Views from the Choir Loft

Compline Online with Chant Notation

Veronica Brandt · October 22, 2016 ·

IGHT PRAYER OR COMPLINE makes a beautiful end to the day, invoking special blessings for the night as well as a reminder for a daily examination of conscience.

It’s also one of the simplest hours of the Divine Office or Liturgy of the Hours. You can imagine people tended to keep things simple at the end of a long day when it might be hard to keep one’s eyes open. Another reason may be that it could be prayed from memory in the dark.

Last week, browsing through repositories on Github, I stumbled across a beautiful rendering of Compline from the maker of the GABC Transcription Tool.

* * Compline thanks to Benjamin Bloomfield

I’m looking forward to sifting through the source code and seeing just how he manages to render the square notes and dynamically adjust linebreaks depending on the size of the browser window.

At home we rely on printed booklets to sing Compline together. These are also available via Github. Having the translation helps, though I’m not sure how one might add it to the browser based compline above without spoiling the layout. A universal familiarity with Latin would make liturgical booklet printing so much easier!

About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. As editor, she has produced fine publications (as well as valuable reprints) dealing with Gregorian chant, hymnody, Latin, and other subjects. These publications are distinguished on account of their tastefulness. She lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband Peter and six children.

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski