Liber Usualis With English Translations (Solesmes) • “Mass and Vespers” (Solesmes Abbey, 1957)

Corpus Christi Watershed · March 19, 2013

OCTOR WILLIAM MAHRT, an outstanding scholar of chant, has provided us all with a tremendous gift: the famous Solesmes “Liber Usualis” with English translations! The technical title is “Mass and Vespers with Gregorian Chant” (1957). Some call it simply “1957 Mass & Vespers.” It is slightly different from what most people refer to when they talk about the Liber Usualis (“useful book”). Then again, in 1913 the “Liber usualis” referred to the Antiphonale—so we needn’t be more strict than the printer!

* * Mass & Vespers (Solesmes, 1957)

To help you navigate this monumental book, here’s a special index containing the page numbers for each INTROIT, COMMUNION, OFFERTORY, etc.

Keyword: “Mass and Vespers” (Solesmes Abbey, 1957)

Keyword: “Mass and Vespers” (1957)

Keyword: Mass and Vespers (1957)

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

20 January 2021 • REMINDER

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19 January 2021 • Confusion over feasts

For several months, we have discussed the complicated history of the various Christmas feasts: the Baptism of the Lord, the feast of the Holy Family, the Epiphany, and so forth. During a discussion, someone questioned my assertion that in some places Christmas had been part of the Epiphany. As time went on, of course, the Epiphany came to represent only three “manifestations” (Magi, Cana, Baptism), but this is not something rigid. For example, if you look at this “Capital E” from the feast of the Epiphany circa 1350AD, you can see it portrays not three mysteries but four—including PHAGIPHANIA when Our Lord fed the 5,000. In any event, anyone who wants proof the Epiphany used to include Christmas can read this passage from Dom Prosper Guéranger.

—Jeff Ostrowski

6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski

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