PANEL decisions

[presbyter]

Let's look at an example from a query someone sent in and the reply received....

I have noticed that some composers, no doubt eager to comply with the current requirements, are preserving final full-stops when phrases are repeated, e.g:

Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the highest.

rather than the more usual and arguably more correct:

Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna in the highest.

Reply received:

There is no 'approved style' for the punctuation of the repetition of text.
We would expect it to make sense and be consistent. The one other relevant
comment was that in a responsorial setting either it should be punctuated as
two separate texts or one continuous text - but not a mixture.

There would not be a problem with your first example with the full stop. In
the second I would only query the capital H on the second Hosanna. The
Missal text does not follow poetic capitalisation nor do I think that here
it is a word which is marked as a title or theologically significant (e.g
Death, Resurrection).

Yet this is contrary to standard English usage and principles of type-setting and publishing.

Elaine Gould, Behind Bars, Faber Music Ltd, 2011, page 438:

"Use upper- and lower-case letters (never exclusively capitals) exactly as
written by the author, including poetic capitalization after line breaks in
the text. Punctuation follows the author's original, even where this is
contrary to the musical phrasing.

Where a word, phrase, or line of text is to be repeated, commas separate the
repetitions and the final punctuation comes only at the very end."

Confused? I am.

[presbyter]

So would:

Amen. Amen. Amen.

be correct?

Given that:

Amen, Amen, Amen.

is incorrect?

I really do think we need to know before submissions are made.

[musicus]

The quotation from Gould continues:

A repeated section of text starts with a lower-case letter:
'So sing it, sing it, sing it!'
However, where a whole line is repeated, the initial capitalization for the repetition is optional:
'When shall we sing, When shall we sing?'
or 'When shall we sing, when shall we sing?'

The way I interpret the responses from the Panel is:

(a) "Amen, amen, amen." is OK with the Panel (and with Gould).
(b) "Amen. Amen. Amen." is OK with the Panel.
but
(c) "Amen, Amen, Amen." is NOT OK with the Panel.

Also:
(a) "Hosanna in the highest, hosanna in the highest." is OK with the Panel (and with Gould).
(b) "Hosanna in the highest. Hosanna in the highest." is OK with the Panel.
but
(c) "Hosanna in the highest, Hosanna in the highest." might not be OK with the Panel (but it is with Gould).

In both cases, I will adopt (a) when typesetting (which is in line what the estimable Elaine Gould - my new vade mecum - says).

Life is too short for all this!

[presbyter]

The way I interpret these responses is:

Fair enough BUT neither musicus nor presbyter are members of the panel! I think it would be very helpful for the anonymous panel to produce, now, an anonymous set of clear guidelines on how the texts should be approached so that time is not wasted on "withheld editorial" and "withheld" decisions. There have surely been a sufficient number of submissions to date to enable the panel to put down their working principles in a concrete, accessible form. As you say, life is too short for this!

I have every sympathy with the "staff of one" at Eccleston Square whose life must be a misery in coordinating the panel process. I don't think he signed up to engage in proof-reading as the core activity of the Liturgy Office.

[presbyter]

The quotation from Gould continues:

A repeated section of text starts with a lower-case letter:
'So sing it, sing it, sing it!'
However, where a whole line is repeated, the initial capitalization for the repetition is optional:
'When shall we sing, When shall we sing?'
or 'When shall we sing, when shall we sing?'

But what if a composer treated the latter as: "When shall we sing? When shall we sing?" Hypothetically, how might the panel judge that?

[presbyter]

AND - - if any Panel Member reads this - and I think they surely must do - might I suggest that when "withheld editorial" letters are received, alongside the letter, a marked .pdf of the score is also included. I have even received a telephone call from one confused composer who could not immediately find his punctuation error and it took me several minutes to help him discover it. A red mark on the score would have been very helpful. Thank you.

[Nick Baty]

(a) "Amen, amen, amen." is OK with the Panel (and with Gould).
(b) "Amen. Amen. Amen." is OK with the Panel.

This is all very well until the assembly knows the piece from memory and is no longer looking at the dots. How will they remember whether to sing a full stop or a comma?
Similarly, when singing an acclamation from memory, will the realise they are singing "Death, Resurrection, Bread and Cup" rather than "death, resurrection, bread and cup"?
In other words, why on earth does any of this matter in the context of texts which are, generally, sung from memory?

[Southern Comfort]

And all of this blithely ignores the fact that different publishing houses have different house styles. All publishing houses will routinely correct punctuation and capitalisation to their own house style. While admitting that liturgical texts are in a different category from those of an individual author, the focus on the kind of minutiæ that we are seeing here is, quite frankly, unbelievable. Publishers and composers in the US are not having to put up with this kind of behaviour, which is a waste of everybody's time

There appears to be nothing to prevent a publisher from submitting and gaining approval for a version which the panel, in its inconsistency, deems approvable, and then subsequently doing the routine editing just referred to before publication.



.

[presbyter]

........... the panel, in its inconsistency............

Hmmmmm. I've just noticed that a piece of mine has received no comment at all on "Amen, Amen". Yet mcb gets a thumbs down for "Amen, Amen, Amen."

I have asked for clarification.

[alan29]

(a) "Amen, amen, amen." is OK with the Panel (and with Gould).
(b) "Amen. Amen. Amen." is OK with the Panel.

This is all very well until the assembly knows the piece from memory and is no longer looking at the dots. How will they remember whether to sing a full stop or a comma?
Similarly, when singing an acclamation from memory, will the realise they are singing "Death, Resurrection, Bread and Cup" rather than "death, resurrection, bread and cup"?
In other words, why on earth does any of this matter in the context of texts which are, generally, sung from memory?

I am assuming it is on the same principle that Bach used when he arranged one of the pages of the Matthew Passion to have the shape of a cross in his manuscript. Music for the eyes or some such.
And in no way does it point up the Hyacinth Bucketisms that result when you strive for a particular kind of "poshness" and fail. I refer to the "translators" here, not the PANEL.

[presbyter]

In other words, why on earth does any of this matter in the context of texts which are, generally, sung from memory?

Salvation depends on these matters? One does begin to wonder what our Lord (or should that be Our Lord?) thinks about all this.

[musicus]

The way I interpret these responses is:

Fair enough BUT neither musicus nor presbyter are members of the panel! I think it would be very helpful for the anonymous panel to produce, now, an anonymous set of clear guidelines on how the texts should be approached so that time is not wasted on "withheld editorial" and "withheld" decisions. There have surely been a sufficient number of submissions to date to enable the panel to put down their working principles in a concrete, accessible form. As you say, life is too short for this!

I have every sympathy with the "staff of one" at Eccleston Square whose life must be a misery in coordinating the panel process. I don't think he signed up to engage in proof-reading as the core activity of the Liturgy Office.

presbyter is, of course, quite correct. It would be good not to have to "interpret" at all. I wonder if this is a case of we Brits being over-scrupulous in applying the rules and regulations (which, I am told, is not something of which the Romans could ever be accused!).

[Nick Baty]

There appears to be nothing to prevent a publisher from submitting and gaining approval for a version which the panel, in its inconsistency, deems approvable, and then subsequently doing the routine editing just referred to before publication.

True. Except that one must submit five copies of the published piece to the Liturgy Office so they do see what you've done.

[presbyter]

one must submit five copies of the published piece to the Liturgy Office

Do they pay for them? Let's say five copies of a possible collection that might retail at £14.95..... that's £74.75p. That's quite a "freebie" they are asking for, don't you think?

And given that the liturgy Office is little more than a large cupboard, where are they going to put them?

[Nick Baty]

No, they don't pay for them. And, even at cost price, the stack I've just sent cost me more than £30 – plus the £4 postage!