Speaking of flexibility, creativity and profit:
Jeffrey Tucker looks ahead a bit and asks what your parish is doing for the Introit for Gaudete Sunday. Since, of course, the whole reason it’s called “Gaudete Sunday” is because of the Introit:
Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete: modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione petitiones vestrae innotescant apud Deum.
Ps. Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Iacob.Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer let your petitions be made known to God
Which, of course is an important, organic key that the near-universal choice for the “or other suitable songs” option renders invisible.
Jeffrey offers files of a few versions of this – in both Latin and English – and then points out:
Singing any of them means that the propers are covered, and you have affirmed and marked the day of the liturgical year. You can note the decline in complexity from top to bottom but there is no sense in decrying it. They are all suitable, and the last option is actually very dignified and permits people to join in the singing.
Now, all the sources mentioned above are free. I’m now looking at a stack of expensive missalletes and affiliated choral resources from mainline Catholic publishers–materials paid for out of parishioner’s pockets. Not one of them provides any option for singing the propers on this day. You can always pick a hymn, I guess, with the word “rejoice” in it somewhere (“Rejoice the Lord is King”) but are we really doing what we ought in this case?
Crafts & Vintage
The best setting in English is “Rejoice in The Lord Alway” [note the lack of the terminal “s”] from the 16th century, often misattributed to Redford but apparently anonymous.
A somewhat ponderously paced (though it might work for spaces with a long reverb, which is rare in the US) MIDI file:
http://choralwiki.net/wiki/images/e/ed/Red-rej.mid
http://choralwiki.net/wiki/index.php/Rejoice_in_the_Lord_Alway_%28Anonymous%29
Slightly related posting from a frustrated church musician to decry the whole “disposable missalette” system. I absolutely hate it. Having played in (Protestant) churches that have hymnals, I can’t tell you how time-consuming it is to constantly be rearranging binders and looking up hymn numbers when the new issues of missalettes and accompaniment books come out. In addition, a certain company (maybe others are the same) who makes disposable missalettes is not user-friendly for the choir director. For example, I like to take the text of a hymn whose tune we don’t know and use it for a tune we DO know. To do this, you must know the meter of the hymn. Nowhere does the company list the meter on the hymn. You must look up the hymn tune in a separate index (not in the missalette), which directs you to the NUMBER (not the name) of the hymn in the giant, two-volume accompaniment binder, which I keep for reference at the church. I use the old binder, with only the pages I need in order to make it a manageable one volume, at home. Of course, those OLD numbers are not the same as the NEW numbers. Aaargh! Another pet peeve is how the accompaniments are often changed to be more piano/keyboard-friendly but are not appropriate for the organ, not to mention changed harmonies that are often strange-sounding. And this is only for traditional hymns. I could write a book of gripes on the “new” music (now old) that is so difficult to teach to the average (i.e., non-professional) choir.
MJ
We will actually be offering this Introit – at the local, diocese-approved Traditional Mass, that is. Our schola uses the Rossini book for the Propers, although sometimes we sing the lonnnnng chants out of the Graduale Romanum. I’m pretty sure there’s an NO Graduale, too.
The Rossini chants are pretty easy, and because of their simplicity, fluidity, and repitition, I’m positive any choir, and even the congregation, could sing them. Most importantly, they maintain the prayer tradition of the Church. Or is that a capital “T”?
The Church has stated what music is appropriate for the Roman liturgy, so I continue to be bewildered as to the source of all the endless argument, defiance, & experimentation.