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Jesus said to them: “I have come into this world so that a sentence may fall upon it, that those who are blind should see, and those who see should become blind. If you were blind, you would not be guilty. It is because you protest, ‘We can see clearly,’ that you cannot be rid of your guilt.”

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Views from the Choir Loft

Alleluia, Dulce Carmen – sing it while you can!

Veronica Brandt · January 26, 2021

Late last year I thought I’d make some resources for each Sunday’s Latin Gospel reading. It’s been fun. It does tend to make me confused though, as I am often thinking about the reading for the following Sunday. Thus I somehow thought last Sunday was Septuagesima.

This has been good though, as I have been able to think about the Farewell to Alleluia before it disappears.

Many years ago, I wrote a short article for Corpus Christi Watershed on this Farewell. At the bottom, the editor Mr Jeff Ostrowski left this cryptic comment.

Editor’s Note • There is actually an entire (liturgical) hymn which says “farewell” to the Alleluia. The Campion Missal cites a few verses in a very subtle way. Here’s a challenge: Did anyone notice which page? Which page number? Let us know by using the CONTACT tab at the top.

I totally missed this at the time – or forgot about it – but coming back now I had to solve the puzzle. I’ll put the page number in the footnotes to give you time to figure it out.

So, there’s this hymn in Latin:

Alleluia, dulce carmen,
Vox perennis gaudii,
Alleluia vox suavis,
Est choris cælestibus,
Quem canunt, Dei manentes
In domo per sæcula.

Alleluia læta, mater
Concinis Ierusalem,
Alleluia vox tuorum
Civium gaudentium :
Exules nos flere cogunt
Babylonis flumina.

Alleluia non meremur
Nunc perenne psallere,
Alleluia nos reatus
Cogit intermittere,
Tempus instat, quo peracta
Lugeamus crimina.

Unde laudando precamur
Te beata Trinitas,
Ut tuum nobis videre
Pascha des in æthere,
Quo tibi læti canamus
Alleluia iugiter. Amen.

This was translated by John Mason Neale in 1851 as:

Alleluia, song of sweetness,
Voice of joy, eternal lay;
Alleluia is the anthem
Of the Choirs in Heav’nly day,
Which the Angels sing, abiding
In the House of God alway.

Alleluia thou resoundest,
Salem, Mother ever blest;
Alleluias without ending
Fit yon place of gladsome rest;
Exiles we, by Babel’s waters
Sit in bondage and distress’d.

Alleluia we deserve not
Here to chant forevermore:
Alleluia our transgressions
Make us for a while give o’er,
For the holy time is coming
Bidding us our sins deplore.

Trinity of endless glory,
Hear Thy people as they cry;
Grant us all to keep Thy Easter
In our Home beyond the sky,
There to Thee our Alleluia
Singing everlastingly. Amen.

There is a modern tune called Dulce Carmen which goes really well with the English. However, being a Gregorian chant nut, I had to look for the chant for the Latin.

I have a copy of J M Neale’s book The Hymnal Noted which has the chant tunes paired with the English texts. So after all his painstaking work translating Latin into English, here I am lifting the old melodies and putting them back with the Latin text.

And here are the results:

    * *  Alleluia, Dulce Carmen – reunited with the chant

And the recording for those folk who like recordings:


NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   page 79

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

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Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 26, 2021

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About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Music List” • 5th Sunday of Easter (Year C)
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 5th Sunday of Easter (18 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The Communion Antiphon was ‘restored’ the 1970 Missale Romanum (a.k.a. MISSALE RECENS) from an obscure martyr’s feast. Our choir is on break this Sunday, so the selections are relatively simple in nature.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Communion Chant (5th Sunday of Easter)
    This coming Sunday—18 May 2025—is the 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C (MISSALE RECENS). The COMMUNION ANTIPHON “Ego Sum Vitis Vera” assigned by the Church is rather interesting, because it comes from a rare martyr’s feast: viz. Saint Vitalis of Milan. It was never part of the EDITIO VATICANA, which is the still the Church’s official edition. As a result, the musical notation had to be printed in the Ordo Cantus Missae, which appeared in 1970.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • 4th Sunday of Easter (Year C)
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 4th Sunday of Easter (11 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. I don’t know a more gorgeous ENTRANCE CHANT than the one given there: Misericórdia Dómini Plena Est Terra.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

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“To get people together once a week without an objective is deadly.”

— Dr. Roger Wagner (19 December 1960)

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