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Views from the Choir Loft

Adapting Chant To The Vernacular

Guest Author · August 31, 2015

351 Steven Van Roode Gregorian Chant STILL REMEMBER the first time I heard one of Jeff Ostrowski’s Chabanel Psalms. It was in 2007, and I was immediately moved by the beauty and simplicity of his compositions. Could his modal style also be applied to Dutch responsorial psalms, of which at that time only a few were set to the official translation? I was also considering putting together a set of simple propers in Dutch, following the exhortation of two saintly Popes: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes” (Sts. Pius X and John Paul II). How should this be accomplished for vernacular texts? For my “Klein Graduale”—a Dutch adaptation of the Graduale Simplex—I found the following strategy the most fulfilling.

    * *  Klein Graduale Website • Gregorian settings in Dutch

My adaptations of Chabanel Psalms or Gregorian chants to Dutch liturgical texts are based on a couple of principles. First, I put neumes only on stressed words and syllables. The Dutch language doesn’t tolerate neumatic melodies very well, let alone rich, melismatic lines. Second, I make sure each clause of a sentence gets a single melodic line. The original Latin chants tend to divide each clause up into even smaller parts. In Dutch, this sounds clumsy. A single line of thought is best expressed by a single, fluent motion. Third, the melody should support the natural accentuation of the vernacular text. To enhance the intelligibility and clarity of the sung text, it is important that the chant follows—to a certain extent—the text’s intonation contour.

How to achieve these principles? Surely, you should keep an eye on the characteristics of the Gregorian melody. For example, searching for structure pitches helps me to capture the overall sound of an antiphon, without getting lost by elaborations and embellishments. Also, each mode has its own distinctive motives and cadences. Office antiphons in particular make extensive use of TYPE MELODIES and CENTONIZATION by putting together typical melodic figures. Additionally, I try to pay attention to the ‘musical exegesis’ of the original chant. Gregorian chant provides a spiritual commentary on the liturgical texts it carries, giving us a valuable look into how these texts functioned as a prayer in the lives of the medieval composers. This I strive to preserve.

To give you an idea of these vernacular compositions, I give two examples below. The first is my adaptation of the entrance antiphon Omnis terra from the Graduale Simplex:

“All the earth shall bow down before you, O God, and shall sing to you, shall sing to your name, O Lord.”

It’s a very simple, syllabic tune of mode 4:

SIMP INT


The second example is an entrance antiphon as well with the same (Latin) text and of the same mode, but this time taken from the Graduale Romanum. You can see it’s more neumatic, contrasting with the simpler chants from the Graduale Simplex:

GRAD INT



We hope you enjoyed this guest article by Steven van Roode.

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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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

“The Church has always kept, and wishes still to maintain everywhere, the language of her Liturgy; and, before the sad and violent changes of the 16th century, this eloquent and effective symbol of unity of faith and communion of the faithful was, as you know, cherished in England not less than elsewhere. But this has never been regarded by the Holy See as incompatible with the use of popular hymns in the language of each country.”

— Pope Leo XIII (1898)

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