Views from the Choir Loft

PDF • Scottish Catholic Hymnal (453 Pages)

Jeff Ostrowski · August 27, 2018

HEN I FIRST AGREED to serve on the international team producing the Brébeuf Hymnal, I insisted that we collect as many Catholic hymnals as possible—which has taken half a decade. It was essential to have at our fingertips the complete vernacular hymn tradition, going back 500 years, so we could select the best melodies and texts.

Mr. Colin Jackson recently emailed an incredibly rare hymnal from 1964, which was “authorized by the bishops of Scotland for use in the Scottish dioceses.”

* * PDF • Catholic Hymnal from Scotland (1964)

This book—out of print for 50 years—at first glance appeared to be (basically) a reprint of the New Westminster Hymnal. However, careful examination reveals it is much more than that.

O BE HONEST, I never believed we would amass as many Roman Catholic hymnals as we have; the collection is staggering. We were able to post some of them on the Brébeuf hymnal website, and hopefully we can release more after the Brébeuf hymnal becomes available for purchase. It is currently being proofread.

The full title of the above, for the record, is:

The Saint Andrew Hymnal, Authorized by the Archbishops and Bishops of Scotland for Use in the Scottish Dioceses (1964)

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

About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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