Eight Plainsong Masses (OJN)

I now have posted eight plainsong masses that Fr. John-Julian arranged, setting the words of the Rite II BCP to medieval settings. Please feel free to not just reference these but to use them as well.

The graduals, sequence, and tracts mentioned on the title page coordinate with the old BCP calendar; with the change to the RCL they are now out of date. Replacements are in the works but will not be available for quite a while…

One hindrance to the use of the masses may be that they—like the other files on the page—are in square-note plainsong notation. While square-note is (and should be) considered normative for writing plainsong, it clearly requires a congregation familiar with it—and few these days are. If anyone has the software and capability to transcribe these masses into the modern form of stemless notation used in contemporary hymnals to write chant (like the material in the front service music section of the ’82 Hymnal), please do so that these masses may be more broadly used and known.

As far as use goes, this material (and everything else here) falls under the Creative Commons license that appears on my side bar: you can use it and adapt it but must give attribution to Fr. John-Julian and the order, and you can’t sell the material or your adaptation (without contacting the author and making arrangements). Given the nature of the material, if you do use it I think it would be only fitting to include a prayer for the order in your Prayers of the People as well…

2 thoughts on “Eight Plainsong Masses (OJN)

  1. bls

    Thanks for posting all these, Derek, and thanks to OJN and Fr. John-Julian as well. I’m going to point these out to the choirmaster at my parish, and see if we might not be able to use some of them at some point.

    Is the stuff from, say, the Missa Marialis, the same as what’s in our 1982 Hymnal, do you know offhand?

  2. Derek the Ænglican

    I haven’t compared these to current materials except that M and I sang through this version and David Hurd’s version of the Kyrie/Missa Orbis Factor. They adapted the tunes and divided the syllables a little differently; we haven’t had a chance to use any of these in mass yet.

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