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Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • “Liber Brevior” (1954)

Jeff Ostrowski · November 18, 2015

106 LIBER BREVIOR 1954 URING THE 1990S, my Schola Cantorum sang from the LIBER USUALIS of Solesmes. Each of us had a slightly different edition—meaning the page numbers seldom matched—but for some reason that never bothered us.

The print size of the Liber Usualis was minuscule, but I cannot recall experiencing difficulty reading it. Perhaps my eyesight was better 20 years ago. One day, our Pastor (ordained in the 1950s) showed up at Church with a book called the LIBER BREVIOR. He exclaimed, “Jeff, I bet you never knew that everything essential in the Liber Usualis could be printed in a much smaller book, eh?” He showed me the book, but I was used to the Liber Usualis and had no plans to jump ship.

I failed to realize that the final pages of the Liber Brevior contain a very special arrangement of all the Graduals, Alleluia verses, and Tracts:

    * *  PDF Download • Final Pages of the LIBER BREVIOR — 3.6MB

Almost ten years ago, Jeffrey Tucker scanned & uploaded the entire LIBER BREVIOR (1954) of Solesmes:

    * *  PDF Download • Complete LIBER BREVIOR (1954) — 29.4MB

The reductions found in the Liber Brevior are nice, but Solesmes produced an even nicer collection in the 1920s called CHANTS ABRÉGÉS, and Jeffrey Tucker scanned & uploaded this book about five years ago:

    * *  PDF Download • CHANTS ABRÉGÉS (1926) — 11.9MB

Without question, however, the supreme version of the CHANTS ABRÉGÉS was produced in 1955. Jeffrey Tucker also scanned & uploaded this book:

    * *  PDF Download • CHANTS ABRÉGÉS (1955) — 8.4MB

The publications produced by Solesmes during the 1950s are quite staggering, and give witness to the vibrancy of Gregorian singing in those days. We will have to forgive the rather silly warning appearing in the front of several of these books:

“All Rights Reserved on the rhythmic signs and the rhythm they represent…”

Much of “the rhythm they represent” is given by signs in the Editio Vaticana, which cannot be copyrighted. The whole point of the Vatican Edition (published by Pius X) was that no individual publisher could claim the rights to it. Nevertheless, Solesmes is not the first publisher to overstate their claims in an effort to sell books…

P.S.

Reducing the Graduals, Alleluia verses, and Tracts was quite common. For example, in the 1917 Graduale by Schwann, they mix “recto tono” with more ornate melodies—which will hopefully get the “feel” of the chant into one’s ear in spite of the simplification—as you can see in this example from Ash Wednesday:

105 Schwann 1917 GRADUALE


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

Filed Under: Articles, PDF Download Tagged With: Chants Abreges 1926, Chants Abreges 1930 Solesmes, Chants Abreges 1955, Solesmes LIBER BREVIOR 1954 Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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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).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
    A few days ago, the president of Corpus Christi Watershed posted this urgent appeal for funds. Please help us make sure we’re never forced to place our content behind a paywall. We feel it’s crucial that 100% of our content remains free to everyone. We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity, entirely dependent upon the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment and no major donors. We run no advertisements and have no savings. We beg you to consider donating $4.00 per month. Thank you!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “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

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

“No official approbation is required for hymns, songs, and acclamations written for the assembly.”

— Statement by the “Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy” (10-NOV-1996)

Recent Posts

  • Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
  • PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?

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