The Mundelein Psalter and music for the LOTH
Posted by Chris T. on Thursday, October 25th, 2007
I meant to write this review of the Mundelein Psalter sometime next week, but since music for the Office came up frequently in the comments to my last post, I thought I'd do it now instead.
Paul is mostly right in his comment that there is very little official chant available for the Liturgy of the Hours in either Latin or English, though in English, as Laura points out, many parishes that do public celebrations of Vespers have found suitable music that is not chant. The current state of the Latin books is quite bad considering it's more than thirty years since the new breviary was released. Two volumes of the Antiphonale Monasticum have become available very recently (2005, 2006), the first containing the Proper of Seasons for the monastic Office and the second containing the Psalter. The antiphons for the monastic breviary are often very different from the secular one, so this is sometimes a resource for cobbling together antiphons for the secular Office, but it is not a resource for singing it outright. So far only one volume of the Antiphonale Romanum (secular book) is available — the Liber Hymnarius containing the Office hymns. Apparently people are fighting over what to do about new antiphons and the book is not a high priority, so we are left with very little for the Liturgia horarum.
The situation for English had been worse in terms of more traditional music, but this has been remedied somewhat by the Mundelein Psalter, which I picked up recently. It provides complete chant music for Lauds and Vespers, including adaptations of the traditional tunes for many of the Office hymns. This is a departure from the English LOTH books — these are English translations of the actual Latin Office hymns, not different hymns chosen to substitute for those. At least a few are similar to Anglican Breviary translations (Te lucis, for instance, has only a few words changed from the AB). This is a huge contribution on the part of the Liturgical Institute. They have discussed publishing a separate Mundelein Hymnal in the future, including these and other traditional hymns.
There are aspects of this Psalter that some will not like. First, it uses Mundelein tones, not Gregorian tones. These are simplified chant tones composed by Fr Samuel Weber, OSB. They are quite easy to sing by just picking up the book, and I imagine a congregation could easily pick them up without even having the printed tones in front of them. The other issue is that there are no composed or adapted antiphons — the antiphon is just sung to the same Mundelein tone as the Psalm or Canticle. They have mentioned a number of times in defense of these tones that there has been a breach in Catholic sacred music, leaving many congregations unfamiliar with traditional chant — they see this book as an attempt to heal that breach by getting people more comfortable with entirely-sung liturgies. So chant enthusiasts may be underwhelmed by the book, but it will be an incredible resource for actual parishes wanting to implement a sung Lauds or Vespers service. The book contains absolutely everything you need for those hours and Compline.
Of course the book is quite heavy, not at all portable, and usually costs $40-50. But it is beginning to change the sad fact that until very recently, fulfilling the expressed intention of the developers of the Liturgy of the Hours that the Office should be sung was not very easy and required pulling from several different books. Perhaps down a road the traditional Gregorian chant will be available for these texts and translations in English (once they are even available in Latin), but for now the Mundelein Psalter is a fairly good, if sometimes over-simple, resource.
ETA: My response to Paul Goings below is a bit inaccurate, and I wanted to correct it. The Mundelein Psalter makes one major improvement I've noticed from the current English books for the LOTH — it includes an antiphon for each of the three years of the lectionary from the editio typica altera. So for each week in ordinary time, there is one antiphon (instead of three, sadly) for the Gospel canticles that syncs up with the lectionary Gospel. Just for that, this is a book well worth owning if you pray using any form of the Liturgy of the Hours.
4 Responses to “The Mundelein Psalter and music for the LOTH”
Father,
I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Mundelein Psalter. The tones, although not Gregorian, are very singable, and remind me very much of the tones in use at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, where I used to go for Vespers on a regular basis. Can I ask if the text of the antiphons is drawn from the Liturgy of the Hours? Are any of the changes made to the typical edition, but not printed in the current English translations of the breviary, provided?
They play up the fact that it accords with the approved English books a lot in their advertising for the book, so I think it’s word-for-word identical to the Liturgy of the Hours books, with the exception of the hymns. The antiphons are from there, too, but I don’t think they’ve incorporated any of the changes made in the editio typica altera. Sadly, the Office is a very low priority in all the places that count in the Roman church. This book and the other stuff out of Mundelein are entirely the initiative of the Roman Archbishop of Chicago, the Liturgical Institute, and the monks.
Incidentally, Fr Weber is just down the road from me — he is the first full-time Roman Catholic on the faculty of Wake Forest University, and helped found their divinity school. Word is he is working on through-composed antiphons to go with this Psalter, and there are also rumors of a Mundelein Gradual in the future.
Honestly, part of me thinks it would be pretty cool if a “local use” chant could spring up from this in English-speaking countries. Gregorian chant is beautiful, but my instincts as a linguist make me sad that so many local systems were pushed aside centuries ago.
I have been using the Mundelein Psalter since June, and have organized a very small group that chants Lauds on weekday mornings in the church on campus.
My experience is that the Mundelein Psalter works very well for a group of untrained singers, and I think it would sound absolutely wonderful with more voices.
Since I am the only one who really reads music, and am not necessarily the best singer, it has been a long slow learning process. I find that I have to pick a good pitch and play the mode once on my recorder before each psalm (or canticle) just to help folks out a little. I can do it quickly so that it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the prayer. Once in a while we do it completely A Cappella, but that’s still a little risky.
It’s hard to imagine working with a more advanced psalter. For the group I have assembled the Mundelein Psalter is just right. What’s really wonderful is to hear someone humming the hymn after the service as they leave the church.
I’m hoping to find a way to introduce this in my parish too, maybe this Advent.
Richard –
Thanks so much for sharing your experience with the Psalter! I’m especially glad to hear you say that just having one cantor (you) singing from the book and others just picking up the tone from them does work. I imagine a parish could easily just buy copies of Shorter Christian Prayer for the pews and buy just a couple copies of the Mundelein Psalter for the worship leaders. Anyhow, I’ll pray for you as you try to introduce this at your parish! Seasons like Advent and Lent are great times to start something like this.
You’re probably right about more advanced chant — in a parish setting, it would require a lot of training so those who don’t read music would feel comfortable. Our parish in Philadelphia does Vespers with Eucharist every Wednesday night, and even with some very musically adept people they make some slight changes (such as using the same setting of the Magnificat each time, regardless of the antiphon).
They use the St Dunstan’s Plainsong Psalter, which uses the Office as found in the Book of Common Prayer.