• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

We’re a 501(c)3 public charity established in 2006. We have no endowment, no major donors, no savings, and run no advertisements. We exist solely by the generosity of small donors.

  • Donate
  • Our Team
    • Our Editorial Policy
    • Who We Are
    • How To Contact Us
    • Sainte Marie Bulletin Articles
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • KYRIALE • Saint Antoine Daniel
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Repository • “Spanish Music”
    • Ordinary Form Feasts (Sainte-Marie)
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Father Enemond Massé Manuscripts
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Secrets of the Conscientious Choirmaster
    • “Wedding March” for lazy organists
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
    • The Eight Gregorian Modes
    • Gradual by Pothier’s Protégé
    • Seven (7) Considerations
Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • César Franck Book of Gregorian Chant Accompaniments (156 Pages)

Jeff Ostrowski · May 16, 2023

AROLD C. SCHOENBERG said of César Franck: “He must have been a cocky lad, exultant in his talent.” At the age of fifteen, César—who had been born in Liège (Belgium)—was sent to the Paris Conservatoire. At the finals of the piano competition he was given a difficult piece to read at sight. Young César suddenly elected to transpose the piece selected a third below the key in which it was written (!), which he was able to do without any hesitation or slip. The judges were transfixed. After some discussion, the legendary Luigi Cherubini (d. 1842) announced: “The jury has now decided that Monsieur Franck stands so incomparably far ahead of his fellow competitors that it is impossible to nominate another to share the prize with him. Accordingly, a second first prize will be given to those who would in ordinary circumstances have deserved the senior award.”

DUGUET, Franck’s Teacher • According to the Belgian organist Flor Peeters, Maestro Edgar Tinel (director of the LEMMENSINSTITUUT) confessed to his orchestra quite late in life: “Gentlemen, I, Tinel, was wrong. César Franck is a great composer.” A childhood crush of mine was Franck’s glorious Variations symphoniques. Franck’s first organ teacher was Abbé Dieudonné Duguet (d. 1849), the blind organist of the Church of Saint-Denis. If you search Mr. James Doherty’s fabulous Brébeuf Portal for “DUGUET,” you will find many settings. Below is one for 6 August, the Feast of the Transfiguration. The melody is attributed to Dieudonné Duguet:

To access this hymn’s media in the Brébeuf Portal, click here.

Bad Attribution • Below, you can see how the DUGUET melody appears in the “Christ The King Hymnal” published by Father Aloysius Knauff in 1955. It is erroneously called “Gregorian Chant”—but deficient hymnal attributions were pretty common until the 1970s:

*  PDF Download • “DUGUET” in CTK Hymnal

Père Lambillotte • Among Franck’s acquaintances at the Jesuit College of the Immaculate Conception (where he taught piano) was the Jesuit priest Louis Lambillotte (d. 1855). Camille Saint-Saëns described Père Lambillotte as a “ridiculous composer” of “dreadful music,” who left an indelible impression on Catholic church music with hymns like On This Day, O Beautiful Mother. Father Lambillotte helped push forward the Gregorian revival, and his tombstone says: Qui cecinit Jesum et Mariam, eripuitque tenebris Gregorium, hunc superis insere, Christe, choris. [“Receive, O Christ, into Thy choirs above him who sang the praises of Jesus and Mary, and rescued the music of Gregory from the darkness of ages.”]

40486-Cesar-Franck-D
40486-Cesar-Franck-C
40486-Cesar-Franck-B
40468-Cesar-Franck-Missa-de-angelis
40480-Lambillotte-Cesar-Franck-Gregorian-Chant-Accompaniment
40486-Cesar-Franck-A

Franck’s Gregorian Accompaniments • In 1851, Père Lambillotte published a facsimile of Saint Gall 359 (an adiastematic “Cantatorium”), and Abbat Prosper Guéranger spoke with him in 1854. When Père Lambillotte died in 1855, César Franck completed for publication their collaboration, a five-part Chant Grégorien: restauré par le R.P. Lambillotte; accompagnement d’orgue par César Franck. The work is Franck’s note-for-note accompaniment of Lambillotte’s modern notation transcriptions of plainsong then being reintroduced into the churches of France. It consisted of five sections. GALLICA has placed online the complete work, which is fascinating:

*  PDF Download • GREGORIAN ACCOMPANIMENTS (César Franck)
—156 pages • Gregorian harmonizations to “corrupt” plainsong by César Franck.

You can read an English translation of Franck’s Preface:

*  PDF Download • Franck’s “Preface”

Missing Page? • “Ad regias Agni dapes” is supposed to be number 11, according to the index, right after “A solis ortus cardine,” but I can’t find it for some reason. In any event, here’s the harmonization by César Franck of his teacher’s hymn (DUGUET):

Eastertide Hymn • And speaking of “Ad Régias Agni Dapes,” here’s a hymn we like to sing during the season of Easter:

To access this hymn’s media in the Brébeuf Portal, click here.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Dieudonne Duguet, Flor Peeters, Maestro Edgar Tinel Last Updated: June 18, 2023

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

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 Michigan. —(Read full biography).

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —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

Random Quote

“To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overcoming, as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses for ever, and not be tired.”

— John Henry Cardinal Newman (1848)

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2025 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.

The election of Pope Leo XIV has been exciting, and we’re filled with hope for our apostolate’s future!

But we’re under pressure to transfer our website to a “subscription model.”

We don’t want to do that. We believe our website should remain free to all.

Our president has written the following letter:

President’s Message (dated 30 May 2025)

Are you able to support us?

clock.png

Time's up