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Views from the Choir Loft

Do-It-Yourself Hymnal: The impossible dream

Veronica Brandt · April 20, 2013

HERE IS NO SUCH THING as a perfect hymnbook or missal.

Why would you try to make your own Missal/Hymnal for the Extraordinary Form when there’s the Campion Missal?

The quest for the perfect hymnbook has been revived lately. This time I’m aiming to have it ready for Pentecost. I have thirty days.

It started back in early 2011 when a certain priest outlined a project to make new improved Mass books. Our old books were getting on a bit and plagued with typos in the Latin. They had the order of Mass, a few devotionals peculiar to the parish, and a collection of hymns. The new books would be along similar lines, but include readings and extra music for sung Masses. They would be ready by June.

I had done Mass booklets before, and a couple of hymnbooks for pilgrimages, so had ideas about how to put it together. I use LaTeX, a document preparation system from the 80s. Infuriating as it can be, it can do a great job with cross references and indices and Gregorian chant. And it’s free.

June 2011 came and went, so I hoped to get it done by Advent. By then I had a pretty good book together, but the cost of the print run was a major obstacle.

One amazing advantage that the Vatican II and Campion Missals have is that they stick to Public Domain hymns. That really frees up what you can do with your book. You can sell it! Of course, you can sell books with copyright hymns too, but you need to negotiate licences and have set print runs and pay fairly considerable royalties to different people. Once I had negotiated licences for the handful of copyright hymns for parish use I was not keen to go back and ask for commercial licences.

So, since I could not subsidise the printing with sales, I made about thirty copies of a nearly 300 page hymnbook myself over the Christmas holidays. Another experience I was not keen to repeat. Mistakes in guillotining cannot be undone. And your average home laser printer is not made for printing book. And guillotines are very sharp.

In 2012 I was drawn into preparing sung Masses and time passed quickly. The Campion Missal came out. It was considered too expensive for our small parish community. And it didn’t have Help of Christians, Hail Queen of Heaven or Hail Redeemer.

Then Elizabeth was born.

Now the PVA glue bindings are coming apart on the homemade books. New books are way overdue. Now my evenings are spent tweaking the book and setting up brandt.id.au to accept donations.

Today I squeezed in Lead Kindly Light by Cardinal Newman.

Maybe Of the Father’s Love Begotten next…

Despite all the hassles, working with these treasures is still a joy.

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    Hymn by Cardinal Newman
    During the season of Septuagesima, we will be using this hymn by Cardinal Newman, which employs both Latin and English. (Readers probably know that Cardinal Newman was one of the world's experts when it comes to Lingua Latina.) The final verse contains a beautiful soprano descant. Father Louis Bouyer—famous theologian, close friend of Pope Paul VI, and architect of post-conciliar reforms—wrote thus vis-à-vis the elimination of Septuagesima: “I prefer to say nothing, or very little, about the new calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed (with no good reason) Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints higgledy-piddledy, all based on notions of their own devising!”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Introit • Candlemas (2 February)
    “Candlemas” • Our choir sang on February 2nd, and here's a live recording of the beautiful INTROIT: Suscépimus Deus. We had very little time to rehearse, but I think it has some very nice moments. I promise that by the 8th Sunday after Pentecost it will be perfect! (That Introit is repeated on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.) We still need to improve, but we're definitely on the right track!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Simplified Antiphons • “Candlemas”
    Anyone who desires simplified antiphons (“psalm tone versions”) for 2 February, the Feast of the Purification—which is also known as “Candlemas” or the Feast of the Presentation—may freely download them. The texts of the antiphons are quite beautiful. From “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium” you can hear a live excerpt (Mp3). I'm not a fan of chant in octaves, but we had such limited time to rehearse, it seemed the best choice. After all, everyone should have an opportunity to learn “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium,” which summarizes Candlemas.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired.”

— John Henry Cardinal Newman (1848)

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