Views from the Choir Loft

Sister Goodchild • “Gregorian Chant for Church and School”

Jeff Ostrowski · June 27, 2020

OT LONG AGO, Mr. Daniel Craig published a lengthy and powerful article: COMPARISON • 15 Traditional Catholic Hymnals. I had the honor of assisting Mr. Craig when it came to information about a priest who was the teacher of my teacher, Father Valentine Young, OFM. (Readers will remember that Father Valentine went to his eternal reward in January of this year.) Father Valentine’s teacher had a doctorate in Gregorian Chant from Rome, and his name was FATHER JOHN DE DEO OLDEGEERING, OFM.

I recently noticed his name in a book published in 1944 called Gregorian Chant for Church and School (Chicago, Illinois) by Sister Mary Antonine Goodchild:

The book cover is quite beautiful:

A number of years ago, Jeffrey Tucker scanned the entire book and placed it online:

* PDF Download • Gregorian Chant for Church and School

The book, I must admit, is not very useful these days. It contains nothing remarkable—except perhaps the peculiar way of notating the porrectus—yet it was quite splendid when it appeared in the final years of the Second World War:

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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

There is a lack of that kind of organization which favors mature judgment. Move on, move on, get it out. Schemata are multiplied without ever arriving at a considered form. The system of discussion is bad … Often the schemata arrive just before the discussions. Sometimes, and in important matters, such as the new anaphoras, the schema was distributed the evening before the discussion was to take place … Father Bugnini has only one interest: press ahead and finish.

— Cardinal Antonelli (Peritus during the Second Vatican Council)