Sunday Antiphons

[johnquinn39]

At Sunday Mass yesterday, we had a go at singing these:

The entrance (Psalm 130 'Out of the depths...) took this form:

Verses 1 & 2 were sung by the choir to Murray tone H (E minor). then the cantor brought
the congregation in with the first verse and chorus of 'God of mercy and compassion'.

Then the choir sung V 3, the cantor brought in the congregation with the final verse of the
hymn, and the choir concluded with V 4.

I was informed by a choir member that she thought that this would be a complete disaster,
but it worked.

For the communion we sang 'I will see you again' from Psallite.

Any thoughts? What did other choirs / music groups do?

[Lakelark]

Johnquinn's procedure sounds very similar to one I have just finished working on. I have written 61 Sunday Entrance Songs, based on the Antiphons of Graduale Romanum for Sundays. I have versified and expanded the antiphon, using entirely modern and inclusive English, and provided one or more psalm-verses to be interspersed, in much the same manner as the old Introit. The verses are set to hymn-tunes of quality, mostly already well known. And I really thought I had invented something quite unique!

If any member is interested in seeing what I have done, a Personal Message would set the process going. One member already has copies.

[docmattc]

Christoph Tietze's collection "Introit Hymns for the Church Year" also gives metrical adaptations of the introit texts for Sundays and feasts. Unlike the above, which use chant verses, both antiphon and verses are set to a metrical tune. Thus the congregation will stillused to beginning with a metrical hymn still do so, but the text is (approximately) that proper to the day. The author structures the piece beginning with the antiphon as verse 1. Subsequent verses are the psalm and the penulitmate verse a doxology. The final verse is the antiphon once more.

In the days when I was a practising church musician, this was a useful resource which I dipped into quite a bit. Like all collections, some pieces are better than others but I found it excellent for feasts such as Christ the King, Assumption and Ascension.

Any thoughts? What did other choirs / music groups do?

I think its an excellent idea to vary the opening, doing something different makes the congregation sit up. I know that others here disagree, but the introit texts are something well worth exploring. Currently though the options available for these texts are limited, but growing.

Here in the place where I fulfil my obligation, we started with the Taize "O Lord hear my prayer" and at Communion Lucien Deiss' "Keep in mind." This latter piece I hadn't come across before, but now I know it, I can't say I feel I've missed out.

[mcb]

I know that others here disagree, but the introit texts are something well worth exploring.

I seriously doubt that anyone here disagrees that the introit texts are worth exploring. A certain amount of nonsense gets spouted over the internet about the introits (and the chant settings specifically) being the sole musical form appropriate to the opening of the celebration of Mass, but to my mind this can often reflect a lack of familiarity with the letter and spirit of GIRM.

[Southern Comfort]

Don't forget that the antiphon texts of the Missal were not themselves designed to be set to music, are not supposed to be set to music, and therefore should not be set to music as they stand. I'm sure we've discussed all that on this forum previously. If anyone doesn't remember, I'll go into this in more detail, once again.

[mcb]

Don't forget that the antiphon texts of the Missal were not themselves designed to be set to music, are not supposed to be set to music, and therefore should not be set to music as they stand. I'm sure we've discussed all that on this forum previously. If anyone doesn't remember, I'll go into this in more detail, once again.

That's going a bit far! A lot (most?) of the antiphons in the Missal are also to be found in the Gradual, and are therefore incontrovertibly intended to be set to music.

In any case, I'm curious as to where the 'should not' might come from, in the case of antiphons in the Missal that don't coincide with the Gradual. That seems a bizarre inference, given that the most inclusive option in GIRM is more or less for 'anything within reason'. What's your source, SC?

(OK, Doc, and I eat my words! )

[Southern Comfort]

Primary source is the late French liturgist Fr Pierre Jounel, a member of the Consilium group who worked on this aspect of the 1970 Missale Romanum.

In a lecture many years ago he famously said that the only reason the Entrance and Communion antiphons had been retained in the missal was 'to appease the Gregorianists' who wished to continue using the prolix pieces of chant to be found in the Graduale Romanum. In the mind of the working group, the antiphons were essentially intended to remind people that they should be singing something at these points — but not these actual texts.

It therefore does not follow that because many (but by no means all) of the missal antiphons happen to appear also in the Graduale this indicates that those are the actual texts to be sung.

At a very late stage in the work on the revised translation of the Missal, the Americans (in the person of Mgr James Moroney, a member of Vox Clara) discovered this piece of information. The antiphons of the Missal were therefore removed from the competence of the US Conference of Bishops, who never voted on them. The ICEL translation of the antiphons for the third edition of the Roman Missal had been produced by a subgroup (including an English priest) whose brief had been to produce a translation which was susceptible of being set to music; and therefore the strictures of Liturgiam Authenticam were modified somewhat for this purpose. With Moroney coming to awareness of the fact that setting these texts to music was never the intention of those who had originally worked on the Missal in the late 60s, the antiphons were thenceforth reserved to the Congregation; and it is surmised that a complete re-translation of them, following the principles of LA, was carried out — i.e. a literal translation with no allowances for musical requirements. If that proves to be the case, attempting to set antiphons in the forthcoming Missal to music may prove to be an ungratifying as well as an unnecessary task.

There is another area to be considered, too. Like the collects of the Missal, the antiphons follow a general one-year cycle which is independent of anything else going on in the liturgy of the day. However, we now have a Lectionary which follows a three-year cycle. Especially during Ordinary Time, this means that at least one year in three, and sometimes every year, the Entrance and Communion antiphons in the Missal have no connection with the scriptures of the day. The Solesmes compilers of the 1974 Graduale Romanum were aware of this difficulty, and for the Communion antiphons they accordingly provided alternatives for the three years of the Lectionary cycle. However, in doing this they limited themselves to pieces of chant that already existed in the mediaeval repertoire, which meant that they could get an approximate fit to the scriptures of the day but not always an exact one. If they had permitted themselves to use new compositions this would have been a better solution. (There was in fact a precedent for this: when new feasts were added to the preconciliar Roman Calendar, it was on occasions necessary to provide brand new chant compositions/adaptations in the style of older ones.) But they did not go down this road, and they did not apply the same principles to the Entrance antiphons.

Despite its value, the same problem affects Christoph Tietze's otherwise excellent collection mentioned above: it too follows the Missal's one-year cycle.

In the dioceses of England and Wales the options for the Entrance Chant are: (1) the antiphon and psalm from the Graduale Romanum or the Graduale Simplex; or (2) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, the text of which has been approved by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales. [GIRM 2005, para 48]

It is notable that the above paragraph does not give explicit permission for the antiphons of the Missal itself to be used. By contrast the US version of GIRM (2002) allows the following:

In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the
Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

From this we can infer that the option of the antiphon from the Roman Missal has been deliberately excluded from GIRM 48 for England and Wales (2005, three years after the US version). [It is to be noted, incidentally, that this paragraph also excludes all the entrance hymns that we currently sing!] If any further evidence in support of this view is required, see also the Australian (2007) version of this paragraph:

The antiphon and Psalm from the Graduale Romanum or the Graduale Simplex may be used, or another song that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the season and that has a text approved by the Conference of Bishops.

No mention of the Missal antiphon here either.

[johnquinn39]

Let's not make this too complicated!

What I am trying to do is to use the scripural reference of the antiphons - NT fragment & Psalm - and to turn these into dialogical songs with the choir / cantor / soloist(s) singing the Psalm verse, and the congregation singing the NT bit.

The Grail is obviously a very popular and universally approved source of text - this is what I have been using.

I see no problem with the one-year cycle of these - is there any need for them to be relalted to any of the readings in the three-year cycle?

Psallite uses NRSV, but I think any text will do really, if it is understandable and digestable for the congregation.

(Perhaps getting off-topic, but I see no point in using translations from the Latin, rather than the original, and I do not see archaic, and non-inclusive language being taken to heart by the congregation.)

[alan29]

I wonder how people in the pew will react to a diet of responsorial psalms at the start, between the readings, maybe at the presentation of the gifts and communion too - why confine the principle to the start (?)
And if the Ordinary is responsorial too .......

[docmattc]

There is another area to be considered, too. Like the collects of the Missal, the antiphons follow a general one-year cycle which is independent of anything else going on in the liturgy of the day. However, we now have a Lectionary which follows a three-year cycle. Especially during Ordinary Time, this means that at least one year in three, and sometimes every year, the Entrance and Communion antiphons in the Missal have no connection with the scriptures of the day.

This presupposes that the "anything else going on in the liturgy" refers only to the lectionary. An equally valid way of putting the argument is that for two years out of three, the lectionary readings have no connection with anything else going on in the liturgy (where in this case 'anything else' means antiphons, collects, ordinary)
It depends whether or not your view of the liturgy is centred on the lectionary.

Like JQ, I don't see a problem with this. There is no need to be wedded to 'themes'.

The antiphons were essentially intended to remind people that they should be singing something at these points — but not these actual texts.

I find it illogical that a text for the antiphon would have been chosen precisely because this text should not be sung. Which is what you appear to be suggesting.
I have no objection with the suggestion that what is sung need not be the antiphon text, but you are saying that it must not be the antiphon text. We have had this debate before, it wasn't convincing then either.

[johnquinn39]

I wonder how people in the pew will react to a diet of responsorial psalms at the start, between the readings, maybe at the presentation of the gifts and communion too - why confine the principle to the start (?)
And if the Ordinary is responsorial too .......

I think that this would be an overload, and would (as Fr. Lucien Deiss has pointed out) end up devaluing the most important Psalm of the Mass (resposorial).

[Southern Comfort]

Let's not make this too complicated!

What I am trying to do is to use the scripural reference of the antiphons - NT fragment & Psalm - and to turn these into dialogical songs with the choir / cantor / soloist(s) singing the Psalm verse, and the congregation singing the NT bit.

The Grail is obviously a very popular and universally approved source of text - this is what I have been using.

I don't have any problem with that. It sounds like common sense to me. Wish you'd explained this earlier.

I see no problem with the one-year cycle of these - is there any need for them to be relalted to any of the readings in the three-year cycle?

Well, yes, there is.

I wonder how people in the pew will react to a diet of responsorial psalms at the start, between the readings, maybe at the presentation of the gifts and communion too - why confine the principle to the start (?)
And if the Ordinary is responsorial too .......

It might be useful to point out that (a) the Entrance and Communion psalms will be much longer than the Responsorial Psalm, and (b) that there is (or should be) quite a difference between music designed to be sung while people are sitting, reflecting on a reading, and music which is designed to be processed to, with people standing up while this happening. The two animals are quite distinct.

This presupposes that the "anything else going on in the liturgy" refers only to the lectionary.

Exactly. You've got it.

An equally valid way of putting the argument is that for two years out of three, the lectionary readings have no connection with anything else going on in the liturgy (where in this case 'anything else' means antiphons, collects, ordinary)

No, not equally valid, alas. All liturgical planning is centred on the scriptures of the day.

It depends whether or not your view of the liturgy is centred on the lectionary.

Like JQ, I don't see a problem with this. There is no need to be wedded to 'themes'.

I'm not talking about 'themes', which hopefully we have left far behind, but about coherence with the thrust of the scriptures.

I find it illogical that a text for the antiphon would have been chosen precisely because this text should not be sung. Which is what you appear to be suggesting.

Not my suggestion, but Jounel's. He doesn't say a text has been proposed in order not to be sung; he says that a text has been proposed to keep the more traditionally-minded happy, while he (and his group) hope that imaginative liturgists like you and I will go somewhat further.

I have no objection with the suggestion that what is sung need not be the antiphon text, but you are saying that it must not be the antiphon text. We have had this debate before, it wasn't convincing then either.

I'm not saying that it must not be the antiphon text, but that it doesn't have to be the antiphon text. This debate is more convincing when you look at how the antiphons simply do not mesh with many of the scripture readings in all three years of the Lectionary cycle.

Of course it doesn't have to be the antiphon text. The texts in the Simple Gradual are mostly different from both Graduale and Missal. Anyone using the Simple Gradual will quite happily ignore everything else. And even the texts in the Simple Gradual were not designed to fit with the Lectionary we have now.

[Lakelark]

...and at Cofton Park it was "Praise to the Holiest".

[John Ainslie]

I wonder how people in the pew will react to a diet of responsorial psalms at the start, between the readings, maybe at the presentation of the gifts and communion too - why confine the principle to the start (?)
And if the Ordinary is responsorial too .......

It might be useful to point out that (a) the Entrance and Communion psalms will be much longer than the Responsorial Psalm, and (b) that there is (or should be) quite a difference between music designed to be sung while people are sitting, reflecting on a reading, and music which is designed to be processed to, with people standing up while this happening. The two animals are quite distinct.

Quite right!

This presupposes that the "anything else going on in the liturgy" refers only to the lectionary.

Exactly. You've got it.

An equally valid way of putting the argument is that for two years out of three, the lectionary readings have no connection with anything else going on in the liturgy (where in this case 'anything else' means antiphons, collects, ordinary)

No, not equally valid, alas. All liturgical planning is centred on the scriptures of the day.

Yes, but that can be too narrow. Consider the three processional songs in turn:
— Entrance: the purpose of this chant is well-defined at GIRM 47: 'to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to the mystery of the liturgical season or festivity, and accompany the procession of the priest and ministers'. Fine. But if it's Ordinary Time, there's not much of a season or festivity to celebrate. And it would be quite inappropriate to pre-empt the message of the gospel, e.g. by starting with 'Our Father, we have wandered' before the gospel of the Prodigal Son has been proclaimed. 'Opening' and 'fostering unity' can be achieved by any suitable text, provided that it is sung together. So the antiphons in the Missal, which are generally cut-down versions of the ones in the Graduale Romanum, could do just fine. There is plenty of latitude in the GR for using ones other than those printed for the particular Sunday, which gives the opportunity to repeat them. And there's always the Graduale Simplex seasonal ones.
— Preparation of the Gifts: GIRM gives no help here at all. Celebrating Mass says obvious things about accompanying the procession and continues 'texts expressing joy, praise, community, as well as the spirit of the season, are appropriate'. Nothing specific about the readings that have preceded, though songs relating to the Gospel strike me as particularly appropriate, e.g. the one just quoted.
— Communion: GIRM 86 defines its purpose: 'to express the communicants' union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, to show joy of heart, and to highlight more clearly the 'communitarian' nature of the procession...' Very little about their text content. Obviously antiphons and refrains are to be preferred for practical reasons - and here the editors of the 1972 edition of the Graduale Romanum have done a good job in finding texts from the many of the Lectionary Gospels of the day. It is an ancient tradition to use a logion from the Gospel as a Communion antiphon.

OK. So how do we get hold of all these texts? The Society is preparing a compendium (a 'Processional') of all the antiphon texts from the Missal, Graduale Romanum and Graduale Simplex, plus responsories from the ancient Offertoriale. But you'll have to wait for the Missal texts to be released and published, whenever that will be. Then it will be up to composers to get to work on them - and hopefully text-writers too, perhaps expanding Entrance Antiphons into troparia, to give us some alternative to the inevitable hymn...

[Southern Comfort]

and here the editors of the 1972 edition of the Graduale Romanum have done a good job in finding texts from the many of the Lectionary Gospels of the day.

I'm not aware of a 1972 edition. The revised Graduale designed to work with the 1970 Ordo Lectionum Missaæ is the 1974 edition. The SCDW decree is dated 1972, but this refers to the 1972 Ordo Cantus Missæ, or list of chants, not to the Graduale itself, whose imprimatur is dated 24 December 1973 and which carries a copyright date of 1974, the year it was actually published.

It is an ancient tradition to use a logion from the Gospel as a Communion antiphon.

This is what the Psallite composers refer to as the "Gospel Communion", and they use that principle throughout the project. Incidentally, the fact that their antiphon texts are original and do not necessarily follow the texts of the antiphons in the Missal or either of the Gradualia is allowed under the terms of Celebrating the Mass 140, 213, etc.