Well, this is a treasure, and I'm betting that very few people alive have ever seen this:
It is her most detailed and high-level guide to understanding and singing Gregorian chant. It assumes familiarity and experience with the basic, and moves on to cover the management of dynamics, the singing of the Psalms including intonations and rules for adapting syllables to melodic formula, the three styles of chant, the treatment of accents, varieties of notation, forms of composition, the diagramming of chants, centonization, interpretation, chironomy and conducting, expression and accompaniment, as well as the origin, evolution, and regeneration of the chant.
If you have only thought of Mrs. Ward in connection with children's pedagogy, this book will amaze you. It is probably the most advanced guide to the practical singing and understanding of the details of Gregorian chant ever written. It certainly embodies a height of classical Solesmes styling. While there is probably plenty here with which today's experts will disagree, she demonstrates vast knowledge and experience as well as intimate familiarity with the chant repertoire. It is a must for anyone who aspires to mastery.
Now, a couple of things. One is that the CMAA changed the name of the book. It was called Gregorian Chant Volume II, but that is just too confusing. The current title better reflects the contents.
If you want to look at the book, you can see or print it here. As you can see, it is an enormously technical volume. It boggles my mind.
Scott Turkington tells a funny story of having briefly seen a copy in Ted Marier's trunk. He said "hey, what's that??!!" And then Ted said, oh that's a 1949 book on chant by Ward, and closed the trunk! That was it.
Anyway, I excited about it, and more excited to discipline myself to read it in print than online. I can't ever be a master but this book can teach me so much. I'm especially happy that it shows off her capacity as a scholar. It's one of many treasures that might have been lost but for new technologies that make the whole of history so accessible.
Friday, March 28, 2008
A Lost Ward Classic is Back
UnknownMore recent articles:
Ordo Hebdomadae Maioris & Memoriale Rituum: Useful Books for the Pre-55 Holy WeekPeter Kwasniewski
Saint Anthony Press, established with the mission of publishing rare or otherwise “lost” Catholic liturgical and devotional books, has reprinted the Ordo Hebdomadae Maioris (Order of Holy Week), containing the Holy Week liturgies and Order of Mass with seasonal Prefaces, according to the 1920 typical edition of the Roman Missal (in use un...
Durandus on the First Sunday of LentGregory DiPippo
The following excerpts are taken from the sixth book of William Durandus’ Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, chapter 32, 6-11. There are fewer ellipses than usual, but perhaps a bit more paraphrasing.This is the time of Christian warfare, in which the devil rises up against us more strongly. Therefore, lest anyone despair, the Church sings the introit...
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Many of the stories that form the corpus of Lenten Scriptural readings in the traditional Roman Rite are frequently depicted in frescoes in the catacombs, and on early Christian sarcophagi. We may safely assume that such readings were already part of the Roman Church’s lectionary before the end of the persecutions and the building of the earliest ...
Happy Feast of Saint Thomas AquinasPeter Kwasniewski
Today is the traditional feastday of St. Thomas Aquinas, Common Doctor of the Catholic Church, Patron of All Catholic Schools. March 7 is the birthday of the Angelic Doctor into eternal life, at the age of 49, en route to the General Council at Lyons. In his honor, it seems fitting to share the story of his death, as told by Bernard Gui in the Vi...
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Ever since Traditionis Custodes was issued more than 3½ years ago, its defenders have struggled to come up with a rationale for why it was issued at all. This is hardly surprising. The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, in repudiation of which it was written, was the fruit of decades of careful meditation on the Church’s liturgy problem, on the part...
Concilium’s Attack on Confession (Part 4.2): Mortal Sins Before Communion? No Problem!Gregory DiPippo
This is the second part of an article which we published on Tuesday, Mr Phillip Campbell’s investigation into what the writers of the “progressive” theological journal Concilium were saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediately followed the most recent ecumenical council. This installment is a detailed considera...
Ash Wednesday 2025Gregory DiPippo
Dómine, non secundum peccáta nostra, quae fécimus nos: neque secundum iniquitátes nostras retríbuas nobis. V. Dómine, ne memíneris iniquitátum nostrárum antiquárum: cito antícipent nos misericórdiae tuae, quia páuperes facti sumus nimis. Hic genuflectitur V. Adjuva nos, Deus, salutáris noster: et propter gloriam nóminis tui, Dómine, líbera nos: et...
What Might Christ Say to Us in the Confessional?Peter Kwasniewski
We enter today into the chief penitential season of the Latin Church’s liturgical year. After the loosening up of the 1960s, it isn’t very penitential anymore, although one might well think that Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are worse than ever because no one has built up a habit of fasting, and so we hit those days like a car without shock absorbe...
Concilium’s Attack on Confession (Part 4.1): Mortal Sins Before Communion? No Problem!Gregory DiPippo
On Shrove Tuesday of last year, we began a series which Mr Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, has very kindly shared with NLM. It is the result of his investigation into what the writers of the “progressive” theological journal Concilium were saying about reform of the sacrament of Confession in the years which immediatel...
David Clayton to Speak in Tyler, Texas, Tuesday, March 11thDavid Clayton
The Way of Beauty - Spirituality for Creatives and Creativity for AllMarch 11th, 6pm at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, 423 S Broadway, Tyler, Texas Reception to follow across the street at the Stabat Mater AtelierNext Tuesday evening, I will give a talk at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Tyler, Texas,on The Way of Be...
