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Friday, May 18, 2012

DID YOU KNOW THAT THERE ARE SPECIFIC CHANTED MASSES FOR THE LITURGICAL YEAR IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM?

Technically, Mass I is the Mass that should be sung during Paschal-tide:


I want to thank Mr. Joseph Kopp at King Richard's and sacristan at St. Michael Church (SSPX) for sending me this information. I honestly had no idea about this until recently. I always presumed that in pre-Vatican II times the choir director chose what she wanted to choose, but in fact it was all made clear what should be done.

Has the time come again for this. How difficult would it be to put our English translation to these notations? We've done it for Mass VIII in the new Roman Missal. And Mass VIII which is for Christmas through Epiphany, is the only Latin version our Ordinary Form Mass uses and normally just for Advent and Lent which is wrong to use in that season--How did we veer off track? Through our faults, through our faults, through our most grievous faults!

All this information comes from the (“Liber Usualis”) which is the liturgical book (1962) that has all the masses for the year. (In the traditional rite.)


Mass XVII – For the Sundays of Advent and Lent.
Mass VIII – ( De Angelis ) For Christmas through Epiphany. (any white Sundays)
Mass XI – (Orbis factor) For Sundays throughout the year. (green Sundays)
Mass IX – (Cum jubilo) For first class feast days of the BVM and also used for the Mass on Maundy Thursday.
Mass I – ( Lux et origo) In Paschal time. (from the Easter vigil to Pentecost.)

Credo I – For the Sundays of Advent and Lent.
Credo III – For all other Sundays of the year.

(Sprinkling of Holy water before a sung Mass on Sundays.) (only Sundays) (using a cope and stole in the color of the Sunday.) (if you don’t have all the different color copes dress in alb, stole, cincture for Mass. The chasuble and maniple are in the sanctuary on the sedilia for you to vest for Mass.

1.) Aserges – Sung during all the Sundays outside Paschal time.
2.) Vidi aquam – Sung during the Sundays of Paschal time.


The nuptial Mass (Mass VIII)
The Requiem (this Mass is fixed and has its own Kyriale.)

13 comments:

ytc said...

Father, these are the Ordinary Parts of Mass you will find in the 1961 Liber Usualis (I have it on my desktop!):

I--Lux et Origo (Paschal Time)
II--Kyrie fons bonitatis (I Class Feasts 1)
III--Kyrie Deus sempiterne (I Class Feasts 2)
IV--Cunctipotens Genitor Deus (II Class Feasts 1)
V--Kyrie magnae Deus potentiae (II Class Feasts 2)
VI--Kyrie Rex Genitor (II Class 3)
VII--Kyrie Rex splendens (II Class 4)
VIII--De Angelis (II Class 5)
IX--Cum jubilo (Feasts of the Blessed Virgin 1)
X--Alme Pater (Feasts of the Blessed Virgin 2)
XI--Orbis factor (Sundays throughout the Year)
XII--Pater cuncta (III Class 1)
XIII--Stelliferi Conditor orbis (III Class 2)
XIV--Jesu Redemptor (III Class3)
XV--Dominator Deus (Commemorations and ferias of the Christmas season)
XVI--Not titled, from ca. XI-XIII centuries (Ferias throughout the Year)
XVII--Not titled, from ca XV-XVII centuries (Sundays of Adven and Lent)
XVIII--Deus Genitor alme (Ferias of Advent and Lent, as well as for Vigils, Ember Days and Rogation Days)

There are six Credos.

There are 11 Kyries "ad libitum:" Clemens Rector, Summe Deus, Rector cosmi pie, Kyrie altissime, Conditor Kyrie omnium, Te Christe Rex supplices, Splendor aeterne, Firmator sancte, O Pater excelse, Orbis factor (Sundays throughout the year), Kyrie Salve (Sundays of Advent and Lent).

4 Glorias "ad libitum:" no name (x3), Ambrosian Chant Gloria.

3 Sanctuses "ad libitum:" all no name

2 Agnuses Dei "ad libitum:" both no name

There is one Mass for the Dead.

Henry said...

This brief summary from the Liber Usualis is what I was referring to the other day when I quoted the old saying that, if a Catholic Rip van Winkle awoke after twenty years of sleep and immediately went to Mass, he'd know instantly from the chant of the Ordinary what season of the year it was. He'd know even more precisely if he remembered the individual chants of the propers, all of which are specified also; these proper chants are what the bulk of the Liber Usualis is devoted to.

John Nolan said...

Actually, Father, it's a fairly recent tradition. In the nineteenth century, with the revival of Gregorian chant, the Vatican published a selection of Ordinary chants and grouped them into Mass 'sets' numbered I-XVIII with a few left over. Some of the Kyries were commonly troped in the Middle Ages and the names (Orbis Factor, Cum Jubilo etc) are derived from the opening words of these tropes. The numbered 'sets' and their allocation to different feasts and seasons are essentially editorial suggestions and have little or no basis in historic liturgical practice. However, the editors chose well.

This system was carried over into the Novus Ordo and the 1974 Graduale Romanum has the same Kyriale as the Liber Usualis; it also maintains the established connection between certain settings and certain feasts and seasons, without trying to connect every setting to a particular class or type of feast.

The default settings for the new English Missal are the Kyrie from Mass XVI, the Gloria from Mass XV, Sanctus and Agnus Dei from Mass XVIII and Credo I. They were chosen because their simple syllabic character means they can be adapted to English words and are easily learned. However, any choir with a handful of half-decent singers will want to sing the more elaborate settings, and their more melismatic character means that they can't really be translated. This shouldn't be a problem - English Masses with the sung parts in Latin are fairly normal, and if the celebrant avails himself of the English missal chants the musical logic of the NO becomes immediately apparent.

It is a lot easier to teach a Gregorian setting of the Ordinary to non-specialists than it is to teach them to sing the Graduale Propers. Historically the former is the people's part, and it contains some of the greatest music known to man. Practise Mass IX and sing it on 15 August, with Ave Maris Stella at the Offertory and Salve Regina at the end - that's my advice to any parish choir director. It's not rocket science, or as St Augustine might have put it 'scientia ballistae non est'.

ytc said...

John Nolan, how about the Proper of the day instead of Ave Maris Stella for the Offertory? NOVEL IDEA!

John Nolan said...

ytc

Yes, the Offertory from the Graduale would be ideal, but I was assuming that the average parish would not have a trained schola capable of delivering all the GR Propers, although a start could be made with Introits and Communions which are usually relatively easy.

Of all the Propers, the Offertory was (and is) the least likely to be sung even at Latin Masses (OF and EF) usually being replaced by a motet or an organ piece. Office hymns (unlike vernacular metrical ones) are liturgical, easy to sing, and singing them at Mass enables congregations (who would never hear the Office sung) to become familiar with them. Unfortunately the LU texts are usually those re-written by the Jesuits in the 17th century.

ytc said...

How can a motet licitly replace an Offertory Chant at an EF?

Rubric?

Dispensation?

Indult?

Document from the SRC?

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

I don't think a motet can replace any antiphon in the EF unless the words of the motet are the words of the antiphon? Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons are required in the EF; it's only in the OF that the GIRM gives four options, the last one being "another suitable chant" can be sung--and guess which one in the order of this hierarchy has become the number 1 choice? The fourth and least preferable option!

ytc said...

Yes Father, that nasty Fourth Option needs to be axed immediately...

Anyway, I don't think a motet can licitly replace an Offertory Chant unless, like Father said, it has the same lyrics as the Offertory Chant. I've heard of a motet being used on top of an Offertory Chant, but not replacing it.

Anonymous said...

ytc, we may have motets in addition to the offertory and communion antiphons, but I cannot imagine an EF high Mass without these antiphons.

John Nolan said...

ytc and Fr Allen,

I have a DVD of a Solemn Requiem Mass offered in 2002 in Poznan, Poland, for WA Mozart using the composer's famous setting of the Requiem Mass, by the FSSP who can be trusted to know what they are doing when it comes to the EF. The Gradual and Tract were not sung, since Mozart did not set them; however, they were of course said by the priest, so the Mass was complete. The omission of sung Propers is therefore less of an issue in the EF than it is in the OF.

In the Viennese tradition the sung Gradual and Alleluia were replaced by an instrumental piece, the 'epistle sonata'; many examples survive, including some by Haydn and Mozart. The tradition is continued in the Augustinerkirche, which is more problematic since they use the NO. If memory serves, thy do insert a short Alleluia before the Gospel.

The quite long settings of the Agnus Dei you find in Masses by Haydn and Mozart would have lasted until the Postcommunion prayer, since the faithful would not have communicated. The Communion antiphon would therefore not have been sung.

At EF Masses I sing at, we usually omit the sung Offertory and give the excellent organist a chance to strut his stuff. If it weren't licit we wouldn't do it. The Tridentine mass wasn't nearly as rigid as some of its more fanatical devotees would have us believe (most of them are too young to remember it anyway).

ytc said...

John Nolan, I think that's a bit different. The integrity of the Rite is preserved if the priest says the text.

The Novus Ordo can't compare to that, as something is either skipped or not. There is more latitude with the singing in the EF, but all the parts are actually there even if something is not sung for whatever reason (setting doesn't include it, choir director dies, etc.).

The point is that the structure, from the priest's point of view, is in full integrity, whether or not the parts are sung, and I suppose it can technically be considered licit in that case.

But it is in the rubrics, nevertheless, to sing the texts, no? So where is there an exception granted?

And the Fourth Option needs to be chopped immediately.

ytc said...

BTW, the video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPGx76vR414

The alto is a male, interesting. Nothing wrong with that though, male sopranos and altos do sound considerably different from their female counterparts.

John Nolan said...

There is also the French tradition where parts of the text (antiphon repeat, alternate verses of the Magnificat) are replaced by organ improvisations. A famous example would be the Vespers of the BVM by Marcel Dupre. The organ meditates on a text which is implicitly there, but is not articulated in words.