Preface Missal Chant

[alan29]

I suspect RVW was doing a bit of a rescue job on those folk-sources when he compiled the EH, and he had gold-plated genius on his side. A century or more down the road you have to ask yourself if there is a vernacular folk music tradition left outside of the football terraces.
I personally love the idea of rhythmically and melodically strong modal music as a basis for what we do on a Sunday. I'm a big fan of time signatures.

[docmattc]

Perhaps Fr Ruff, who headed ICEL's music committee prior to the final revision, could be asked to write something for M&L regarding the genesis of the Missal tones in English?

[Nick Baty]

Without wishing to be a wet blanket, can I bring us back to topic?

PP... was really struggling with the preface chants... Just wondered how others – presiders in particular – are doing.

[Peter Jones]

Perhaps Fr Ruff, who headed ICEL's music committee prior to the final revision, could be asked to write something for M&L regarding the genesis of the Missal tones in English?

Well, that would be an interesting read (if you've not read this and subsequent expansions already). http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2011/01/10/my-work-for-icel/

[Calum Cille]

As for 'compositional techniques of Gregorian chant', I would regard them as highly debatable, given that we know so little about their origins, even pace McKinnon, etc. If the experts cannot agree, what hope is there for lesser mortals?

There's a lot that experts do in fact agree on regarding the structure of Gregorian chant. Certain features can be very obvious, even to 'lesser mortals' (eg, repeated formulae). It would of course be up to experts to explain the less noticeable but nevertheless identifiable structural features! But, hastening back to topic ...

In EP3, from 'Therefore, O Lord...' it is 23 words before you come to the first cadence (on 'consecration'); the colon after 'implore you' is ignored. Cadences should reflect punctuation, in order to assist the communication of the text.

33 syllables including the first cadence indeed but that's hardly uncharacteristic of Roman chant. The Ad pacem tone contains 31 syllables in the first line, followed by 45 syllables for the second line, ignoring one colon, one semi-colon and numerous commas. What does "should" mean here? That traditional practice always reflects punctuation? Commas can end up being put everywhere, and subdividing clauses melodically can produce a musical repetitiveness more irritating to the ear than words recited on a single note.

[musicus]

Without wishing to be a wet blanket, can I bring us back to topic?

PP... was really struggling with the preface chants... Just wondered how others – presiders in particular – are doing.

Quite. Can anyone respond to Nick's original post? (The other issues are interesting too; why not start a new topic or two?)

[docmattc]

I haven't talked to him about it, however mine used to sing the preface but hasn't done (in my hearing) since the NT (nor the doxology). He has been off ill a couple os Sundays, and I've been away a Sunday or two, so my sampling may not be statistically significant.

[Peter Jones]

I sang a Sunday preface this morning. Hmmmm. Musical matters aside, what's wrong with the printing of the chants is that there's no concession for wearers of varifocals such as me. The type face and music font of theses chants are smaller than the plain text of the Missal. Switching from one to another requires bodily movement and a forward head positioning to achieve the correct focus for legibility. The people assembled must have wondered what on earth I was doing.

[VML]

That seems to me to be a considerable fault in so expensive an investment of a book.

[John Ainslie]

Quite. The CTS altar missal (and its two derivatives, the chapel and study editions) is beautifully printed and bound. But clearly the CTS wanted to save the considerable expense of re-setting all the music from the rather long lines of the ICEL-provided originals. So they have simply photocopied the ICEL copy. The result is that the text under the music is a good 3 or 4 points smaller than the body text, and noticeably smaller even than the rubrics. The distance at which a priest can read comfortably from a missal stand is much too far to read the music settings easily. I fear that it will discourage many priests from even trying to sing the preface - or the Eucharistic Prayer.

[Southern Comfort]

Quite. The CTS altar missal (and its two derivatives, the chapel and study editions) is beautifully printed and bound. But clearly the CTS wanted to save the considerable expense of re-setting all the music from the rather long lines of the ICEL-provided originals. So they have simply photocopied the ICEL copy. The result is that the text under the music is a good 3 or 4 points smaller than the body text, and noticeably smaller even than the rubrics. The distance at which a priest can read comfortably from a missal stand is much too far to read the music settings easily. I fear that it will discourage many priests from even trying to sing the preface - or the Eucharistic Prayer.

If only they'd read the Sound Reflections column in the latest M&L !

And many clergy round here are saying that the chapel edition (same page size as the £10 temporary altar missal) is simply too small to read at the altar when on the road, let alone the altar edition itself. Hmmm...

I dread to think what the study edition will be like (mine has still not arrived yet).

PS: I know someone who re-engraved the entire new Exsultet in order to make it user-friendly for deacons in candlelight.....

[gwyn]

S.C. mentioned,

I know someone who re-engraved the entire new Exsultet in order to make it user-friendly for deacons in candlelight...

Excellent. Would (s)he be happy to make it available?

[quaeritor]

you have to ask yourself if there is a vernacular folk music tradition left outside of the football terraces.

Shame on you, Alan29 - when did you last go to a folk club? PM me if you'd like to risk a (very) amateur recording of the opening 4 hour session of a singing weekend I went to recently (no instruments involved) and I'll see if I can contrive to give you access to it (it'll be quite a big file!) for "study purposes" (not sure of the copyright implications). Mind you, it might challenge your love of time signatures!

Q

[VML]

you have to ask yourself if there is a vernacular folk music tradition left outside of the football terraces.

Shame on you, Alan29 - when did you last go to a folk club? PM me if you'd like to risk a (very) amateur recording of the opening 4 hour session of a singing weekend I went to recently (no instruments involved) and I'll see if I can contrive to give you access to it (it'll be quite a big file!) for "study purposes" (not sure of the copyright implications). Mind you, it might challenge your love of time signatures!

Q

Thanks Q. You beat me to it, and at some point I may start a new thread on church music/ folk connections.

[alan29]

you have to ask yourself if there is a vernacular folk music tradition left outside of the football terraces.

Shame on you, Alan29 - when did you last go to a folk club? PM me if you'd like to risk a (very) amateur recording of the opening 4 hour session of a singing weekend I went to recently (no instruments involved) and I'll see if I can contrive to give you access to it (it'll be quite a big file!) for "study purposes" (not sure of the copyright implications). Mind you, it might challenge your love of time signatures!

Q

Thanks Q. You beat me to it, and at some point I may start a new thread on church music/ folk connections.

at the risk of staying off topic - I'm delighted that there is still life in "folk." Saw Catherine Tickell live a couple of years ago - now there's a musician who could lift a dreary setting.