LIBER USUALIS TRADITIO Traditional Roman Catholic Internet Site E-mail: traditio@traditio.com, Web Page: http://www.traditio.com Copyright 1997 CSM. Reproduction prohibited without authorization. LIBER USUALIS: NO.801 WITH INTRODUCTION AND RUBRICS IN ENGLISH Edited by the Benedictines of Solesmes Originally Published by Desclee & Co., Copyright 1953, reprinted 1997, 1881 pages, hardcover St. Bonaventure Publications $107.00 plus $7.00 shipping I cannot overstate what a joy it is to see the Liber Usualis back in print after so many years. Although the traditional music books of the Church (the Graduale Romanum, the Kyriale, the Antiphonarium, etc.) were available separately, it is the Liber Usualis that puts under one cover virtually everything that a Gregorian choir would need in order to chant the Divine Office, including the Holy Mass. Yet since the mid 1960s, when Desclee closed its publishing business, a victim of the Vatican II reforms, the Liber Usualis has been difficult to locate and, if located, expensive to purchase. Many Catholics are unaware that the public liturgy of the Church includes not only the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass but also the Divine Office, those hours of the day (Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline) at which the clergy and religious, and an increasing number of the laity, traditionally offer prayers interspersed with their daily work, to the Lord of Creation. Even in chapels today, one may find Sunday Vespers being offered in chant, or Terce being chanted before the principal Mass. Although vernacular, and even profane, music has taken over many parish churches since Vatican II, the popularity of chant on recordings and in traditional churches and chapels is skyrocketing. In just the last few years, chant recordings of an obscure group of monks in Spain have risen to the top of the recording charts. How appropriate, then, that this edition of the Liber Usualis appears at this time to assist Gregorian choirs to chant the elevating and inspiring Latin music that takes us back to the very early centuries of our Church -- the only music that is fully proper to the Roman Rite of Mass. This reprint of almost 2000 pages is well bound with an imitation leather cover embossed with LIBER USUALIS in gold leaf and with red-edged pages, complete with six colored marker ribbons. The publishers have even thought to bind in the originally separate aides de memoire giving the Tones for the Gloria Patri at the Introit and the eight tones of the Psalms. The introductory pages give the Preface to the Vatican Edition of the Roman Chant, Rubrics for the Chant of the Mass, Rules for Interpretation, the Reading and Pronunciation of Liturgical Latin, and the Roman Calendar (as of 1953), as well as an updated table of the dates of Movable Liturgical Feasts through the year 2028. Thereupon the Ordinary Chants of the Mass are given with the eighteen standard Gregorian Mass settings and the Common Tones of the Mass. Following are the Ordinary Chants of the Office, with their common tones. For Sundays, the hours of Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline are given, together with Lauds for Feasts. Since the traditional Breviarium Romanum (Breviary for the Divine Office) is now scare, the Liber Usualis could substantially stand in for private recitation of the Divine Office. The majority of the Liber Usualis is taken up with the Proper of the Time, that is, the chants for the temporal cycle of the year, together with the Common and Proper of the Saints and Votive Masses. The complete Requiem and Exsequial services are also provided. At the end of book are highly useful chants for special occasions, such as Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Concluding the whole is an Alphabetical Table of Introits, Graduals, Alleluia Verses, Tracts, Offertories, Communions, Antiphons, Hymns, Psalms, Canticles, and Responsories, followed by an Alphabetical Index of Feasts. This edition of the Liber Usualis contains the traditional Roman Rite as it existed in 1953, without the changes in the rites of Holy Week and the rubrical changes of 1956 and 1960-1962. However, since those changes are essentially a slight simplification of the previous rites, this edition can easily be used for the later rubrics, which, in any case, were indicated by a few pages of "Updates to the Liber Usualis," not a revision of the entire book. $107.00 might seem expensive for a single book, but even if used copies of this book can be located, they generally sell for far more and are in rather poor condition. If you have any interest in the Gregorian chant of our Roman Catholic Church, if you sing in a church schola or choir, or if you just want to have a copy of 2000 years of the divine music of our Church and of our Western civilization, you will be proud to own this edition.