Monday, July 14, 2008

Parish Book of Chant


I'm indulging in a little bit of blogging before the real work of preparing classes starts. One of the best things to happen to church music in a long time occurred when the CMAA published The Parish Book of Chant. This is a wonderful little book with lots of chants in it. The book collects just about all the chants a congregation would need for use in either the Ordinary Form (modern Mass in Latin) or the Extraordinary Form (so-called Tridentine Rite). There is a set of Ordinaries (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) and chant hymns. The great thing is that all the Latin comes with English translations. This is so important since the restoration of Latin to the Latin Rite must be done so that folks know what they are singing and hearing. Also there are basic missals for the older and newer Rites (Latin/English) included. Thanks to the CMAA and Richard Rice for compiling and publishing this. I highly recommend this to everyone interested in chant and its restoration to parish life. Keep in mind that this book is a PEW book. The choir/schola still needs music from the Graduale (or Liber Usualis) to sing the Propers of the Mass or Vespers.

3 comments:

dtaylor said...

Mike, I'm glad you had a good time this summer, and I thank you for the pictures of Gettysburg. They were great! Hope you're bringing us copies of the Chant Book!

Michael O'Connor said...

Dave, I thought about it, but since we need so much from the Liber, it's better for us to keep doing the photocopies. Thanks for posting.

mwa said...

Received my copy last week. It's a deal for $14! available from aquinasandmore.com