ITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, the Choral Supplement for the Brébeuf hymnal will become available for purchase. The book is astounding: 1,202 pages! Its size (7.5 × 9.7) is slightly larger than the pew edition. This book will revolutionize what it means to direct music in the Catholic Church. At last we will have a choral edition which can receive unstinted praise from intellectually honest church musicians! We must remember, though: the emphasis of the Brébeuf hymnal is on English hymnody, because Latin hymnody is already available in so many places: the Liber Usualis, Cantus Selecti (1928), the Parish Book of Chant (CMAA), the Liber Hymnarius, Cantus Varii (1928), the Liber Antiphonarius, Mass and Vespers (Solesmes, 1957), Cantus Varii (1902), Cantus Mariales (Dom Pothier), Manuale Missae et Officiorum (1902), and so forth.
My choirs sing for the EF Mass, meaning we need Latin hymns, too.1 I often take inspiration from the settings in the Brébeuf hymnal, and change them into Latin. Here is an example, which was a huge success on Sunday:
REHEARSAL VIDEOS for each individual voice and PDF score await you at #2002.
Most people won’t click that link—depriving themselves of the PDF Download (4 pages). That makes me sad.
NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:
1 This is not to imply that Brébeuf contains no Latin hymnody. Indeed, it contains more Latin than any hymnal published in the last 300 years!
REMINDER: My “personal additions” were created for my choirs; they are NOT officially part of the Brébeuf hymnal. From now on, whenever I “Latin-ize” a hymn from Brébeuf, I will post it—because others might want to use such pieces.
