Other articles and books
Certain chants and classes of chants have been discussed in greater detail in the following articles and books.
Jerome F. Weber, "A Century of Chant Recordings," in Calculemus et Cantemus: Towards a Reconstruction of Mozarabic Chant, ed. Geert Maessen (Amsterdam, Gregoriana, 2015), 119-36. Uploaded here: https://www.academia.edu/31172580/A_Century_of_Chant_Recordings. This discusses the most significant recordings of Western Plainchant in 8,000 words. The rest of the book is an effort to decipher the neumes of Hispanic chant by using a computer to match chants in other traditions. Uploaded to academia.edu
Jerome F. Weber, "Ten Chant Recordings Not to be Missed," in Sacred Music, Fall 2020. Uploaded here: https://www.academia.edu/44912108/Ten_Chant_Recordings_Not_To_Be_Missed. Chants not often adequately recorded for the most part and difficult to identify when scattered through a list of unsatisfactory versions. This article became the basis for a two-hour program of chant recordings on Millennium of Music, a syndicated broadcast in the U.S. and on SiriusXM satellite radio.
Jerome F. Weber, Review of Clyde Brockett, The Repertory of Processional Antiphons, and Laura Albiero, Repertorium Antiphonarum Processionalium, in Plainsong and Medieval Music, 29:1 (Spring 2020), 81-84. This is a comparative review of the two sources cited in this database as RPAbr/e and RPAbr/t for the first and RAPal for the second (see list of abbreviations, section V).
Jerome F. Weber, "Gregorian Chant," in Goldberg, No. 19 (June 2002), 48-61. This is an overview of the history of chant from the early liturgy to the present time in less than 5,000 words. Uploaded here: https://www.academia.edu/42202838/El_canto_gregoriano. For a fundamental understanding of Gregorian chant and its place in liturgy, see Richard L. Crocker, An introduction to Gregorian Chant (Yale, 2000). For a more detailed history of liturgical chant, see David Hiley, Gregorian Chant (Cambridge, 2009). The most detailed treatment of the subject (659 pages) is David Hiley, Western Plainchant – A Handbook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993). A different point of view (986 pages) can be found in Philippe Bernard, Du chant romain au chant grégorien (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1996). Many details of scholarly inquiry have been superseded in Willi Apel, Gregorian Chant (Bloomington and London: Indiana U. Press, 1958), but his detailed Structural Analysis of groups of chants (201-464) remains useful.
Rev. Jerome F. Weber, "The Lost Collection of Chant Cylinders," in Sacred Music, 136:4 (Winter 2009), 57-61. Uploaded here: https://www.academia.edu/29128559/The_Lost_Collection_of_Chant_Cylinders. This began as a presentation to the ARSC annual conference in 1996 and was first printed in the ARSC Journal in 1998. Hence, since these 205 cylinders from 1899 have utterly disappeared, the focus is on ARSC's mission of storage and preservation of cultural artifacts.
Jerome F. Weber, "Offertories with Verses on Sound Recordings" and "Discography," in The Offertory and its Verses: Research, Past, Present and Future, ed. Roman Hankeln (Trondheim, Norway, Tapir Academic Press, 2007), 123-51. Uploaded here: https://www.academia.edu/40190094/Offertories_with_Verses_on_Sound_Recordings. Corrigenda were added here. In addition, it should be noted that Damien Poisblaud is now the most prolific source of offertories with verses, 25 on three CDs. The papers published in this volume were originally delivered at a symposium in 2004. Although many recordings both older and newer have been added to the database here since this book was published, the presentation in this article is much more detailed. See also Joseph Dyer, "Tropis semper variantibus: Compositional strategies in the offertories of Old Roman chant," in Early Music History 17 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 60. Search: OFFV For the definitive treatment of the entire subject, see Rebecca Maloy below.
Jerome F. Weber, "Recordings of Neuma Triplex," in The Past in the Present: IMS Intercongressional Symposium 2000 (Budapest, 2003), 2:423-28. Seven recordings of Descendit de caelis missus were treated in detail, but the database now shows more than double the number. For a discussion of this and other textual corrections, see Michel Huglo, "Les remaniements de l'antiphonaire grégorien au IXe siècle: Hélisachar, Agobard, Amalaire," in Les sources du plain-chant et de la musique médiévale (Ashgate, 2004, reprinted from Culto cristiano..., Todi, 1979). Search: "PM 27" More recently, recordings of Descendit de caelis Deus can also be heard with prosas. Search: "NN 23"
Jerome F. Weber, "Laudes Regiae on Records," in Cantus Planus, Niederaltaich 2006 (Budapest, 2009), 667-82. Eighteen recordings of Christus vincit were treated in detail, but others have been added to the database. Search: "CS 263" Listen to the version in "Chant Wars" for a real sense of occasion.
Jerome F. Weber, "The 'Mystery' of Old Spanish [Hispanic] Chant," in Cantus Planus: Lillafüred 2004 (Budapest, 2006), 371-83. The treatment of the HISP chants is detailed; some errors, notably in the lamentations, have since been corrected in the database. Search: HISP
Jerome F. Weber, "Andrew Hughes and the Late Medieval Liturgical Office," in Cantus Planus: Sopron 1995 (Budapest, 1998), 611-15. Some early recordings of these Offices were treated; many more have been added to this database. A detailed account of the research may be found in Andrew Hughes, "Large Projects and Small Resources," in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages, ed. Margot Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford, 2000), 521-45. The resources are found in Andrew Hughes, LMLO: Late Medieval Liturgical Offices – Texts (Toronto, 1994) and LMLO: Late Medieval Liturgical Offices – Sources and Chants (Toronto, 1996). Search: LMLO
Jerome F. Weber, notes for "Gregorian Chant – Early Recordings" (two CDs, Parnassus PACD 96015/16), 1998. The recordings of the monks of Maria Laach were originally not fully credited; the names of the director and organist were listed here according to the article by Dom Adelard Bouvilliers cited in the bibliography. In 2006, on a visit to the abbey, I was informed of their true identities, which are given in the database here. When this collection was issued, none of the contents were available on CD, and only track 1/38 (Parlophone R 1017) and tracks 1/39-40 (Anthologie Sonore 34) had ever been reissued on LP. Since then all 13 chants recorded at Maria Laach in 1928, including tracks 2/16-17, have been reissued on CD as Motette 50871 and track 1/38 has been included in a reissue of "2,000 Years of Music." Search: 96015 and search: 96016
Jerome F. Weber, notes for "Gregorian Chant: The Office – The Mass – Varia" (four CDs, Archiv 00289 479 2593), 2014. The notes were published before I heard the CDs and correctly identified the recording of Missa brevis as the 1959 recording rather than the 1956 recording of a similar but not identical program. The CDs are cited correctly in the database here. Search: 2593
Jerome F. Weber, notes for "Gregorian Chant – Christmas & Easter" (Guild GHCD 3503), 2019. A brief account of the series of Solesmes recordings. It should be noted that the Easter invitatory was sung not from LU 765 and 768 but from MH 659 and 663.
Jerome F. Weber, notes for "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" (CD, Sony SMK 60988), 1999. Based on a two-year series of radio programs on National Public Radio, this was the first of 104 CDs illustrating a millennium of music down to 2000.
Fr. Jerome F. Weber, "The Liturgical Year in Gregorian Chant," in Sacred Music, 141:1 (Spring 2014), pp. 42-43. Review of vol. 12 of Bernard Lorber's CD set (notable for LU editions of Sunday Vespers and Vesper hymns).
Jerome F. Weber, "Liturgical reconstruction as reflected in recordings," in Historical Performance, 4:1 (Spring 1991), 29-37. Uploaded here with corrigenda added: https://www.academia.edu/40375589/Liturgical_reconstruction_as_reflected_in_recordings. This discusses polyphonic works such as Masses and Vespers recorded in the context of liturgical chant. Additional records have been added to the database here.
Jerome F. Weber, "Grove7 Chant," in Early Music Review, No. 69 (April 2001), 12-13. This was a comparison of the articles on chant subjects in The New Grove Dictionary of Music (1980) with those in the second edition (2000). It was followed by "Grove7 – Early Composers," in Early Music Review, No. 72 (July 2001), 8-9, a similar comparison of articles on Medieval and early Renaissance composers.
Jerome F. Weber, "Gregorian Chant," in Classical Music, ed. Alexander J. Morin (San Francisco, Backbeat Books, 2002), 1094-95. Some terminology in this article would need correction today. A dozen additional short articles cover Medieval and Renaissance composers.
Rev. Jerome F. Weber, "Resources for the Celebrant," in Sacred Music, 136:2 (Summer 2009), 73-76. This treats records of the Eucharistic Prayers and Prefaces found in Ordo Missae in Cantu (Solesmes, 1995). Additional records have been added to the database here. Search: OMC
Jerome F. Weber, "Hildegard Regarded and Recorded," in Early Music America, 1:1 (1995), 39-40, 52.
Albiero, Laura, Repertorium Antiphonarum Processionalium (Lugano: Vox Antiqua [2016]) provides text alone for 682 antiphons, of which 120 are not found in Brockett (below). Search: RAPal, and see Jerome F. Weber, review of both books in Plainsong and Medieval Music, Spring 2020, as noted above.
Berry, Mary, "The restoration of the chant and seventy-five years of recording," in Early Music, April 1979, 197-217. This extensive article, though marred by some errors, surveyed much of recorded chant through the years, and its discussion of the Vatican Congress recordings of 1904 occasioned the reissue of the set on the Discant label. Search: 1904
Bower, Calvin, The Liber Ymnorum of Notker Balbulus: Text and Music, Commentary (2 vols.; Henry Bradshaw Society, 2016). This is the definitive scholarly treatment of 49 sequences (search: LYNB). Notker Balbulus Sequenzen (ed. Stefan Morent) has the format of a liturgical edition of 20 sequences (search: NBS).
Brockett, Clyde, The Repertory of Processional Antiphons (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018) provides text and melody for 440 antiphons, and text alone for 216 other antiphons. Search: RPAbr/e and RPAbr/t, and see Albiero (above).
Gorton, Jr., Frank, "A requiem for the last trope," in CNV (Cum notis variorum, the newsletter of the music library at the University of California at Berkeley), No. 94, July 1985, 7-14, 23 is a discussion of the survival of the last trope, Inviolata, in the Roman liturgy (incorrectly identified as a sequence in modern editions). Search: "CS 167"
Göschl, Johannes Berchmans, Das Kirchenjahr im Gregorianischen Choral. Die Messgesänge aller Sonn- und höchsten Festtage (Sankt Ottilien: EOS, 2021). A commentary on the chants recorded in a set of 15 CDs. Search: EOS
Hesbert, René, "Le Répons 'Tenebrae' dans les liturgies Romaine, Milanaise et Bénéventaine: Contribution à l'histoire d'une interpolation évangélique," in Révue grégorienne 19 (1934), 4-24, 57-65, 84-89; 20 (1935), 1-14, 201-13; 21 (1936), 44-62, 201-13; 22 (1937), 121-36; 23 (1938), 20-25, 41-54, 83-98, 140-43, 161-70; 24 (1939), 44-63, 121-39, 161-72. This is the largest treatment of a single chant ever written, and it is a wonder that it has never been reprinted as a 174-page book. Search: "LU 680"
Hornby, Emma, Gregorian and Old Roman Eighth-Mode Tracts (Aldershot and Burlington, Ashgate, 2002) and Medieval Liturgical Chant and Patristic Exegesis: Words and Music in the Second-Mode Tracts (Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2009). These two books trace the history of Old Roman and Gregorian tracts. Search: "TRCT (8)" and "TRCT (2)"
Huglo, Michel, "Une élégie sur la mort de Guillaume le Conquérant," in Chant grégorien et musique médiévale (Ashgate, 2005), reprinted from Revue de Musicologie 50 (1964), 225-28. It was adapted and translated as "A Lament for William the Conqueror," in The Musical Times, February 1967, 124-25. Search: "PLNC 108"
Karp, Theodore, "The Cataloging of Chant Manuscripts as an Aid to Critical Editions and Chant History," in Foundations in Music Bibliography (Evanston: Northwestern, 1986; reprint, The Hayworth Press, 1993), 241-69. Features sixteen readings of the responsory Collegerunt pontifices on pp. 251-64. Search: "LU 579"
Karp, Theodore, An Introduction to the Post-Tridentine Mass Proper – Part I: Text; Part 2: Music Examples (Middleton WI: American Institute of Musicology, 2005). The only extensive treatment of the chant editions of this era. For a useful summary, an "opportunity to distil into minimal space the issues that I view as essential," see Karp, "Chants for the post-Tridentine Mass Proper," Plainsong and Medieval Music, 14:2 (October 2005), 183-97.
Kelly, Thomas Forrest, The Beneventan Chant (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989). This is the definitive treatment of the subject. "New evidence of the old Beneventan chant," in Plainsong and Medieval Music, IX:2 (October 2000), 81-93 adds new information. The Italian edition, Il Canto Beneventano: edizione aggiornata, versione italiana e revisione a cura di Alessandro De Lilli (Lugano, 2017) brings the subject up to date. Search: BEN
Kelly, Thomas Forrest, The Exultet in Southern Italy (Oxford, 1996) treats the chant of the Easter Vigil in detail, going beyond the principal focus on illuminated Beneventan Exultet rolls. Search: "exsultet jam angelica"
Levy, Kenneth, "A Gregorian Processional Antiphon," in Gregorian Chant and the Carolingians (Princeton, 1998, reprinted from Schweitzer Jahrbuch, 1982), 19-30. Discusses three early sources of Deprecamur te, famous for its occurrence at Augustine's arrival at Canterbury in 597. Search: "227:7"
Maloy, Rebecca, Inside the Offertory: Aspects of Chronology and Transmission (New York and Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010). Both Gregorian and Old Roman offertories are edited and discussed, replacing Carolus Ott, Offertoriale (1935, 1985). Maloy includes Memor sit Dominus (#91) and Beatus es Simon (#94), not found in Ott. She omits Ott 91, 99, 48, 24, 95, 83, 75, 84, 79, 100, 55, 102, 103, and 105-09. An article is in preparation cross-indexing Ott and Maloy. Search: OFFV
McGrade, Michael, "O rex mundi triumphator: Hohenstafen politics in a sequence for Saint Charlemagne," in Early Music History 17 (Cambridge University Press, 1998), 183-219, includes an edition of a different sequence, Urbs Aquensis, on pp. 189-92. Search: "55:201"
McKinnon, James W., "The fourth-century origin of the gradual," in Early Music History 7 (Cambridge University Press, 1987), 91-106. Reprint in The Temple, the Church Fathers and Early Western Chant (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1998). Search: GRAD
McKinnon, James W., "Preface to the study of the Alleluia," in Early Music History 15 (Cambridge University Press, 1996), 213-49. Reprint in The Temple, the Church Fathers and Early Western Chant (Aldershot: Ashgate Variorum, 1998). Search: ALLE
McKinnon, James, The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 2000) offers a detailed overview of the history of the proper chants of the Mass. It should be read in conjunction with the critical reviews of Joseph Dyer (Early Music History 20 [2001], 279-309) and Peter Jeffery (Journal of the American Musicological Society, 56:2 [Spring 2003], 169-79). Susan Rankin (Plainsong and Medieval Music, 11:2 [April 2002], 73-82) is less critical, and Rebecca Maloy (Notes, The Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, 58:2 [December 2001], 329-32) offers a more positive evaluation.
Stevens, John, "Samson dux fortissime: an international Latin song," in Plainsong and Medieval Music, I:1 (April 1992), 1-40 includes an edition of the song from Harley MS 978 on pp. 25-35. Search: "PLNC 114" For two unusual collections of laments, search: ligeriana and search: epos
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