Church and not something else. This is the beginning of the skills and tools that musicians must have to get on the right track. The Missal chants in English make this possible.

However, there is more to the music of the Roman Rite than just the ordinary chants and the dialogues. There are also the sung proper chants that have formed the basis of the changing sung texts of the Mass since the earliest centuries. The most sensitive places within the Roman Rite are the entrance chant, the offertory chant, and communion. These are the places within the Mass where the propers are usually replaced by some hymn chosen by the director of music - a choice that may or may not be appropriate to the liturgy or the day.

A major problem in finding English chant for the propers of the Mass has been to have accessible editions available to average parish singers. There have been attempts and I've posted many of them over the years here at the New Liturgical Movement. In each case, there was some problem with the edition that prevented it from entering in to wider circulation: dated language, old calender, insufficient Psalms to cover the entire liturgical action, and the difficulty of the music itself. This has been very tragic, for it has meant that even those pastors and singers who have wanted to upgrade their music programs haven't had the tools they have needed.

This situation changed dramatically in June of this year with with the publication of the Simple English Propers by Adam Bartlett and published by the Church Music Association of America. This book provides introits, offertories, and communions for the entire liturgical year. The music preserves the Gregorian sensibility by retaining not only the modal structure but also the precise mode of its Latin equivalent. The text is English. Each chant includes more than enough Psalms to sing along with the antiphon so that there is music for the full liturgical procession for which it is to be used.

I would say that this is the first generally accessible book of music for the ordinary form of the Roman Rite in English - and it is no surprise that it has been a huge hit in such a short time. We can bemoan the amazing reality that it took forty years for a book like this to appear or we can simply rejoice that at long last such a book does in fact exist. It is no longer the case that singing the propers of the Mass is out of reach of the average parish. This music can be sung by any cantor or choir in any parish - and it is current being used in everything from small rural parishes to big-city cathedrals.

They also help train singers to really sing - not merely eke out a melody karaoke style while hiding being the organ or piano. They train people to really declaim the text in song - to develop the skill of projecting the word of God in song in a liturgical environment. They underscore the point that the music that is most appropriate to the Roman Rite is (no surprise except to most singers in the Catholic Church today) the music of the Roman Rite. They also prepare the way for the realization of the chants of the Roman Gradual in Latin in the proverbial "brick by brick" manner that has proven so successful in parish after parish.

Shawn Tribe has asked that these chants be posted on this site on a weekly basis according to the new calendar, as an appropriate parallel to the emphasis on chant in the Third Edition of the Roman Missal. Of course I'm very pleased to do so.

I have hundreds of testimonies to their success in parishes. The testimonies come from people who have long trained in Latin Gregorian chant but have not found a way to introduce it to their parishes for a variety of the usual reasons (no singers, no pastoral support, fear of the reaction, etc.). This fact doesn't surprise me, for the music in the Simple English Propers can be used immediately in any parish in a way that most everyone will consider an improvement.

More tellingly, I have an equal amount of testimony from people who have only sung pop music but know in their bones that chant is more appropriate to liturgy. There is also something wonderfully thrilling about leaving the weekly hymn roulette and embracing the sung texts of the Mass itself. This change provides new energy to the whole vocation of being a Church singer.

And for pastors and celebrants, this book has meant blessed relief from the hymn wars that are always roiling around barely under the surface in every parish and also permits them to say Mass without have their sensibilities shocked by hymn choices that they feel they can't control. And given the wide demographic appeal of these chants, it can mean an end to having to endure radically different Mass cultures every Sunday, each crafted with a special demographic appeal in mind.

Finally, let us turn to this past Sunday's entrance chant, which, according to the Roman Gradual, is Justus es, Domine. It has ancient origins, and we sang the Gregorian original in my parish. I understand that this is an extremely rare event. The version of this chant in the Simple English Propers preserves the themes and mode from the Gregorian but resets it for the language and the current pastoral need in most parishes. This is merely a practice video, not a final performance version, but you can see how this works. Keep in mind that the edition provides many Psalm verses to cover the entire procession.

As you listen, I encourage you not to treat this as a performance piece and judge it the way one might judge a performance of Schubert or Bach. This music serves one purpose: to accompany the procession with the proclamation of the word of God according to the approach that has been urged by Popes from the earliest centuries until our own time.



INTROIT • 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time from Church Music Association of Amer on Vimeo.

JT on: A simple English Mass Setting

The biggest complaint about parish music today is that it is too loud, too busy, too ego-driven, and too jazzed up. None of this is necessary, and neither is the Gregorian repertoire the only cure. The transition to quiet and sacred music can come with easy settings that are quick to teach and learn, mostly in English at the outset. Vernacular plainsong can be wonderful, especially for parishes that are looking for periods of quiet reflection, using voice only settings that require no instruments. The idea is to prepare the way for more complex settings in Latin later on.

This setting of Ambrosian chant was adapted by Arlene Oost-Zinner for use at the 2008 Sacred Music Colloquium in Chicago. Feel free to print and use in your parish. Here is a PDF file.