This is a new release of the original 1939 edition.

Gregorian chant, the Catholic Church's very own music, is proper to the Roman liturgy, but during the course of its long history it has experienced periods of ascendancy and decline. A century ago, Pope Pius X called for a restoration of the sacred melodies, and the result was the Vatican Edition. This book presents for the first time in English the fully documented history of the Gregorian chant restoration. The original French edition was published by the Abbey of Solesmes in 1969.This book describes in careful, vivid detail the strenuous efforts of personalities like Dom Joseph Pothier, Dom Andre Mocquereau, Fr. Angelo de Santi, and Peter Wagner to carry out the wishes of the pope. The attentive reader will not fail to note that many of the questions so fervidly debated long ago are still current and topical today. Robert A. Skeris' introduction to this edition illuminates the current discussion with documentation, including the Preface to the Vatican Gradual and the Last Will and Testament written by Dom Eugene Cardine.

by Sister Mary Antonine Goodchild, O.P. What a wonderful find this is: an ideal textbook on chant for junior high, high school, or really any age. It is mercifully free of verbiage or exaggerated detail. It is short and completely clear on all aspects of learning to chant (notes, rhythm, Latin, style), and it contains a vast amount of the basic repertoire, in neumes and with English translations. It even has study questions! Many of us have wished that such a book would be written. It took Fr. Samuel Weber to point out that such a book already exists, and now, praise be to God, it is in print again. As the title says, it is the perfect text for Church and school. It came out in 1944 but it isn't in the slightest bit dated. This is priced for mass distribution.

Between the seventh and eleventh centuries, Christian worship on the Iberian Peninsula was structured by rituals of great theological and musical richness, known as the Old Hispanic (or Mozarabic) rite. Much of this liturgy was produced during a seventh-century cultural and educational program aimed at creating a society unified in the Nicene faith, built on twin pillars of church and kingdom. Led by Isidore of Seville and subsequent generations of bishops, this cultural renewal effort began with a project of clerical education, facilitated through a distinctive culture of textual production. Rebecca Maloy's Songs of Sacrifice argues that liturgical music--both texts and melodies--played a central role in the cultural renewal of early Medieval Iberia, with a chant repertory that was carefully designed to promote the goals of this cultural renewal. Through extensive reworking of the Old Testament, the creators of the chant texts fashioned scripture in ways designed to teach biblical exegesis, linking both to patristic traditions--distilled through the works of Isidore of Seville and other Iberian bishops--and to Visigothic anti-Jewish discourse. Through musical rhetoric, the melodies shaped the delivery of the texts to underline these messages. In these ways, the chants worked toward the formation of individual Christian souls and a communal Nicene identity. Examining the crucial influence of these chants, Songs of Sacrifice addresses a plethora of long-debated issues in musicology, history, and liturgical studies, and reveals the potential for Old Hispanic chant to shed light on fundamental questions about how early chant repertories were formed, why their creators selected particular passages of scripture, and why they set them to certain kinds of music.

"The Benedictine Gift to Music illustrates how Gregorian chant, faithfully practiced each day for centuries by the Benedictines in monasteries and convents across Europe, developed into the complex polyphonic music we enjoy today. It details the outstanding contributions of the Benedictine musicians from the sixth-century Abbey of St. Benedict to the modern French Abbey of Solesmes." "For contemporary performers composers of sacred music, and those interested in singing Gregorian chant, The Benedictine Gift to Music explains the opportunity that chant provides to still the mind and enter in a meaningful way into the contemplative tradition of the Church."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Presents the "Solesmes Method" in two parts. The first part sets forth the principles that constitute the method. The second part presents the actual rules for singing.

Including details about chanting's history and traditions as well as new scientific findings about the many medical benefits of humming and vibration, this guide to vocal meditation provides readers with easy instructions, breathing techniques, and tips on how to create unique, personal chants. Rep

A lushly illustrated history of religious music and a companion CD.