Author Archives: SacredMusic

Gregorian Chant According to the Solesmes Method (1930) is now available as a free download, and also in print. This book was the standard textbook for chant since it first appeared. It remains the best overall explanation of tone, rhythm, Psalm pointing, modes, and much more.

Help build a national registry of Gregorian scholas. If you sing Latin chant in your parish or some other Catholic liturgy, register with your group name and attach a logo or other information. This way people can find your schola, and you can find theirs.

And please tell others!

Go there now.

A member of the CMAA had an old and very rare edition of a 1923 book that included all the chants from Holy Week, including the Masses and the Office.

At 533 pages, it was falling apart and the binding was broken — but still a treasure. Its title: Officium Majoris Hebdomadae et Octavae Paschae, Cum Cantu, Juxta Ordinem, Breviarii, Missalis et Pontificalis Romani.

It was thanks to this one copy that we were able to restore it and make this treasure available once again, both for a free download and in a beautiful printed edition. No more yellowed and crumbling pages. It is a new edition of a classic for our times.

The word seems to be spreading about this book in advance of Holy Week. It is of use in parishes that use the classical Roman Rite, of course, but also in parishes that use the new Rite and want to sing the Propers, Hymns, and the Passion in Latin, as well as parishes that are planning public Tenebrae liturgies.

Indeed, the value of this work is immense in the modern Catholic world, which is rediscovering the musical treasures of its past.

So we invite you to explore the book and print what you need. Or if you prefer the bound edition, that is also available for $30.

Free download

Printed edition

Newly added on the sidebar: Pange Lingua: Breviary Hymns of Old Uses, with an English Rendering by Alan G. McDougall and an Introduction by Adrian Fortescue (1916). It is also available in a printed edition.

Somehow, the William Mahrt statement before the USCCB subcommittee on “Music in Catholic Worship” was lost in the transition to a new site. Fortunately, it will appear in the Spring 2007 issue of Sacred Music, and it is posted again with a new layout. Here is where Professor Mahrt takes apart the document piece by piece, as a good editor might, bring to bear his lifetime expertise on the history and meaning of the relationship between liturgy and music.