Plainsong Psalter?
Posted by Chris T. on Friday, June 15th, 2007
Has anyone used or even seen the Plainsong Psalter from Church Publishing? John-Julian+ was kind enough to send me some OJN chant materials, so now I have resources to actually chant the Rite II office, but I'm curious whether the "official" TEC resource is any good or not. So far, I haven't been able to find it in any bookstores (even specialized ones) and Bp Tim wasn't able to find it at the bookstore at TEC headquarters, either.
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26 Responses to “Plainsong Psalter?”
Not only have I seen it, but in my former parish in Michigan, we had a stack of them that we used for daily Evening Prayer chanted four evenings a week. You would be surprised how easily people pick up the psalm tones. The antiphons are those of Ordinary Time and the seasons from Howard Galley’s Prayer Book Office. I don’t always agree with the pointings, but then I rarely agree 100 percent with any psalter’s pointings. It’s a fine book, if a bit expensive. Wish they’d put a pointed Gloria Patri at the end of every psalm, but one can flip to the front where there’s a model Gloria Patri for each tone.
Am I right to guess that it’s in modern notation (round notes) rather than square notes?
One other question — are all the antiphons for a particular psalm in the same tone, with the psalm pointed for that one tone? Or how do the antiphons work?
There are several different versions, even within Anglican musical circles; probably you’re referring to the current “authorized” one, though?
I’m sure you can get copies of at least one of the versions at Amazon, though - I’ve seen it there. (In fact, I think I saved the link.) Will check and post again….
Here’s a search page that came up.
Hi bls –
This is the one I mean (the used ones on Amazon are actually more expensive than new ones from the Church Publishing website!).
The alternative is to slowly build up my own resource from traditional materials, which is something I’ve thought of — because then it would be free and online. I set antiphons for Psalm 1 while I was playing around with the St Meinrad fonts and found that work really joyful and peaceful, but I don’t know if it makes sense to expend the effort instead of working on other projects.
Yeah, I just found that page, too. What’s wrong with that one?
I don’t think that’s the one my parish uses - I believe it has a green cover - but I can probably find out for you. If my parish uses it, though, it’s good - they’ve always been very big sticklers on music there.
I have the St. Dunstan’s - if you go to my blog and Search, you’ll find references to it, and some pages I’ve photographed. People like it a lot, but it uses the old language.
(It’s a lot of work, Fr. Chris. Monastic communities spend years and years researching the stuff you need, and then you have write - and maybe translate, too. I’d just buy the book, or get a used one!
Check out the St. Mary’s article about plainsong, to get an idea of what’s involved. They put out a Monastic Diurnal, too, and describe some of that process over there as well.)
Yeah, I just found that page, too. What’s wrong with that one?
The problem is that I just don’t know what it includes, what the sources are for the antiphons, etc.
I’m also trying to figure out how the antiphons and pointed psalms match up. Is each psalm printed with several tones, or do the antiphons all match the psalm’s tone, or…? These are the questions I’d like to answer before spending $40.
I have the St Dunstan’s as well and love it — I’d be somewhat happy just to have a Rite II version of that (though I’d prefer to have antiphons, too). I got the sense that the Church Publishing book doesn’t have the canticles, which might put me off from buying it altogether. (I would probably be pulling antiphons on the Magnificat and Benedictus Deus from the Monastic Diurnal Noted, so I would want those canticles in multiple tones like the SDPP has.)
Plus I find round notes comparatively harder to sight-read.
Well, I’ll be at choir this Sunday and will check the book for you in re these things.
They should really answer questions like that at Church Publishing, actually. But why not Google and see what you can find? Office and Breviary users are obsessed with things like this, and I’m sure somebody’s got something pithy to say online….
But here’s an idea: if you’re into the work, why not take the music from the St. Dunstan’s and the Psalms & Canticles from the BCP and go from there?
My googling has not been fruitful — which has added to my suspicion of the Church Publishing book.
I would really appreciate it if you would take a look when you’re at church, though. No matter what the outcome, I might drop an email to Church Publishing and see if they could beef up the description on the website or even publish a 5 or 10 page extract online in PDF.
I may indeed do what you suggest, basically just updating the St Dunstan’s book to Rite II. It’s almost all Psalm tones anyhow. Depends on how badly I want antiphons.
You can take a look at what I did earlier — this file has three antiphons for Psalm 1 from the traditional Matins. It’s nice, but less user-friendly because the Psalms were not traditionally pointed for any one tone, so you can use them with the antiphons.
Doing that was a blast, because you get to sing the Latin one several times, adapt it, and sing it several times in English. The idea of continuing this is attractive just for the education in the breadth of the Gregorian chant tradition it affords.
I’ve got and have used the Church Publishing one. It’s the one used for the sung Offices at GTS. It doesn’t have the canticles. I don’t have it handy but if I recall correctly it has two antiphons for each psalm, a general one and a seasonal one–the season depends on the psalm.
I can’t tell you any more about it without looking at it–but I can later tonight…
I’ll tell you what we need—we need a Rite II/modern language version of this (which I can’t wait to get my hands on…) We need a classical “Psalter” which includes a kalendar, the fully pointed psalms, *all* the canticles and the Office hymns.
Derek –
Thanks for the information. Do the two antiphons both match the tone of the psalm they come along with?
As far as a classical Psalter — that’s basically the stuff I need and want to replicate (which is what’s in the S Dunstan book, minus hymns). For me, the tough decision is whether to trade pointed psalms for a rich antiphonary. (In the old Antiphonale, of course, the Psalms aren’t pointed — which is less user-friendly but lets you do a ton of beautiful antiphons.)
As far as hymns go, I’m still working on the Office hymnbook in old language matching the Anglican Breviary hymn scheme, which I think will be good enough for me. I don’t mind singing “thee and thou” hymns with Rite II everything else. John-Julian+ sent me the OJN hymnbook, which is in contemporary language. Just flipping through it today, it looks quite good.
St. Dunstan’s has the old Lauds canticles which I think the BCP should have adopted–but didn’t. As a result, I’d like a resources that has several settings for both sets…
I agree that John-Julian’s+ hymnbook is quite good.
The Plainsong Psalter is in modern stemless notation (5-line staff). For each psalm, the antiphons given are in the same mode as the psalm tone.
The Julian materials sound great; I wish I still had my Julian Chantbook, since they don’t sell them (or anything else) anymore. They’re slowly putting some things online, but I’m not holding my breath about the chant books.
What I’d love is an English-language (1979 psalter, please?) full Monastic Breviary according to Scheme A or B of the Thesaurus Liturgiae Horarum Monasticae. There are German ones and Italian ones, no English ones (except perhaps unpublished in some monasteries). This would probably have to be three or four fat volumes, but I’d promise to adopt it as my bestest breviary and never fiddle with other ones again.
Unfortunately I can’t help with the ‘79 language, but Lancelot Andrewes does have the Monastic Diurnal available and is hoping to print Monastic Matins soon, once they get enough capital.
My solution lately has just been using the BCP — I don’t have time to use the AB or the MD anymore.
But I’ve worked out a scheme that’s fine for me. I do Morning Prayer II at 8 at Nearby Parish, then I use Noonday Prayer three times for Terce, Sext, and None, doing the first Psalm, first Collect, and first Chapter for Terce, the second Psalm, second or third Collect, and third Chapter for Sext, and the third Psalm, fourth Collect, and third Chapter for None. Then Evening Prayer II at Nearby Parish and Compline. My seventh Hour is Mass, usually after Terce. 
That’s a nice job on Psalm 1 there, Fr. Chris. I’m embarrassed to admit that I just “wing it” as far as Antiphons and Psalm Tones go; I just sing whatever tone I feel like, and just grab the Antiphon from the text from the Psalm itself, or from another reading, or from a Seasonal Introit or whatever. I’m not fussy, IOW - I do kind of an improvisational Divine Office, every time. I make it up as I go along, mostly.
But here’s how they do the Tones at the place I go for prayers: there is just one set of the Psalms, from the BCP Psalter. The pointing for the various tones is written in right on top of the words, between the lines of the Psalm verses. It ends up looking something like this:
87 432 561
1 Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, *
84 532 761
nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful!
87 432 56 1
2 Their delight is in the law of the LORD, *
84 532 761
and they meditate on his law day and night.
Does this make sense? The numbers represent each of the Psalm tones, and show you where the pointing happens - but all on one page. That way, you can use one Psalter for any occasion at all - you just have to know the Psalm tones by heart. You get the endings from the Antiphon, so that’s right there, too. It works well. (I hope the page will show up the way I’ve written it out! Well, we’ll see, I guess.)
Oh, it didn’t work! The numbers are supposed to be spaced out over the correct words on each line.
Do you understand what I’m saying here? Maybe I can write up a post at my own blog, if not….
That makes sense, bls. (It came out correctly in the email I got, even if it didn’t in the comment box.) I’ll have to play with that idea and see if I can make it look good in my word processor — that would solve all of my angst about whether to have pointed Psalms or not. Well, most of my angst, anyway, since as you say you’d have to memorize all the tones or flip to the front of the book. (The end of the antiphon provides a little reminder, which I suppose will be helpful.)
Anyhow, brilliant suggestion! I’ll see what I can do with it. This is really where e-ink books of the future would come in handy, but we don’t quite live in that age yet.
The numbers get grouped in big bunches, too; the Psalm tone endings - both at the mediant and at the termination - have similar numbers of notes. I forget which tones are which right now, but it’s easy to see that all the tones with, say, 4 termination notes, will be grouped together when you use this system. And all the endings of each tone have the same number of notes, too.
It’s actually much harder to talk about this than to sing it, I’m afraid!
In this system, the notation for which tone to sing is written out in Roman numerals over the musical staff of the antiphon. So vii would be Psalm Tone 7, and then the ending is written out in notes right after the antiphon itself.
If I remember right, they also put in a number to show an alternate Psalm Tone. So iii.2 would be Psalm Tone 3, the second version.
(Actually, it’s much more cryptic even than this. For some reason, they use a “j” when the Roman numeral ends in “i”, like thus: viij.2. That’s Psalm Tone 8, version 2. Crazy!)
And believe it or not, I’ve never memorized the Psalm tones myself, because I learned to sing them by listening, rather than reading. I didn’t pick up the office book till much, much later - I was using the BCP itself, and just listening and following along.
So I was just about to tell you how easy it was to do it this way - but then I remembered that if I had to do it myself, I’d never be able to start! I really have to get down to memorizing those tones at some point….
;-D
Ok–they use the Anglican Chant Psalter at General; M+ corrected me… (also worth getting…) The only Office they use plainsong for is Compline.
There are at least two antiphons which come from Galley’s Prayer Book Office. The antiphons are traditional-yet-simple and do match the tone of the psalm.
Personally, I’d recommend you get it as it’s a good reference piece (and nice for ecumenical work if you do joint services with us types…)
I have the Psalter. If you want to see a couple of pages, I could copy a few (fair use!) and send them, just specify psalms; if you want to talk about it, email me and I’ll send you my phone number so I can describe it over the phone.
Fr. Chris, I did not have a chance to look at this book on Sunday, I’m sorry to say. I will try to do it this week.