Source books for traditional Catholic songs and music?

[Kouyate42]

I’m getting interested in traditional Catholic music in recent times. Being a musician I’m wondering if there are any major songbooks/music books out there which I could get which would help me study this.

I mean, are there any books which are common or standard across many choirs or churches? I apologize if this is a stupid question.

 

[YoungTradCath]

The “Vatican II Hymnal” is about as traditional as you can get. If you find it highly ironic (no malice intended, just truth) that a very traditional hymnal is called “Vatican II Hymnal,” you wouldn’t be alone. But I think it’s awesome that the horrid misconceptions about Vatican II need to be cleared up.

Anyways, the link:

ccwatershed.org/vatican/

You can look into the chanted Propers, and all kinds of other stuff, here:

musicasacra.com

The Chant Cafe is a wonderful resource:

chantcafe.com/

Iubilate (Jubilate) Deo was a document released by His Holiness Pope Paul VI after the conclusion of Vatican II that called for a retaining of the Latin music in mass. It outlined some very basic chant settings of the parts of the mass. Much of the stuff can be found here, along with MP3 recordings:

adoremus.org/JubilateDeo.html

The subject of traditional liturgical music in the Ordinary Form is extremely precarious, and is somewhat in a still… primordial stage. It is certainly gaining lots of momentum, especially in cathedrals and larger parishes, but it is still being developed, or rather, returned to.

The official music book of the Roman Catholic Church is the Graduale Romanum. The chants can be quite complex, so an abbey based in France has for many years produced a book called the Graduale Simplex, which also contains beautiful music. Both books are somewhat pricey, but should be an investment for even any amateur Catholic musician or liturgist, in my humble opinion.

 

[MarkThompson]

I’m getting interested in traditional Catholic music in recent times. Being a musician I’m wondering if there are any major songbooks/music books out there which I could get which would help me study this.

I mean, are there any books which are common or standard across many choirs or churches? I apologize if this is a stupid question.

Are you referring to hymns in English, or to things like Gregorian chant and Renaissance choral music? If the former, you might like to look through the 1918 St. Basil’s Hymnal. It think it’s fairly representative of the kind of things that were being sung at the time. There is no single “source book,” though.

The “Vatican II Hymnal” is about as traditional as you can get. If you find it highly ironic (no malice intended, just truth) that a very traditional hymnal is called “Vatican II Hymnal,” you wouldn’t be alone.

Well, it’s not really ironic; it was deliberately called that by the editor in an attempt to promote his agenda about what the proper interpretation of Vatican II ought to be. I argued against it, because I think the assumption is mistaken that everybody other than traditionalists are constantly harping on about “Vatican II.” That was probably true 20 or 25 years ago, but nowadays the only people constantly talking about Vatican II are the unreconstructed dinosaurs (who would never use this hymnal); while for normal people, who are not fighting those wars, for whom some conception of the Council is not an idée fixe in their minds, and whose days are not spent pondering different “hermeneutics,” the Kennedy-era title will just make it sound out of date and irrelevant, which would be truly a shame.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Well, it’s not really ironic; it was deliberately called that by the editor in an attempt to promote his agenda about what the proper interpretation of Vatican II ought to be. I argued against it, because I think the assumption is mistaken that everybody other than traditionalists are constantly harping on about “Vatican II.” That was probably true 20 or 25 years ago, but nowadays the only people constantly talking about Vatican II are the unreconstructed dinosaurs (who would never use this hymnal); while for normal people, who are not fighting those wars, for whom some conception of the Council is not an idée fixe in their minds, and whose days are not spent pondering different “hermeneutics,” the Kennedy-era title will just make it sound out of date and irrelevant, which would be truly a shame.

Touché. I never said their impression of irony was right, I just suggested that perhaps many people would find it ironic.