Two new issues of Sacred Music are now online for the viewing and downloading, in the archives.

All musicians in the English-speaking world are deeply grateful to the monks of the Solesmes Abbey for permission to offer a free download of the Gregorian Missal. This extraordinary book provides the sung propers attached to the 1970 Missal, for Sundays and Feast Days, along with English translations. It is the most useful book for any Catholic music working within the framework of the ordinary form of the Roman Rite. This is a tremendous gift to the entire world. The Church Music Association of America is pleased to host this file for the monastery.

For many musicians, this will be the first time they have seen the actual music of the Roman Rite and how it is embedded within the structure of the Mass and the liturgical year.

This wonderful 1922 book, edited by Fr. Matthew Britt, assembles a vast number of hymns from Christian history, in Latin with English translations, including notes on composer and authors as well as liturgical use. It is an essential book for all Catholic musicians. It is newly available in print and also online.

The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform, by Lazslo Dobzsay

We pleased to announce that there is a compelling source for understanding the old-style Solesmes approach to rhythm: The Rhythm of Plainsong by Dom Gajard (1943), now available in a free download.

This marvelous book is defense of the Mocquereau approach to the rhythm of Gregorian chant, with Gajard clearly explaining, in non-technical terms, what is historical, what is deduced from musical understanding, and what is pure speculation. He makes a very persuasive case that Gregorian music is true music with a rhythmic structure all its own. One as but to learn the rules and to discover it as a path to making the music sound beautiful and prayerful. This is certainly a must reading for any practitioner of chant.

This essay is also in print

After many requests, the CMAA now offers the Graduale Romanum, extraordinary form from 1961, in two volume hardcover. Go here to purchase.

A kindly professor sent me this extract of a longer work by Niceta, Bishop of Remesiana (now Bela Palanka, Serbia). This one-page extract, On the Benefits of Psalmody, dates to around 370.

by Rev. Richard Schuler (from Sacred Music 1990)

The CMAA is very pleasd to present: "The Art of Gregorian Music," a lecture by Dom Andre Mocquereau from 1896, translated and published in the Catholic Education Review in 1923. 

The CMAA is very pleased to present and host a beautiful pdf edition of Justine Ward's brilliant book on chant pedagogy from 1921: Music Fourth Year: Gregorian Chant According to the Principles of Dom Andre Mocquereau. The introduction is by Dom Mocquereau himself. The navigation links on the left side of the page expand to show the details of each chapter. The book also includes images that have been scanned at high resolution. The book concludes with chant exercises organized by mode.