Liturgical Music Game Changers

Some of you may know that I am slightly obsessed with liturgical music. This situation has not been helped by my recent acquisitions of the "Simple Choral Gradual" by Richard Rice and the "Simple English Propers" by Adam Bartlett, both of which are available on an Amazon website near you.

We all know, of course, that antiphons are the preferred option for music at a mass, but we also know that it is hard to find anything besides boring ol' hymns from huge music corporations. Well fear no more brethren and sistren! These two books are exactly what we need! They contain the propers (not including the Responsorial Psalm) for all Sundays and Feasts for the Ordinary Form of the mass. They are both free to download online (read my "Mysterious Antiphon" article) and the books themselves are relatively inexpensive and built to last. I am particularly impressed by the Bartlett book, as it is a very well-bound hardcover edition. Of course, with any change, people will need a bit of time to get used to reading the chant notation of Bartlett, or the different feel of Rice's antiphon settings. Nevertheless, at what price liturgical fidelity and full participation?

This last Sunday I was the Schola director for a Corpus Christi mass and Eucharistic procession (videos and pics to come soon, hopefully), and a choir of 15 or so 20-somethings had no problem learning and beautifully executing the Bartlett propers.

This might sound all too good to be true, and I would say, "you're right". There is one issue that I have with these books: they don't have settings for weekday masses or for commons. The book "By Flowing Waters" (BFW) does a very good job of having weekday mass settings and commons, so it could suffice until more options come out. I like BFW, but the translation is very odd; it tries to be gender inclusive, and the English they use it fairly awkward sometimes.

So, in conclusion, I really like these new books, and I think that they have a lot to offer for parishes and communities preparing to enter more fully into the sacred mysteries as we pine with quivering anticipation for the coming of the new (awesome) English mass translation.