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Views from the Choir Loft

A hymnal in e-book format

Veronica Brandt · June 6, 2015

Gloria a Latin Hymnal OU MAY HAVE ALREADY SUNG from an electronic copy of the Liber Usualis. It was most likely a PDF, or perhaps you have the fancy Liber Pro app from iTunes.

Or you may have a collection of electronic copies of old hymnbooks already lying around the corners of your computer’s hard drive.

Most PDF books are simply scanned images. They can be slow to load and clunky to navigate. A better way might be to combe images of the music with regular text which can set out section headings, translations and explanations.

Enter the Gloria Latin Hymnal: 100 Traditional Latin Hymns in Gregorian Notation with English Translations by Patrimonium Publishing. It is a regular ebook available through Amazon combining images of Gregorian chant typeset with gregorio following each piece with an English translation in plain text.

There are lots of old favorites as well as a surprising number of pieces I have never heard before. How many of you have sung the Memorare? How about O Sanctissima in Gregorian notation? The sources include Cantus Mariales from 1903 by Dom Pothier, which must be where many of these gems come from.

If you are a blithe owner of a Kindle or not concerned with the details of typographical layout, feel free to stop reading here and go check out a free sample from Amazon.

The really impressive thing here is the technical juggling involved in preparing music for such a limited medium. It is crazy enough to try formatting a hymnal for a printed page, but for a format designed for flowing pages of uninterrupted text is quite a challenge.

The compiler, Michael Phillips, carefully tailored the book for a regular Kindle device. He chose the breaks in the music to allow enough space for the translation to fit on a 6” screen. That is probably a good median size to cater for, but on other devices the page dimensions change and the pictures and text act differently to fill the new space.

Here is how it looks on my cell phone:


laguentibus small text A page from the Gloria Hymnal on a phone.

Turning the phone on its side enlarges the music, but leaves no room for the translation, which overflows into its own page.

On the big screen the music becomes much clearer, but the translation shrinks relative to the music.


languentibus one page The same hymn on a large computer monitor.

You can change the text size setting in your ebook viewer as you wish. My picky side wants to fiddle with the default margin around the images, but I know this could upset how it works on other devices. Maybe, with time, Amazon will adjust their Cloud Reader to better adapt their ebooks for desktops. I don’t know, but I think I can live with it, especially as I get more absorbed in the actual content of the hymnal.

The reviews claim that all these hymns can be listened to by searching for recordings online. I’m not in a position to test that claim properly, but I would love to try.

I will be dipping into this little book for many months to come.

Maybe I’ll even get myself a Kindle.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Abbot Joseph Pothier of Solesmes, Cantus Mariales, Dom Pothier Cantus Mariales, Gregorio, Hymnbooks 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

Surprising Popularity!

One of our most popular downloads has proven to be the organ accompaniment to “The Monastery Hymnal” (131 pages). This book was compiled, arranged, and edited by Achille P. Bragers, who studied at the Lemmensinstituut (Belgium) about thirty years before that school produced the NOH. Bragers might be considered an example of Belgium “Stile Antico” whereas Flor Peeters and Jules Van Nuffel represented Belgium “Prima Pratica.” You can download the hymnal by Bragers at this link.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • To Capitalize…?

In the Introit for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, there is a question regarding whether to capitalize the word “christi.” The Vulgata does not, because Psalm 27 is not specifically referring to Our Lord, but rather to God’s “anointed one.” However, Missals tend to capitalize it, such as the official 1962 Missal and also a book from 1777 called Missel de Paris. Something tells me Monsignor Knox would not capitalize it.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • “Sung vs. Spoken”

We have spoken quite a bit about “sung vs. spoken” antiphons. We have also noted that the texts of the Graduale Romanum sometimes don’t match the Missal texts (in the Extraordinary Form) because the Mass Propers are older than Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, and sometimes came from the ITALA versions of Sacred Scripture. On occasion, the Missal itself doesn’t match the Vulgate—cf. the Introit “Esto Mihi.” The Vulgate has: “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in domum refúgii…” but the Missal and Graduale Romanum use “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in locum refúgii…” The 1970s “spoken propers” use the traditional version, as you can see.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Chants closely related to the readings should, of course, be appropriately transferred for use with these readings. For pastoral reasons also there is an option regarding the chants for the Proper of Seasons: namely, as circumstances suggest, to replace the text proper to a day with another text belonging to the same season.”

— Ordo Cantus Missae (1971)

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