The Recovering Choir Director

The great merit of the book is that it underscores the main point that is missing in nearly all discussion of music and liturgy these days, namely that the Roman Rite is not just a text but it a complete and integrated system of liturgical expression that includes both spoken and sung prayer. Just to open this book and flip through it (the English is a great help in this regard) this realization, so evident in page after page, comes as a wonderful revelation. It is suddenly clear that this is the core music that is organically connected with the Rite, and whatever we do after this must extend from it; at the very least we ought to be aware of the degree of our deviation from it. For this reason, it seems to me that this book is the best possible show-and-tell-style case for the restoration of the sacred. Without it, many people will just have no idea what the GIRM is talking about, much less the V2 documents.

There is a book published by a monastery in the Netherlands called the “Liber Psalmorum pro Communione.” I just ordered a copy after doing a Google search. It’s supposed to have the Communion antiphon and the appointed psalm verses (in neumes). I’ll let you know how it is if and when I get a copy.

Please do, Mr. P., because I “ordered” it — no money changed hands — and never received anything even with the help of a Dutch fellow.

A recent poster (no … not that recent!) has a copy of the verses keyed to the older Graduale, but it would be up to him to come forward. I think he would be concerned not only about the massive electronic file sizes but also copyright (this is referring to a more recent poster).

In my experience, the Gregorian Missal is used by schola members. I was the odd man out; I just used one of the Gradualia Romani that I received as presents and found my own pages.

I do wish that the Gregorian Missal at least had the verse references for Communion so that the light bulb mentioned by Mr. Tucker would light in more heads: With the traditional melodies, the introit can be used for both the entrance procession and incensing, the offertory can often be used for the entire preparation of the gifts, and the communion can be used for a large part of the procession. The propers do not have to be a sentence (or sentences, in the case of the responsorial psalm) that we mumble out of the missalette — if we find the page fast enough — when we do not have any “hymn” to sing. And as we know, repetitio mater studiorum, so there are formational benefits to repeating each antiphon for everyone participating in this prayer, besides the liturgical wealth that is the psalms.

P.S.
The current version of:
http://www.cantemusdomino.net/Liturgy-links.htm
is at:
http://home.comcast.net/%7Edvdwb/Liturgy-links-1-1-04-comcast.html

My “Liber Psalmorum pro Communione” arrived today. It has just the psalms/canticles with no indication as to which antiphon goes with which psalm. Oh well, I’ll just have to figure it out.

Regarding the Liber Psalmorum: I just ordered it on the internet and lo and behold it showed up with an invoice in Dutch without any money being exchanged ahead of time.

And, all the directions are in Dutch (!). I could probably figure it all out with the help of the Graduale. It has the verses pointed beneath the psalm tone with rather unusual markings to indicate how to intone each verse (e.g., it’s not like the Liber usualis). This is where the Dutch intro might be handy. We’ll see . . .

What book are the Verse Book Images drawn from?

http://briefcase.yahoo.com/dvdjjwb@sbcglobal.net
My Documents–>Verse Book Images:
Communion-verse-explanation.html has viewing and printing information.
Index-Communionem.html has been updated and corrected.
Two sub-indexes have been added.
One for those Communion verse settings that partly or
fully match the required psalm verse settings
in the Graduale Romanum for a given Communion.
One for those verse settings that cover all
the different psalm verse settings for a given Communion.