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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A much needed resource!, November 30, 2007
This review is from: The Mundelein Psalter (Hardcover)
It's really nice to have an English language version of the Church's Morning, Evening, and Night prayer set up for chanting. I have been using this personally since June of 2007 and started using it with few others in September. We sing Morning Prayer in the campus church on weekday mornings.
All the music is in chant notation, which is not difficult to figure out if you already read modern notation. Look for some web-page guides if you need help. With a good leader, no one else needs to have a musical background to participate. I find it helps to play the hymn tunes before we start and to play the modes before each psalm or canticle -- a least for the first several weeks.
The shortcomings I have found with the Psalter are the lack of an Invitatory and the associated antiphons and an incomplete hymnal. There is a hymnal in the back of the book, but it doesn't include pieces for the commons and it has a shortened format for hymns of Advent/Christmas and Lent/Easter. There is talk that they might publish a hymnal to accompany the Psalter. I hope they do and that it is "robust." The English translations of the hymns are well done, given that they have to fit the meter of the Latin text. It is very nice that they are from the typical edition and match the particular hour. Listen to the audio files on the Psalter web site if you need help learning the hymns.
These criticisms aside, if you really want to chant Morning, Evening, and Night prayer in English, this book is a blessing! I now use it almost exclusively instead of my 4 volume Liturgy of the Hours.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favorite breviary, March 10, 2008
This review is from: The Mundelein Psalter (Hardcover)
This has become my favorite breviary. It solves almost all the problems that other breviaries have. Much more than a psalter, it is, in my opinion, unfortunately named. Contains complete offices for Morning & Evening, plus Compline. Does NOT contain midday or terce/sext/none nor vigils/Office of Readings.
The two best things about it are the layout and the chant notation.
Re: layout, you can pray with a minimum of page flipping (one ribbon in the Proper of Seasons, and one ribbon in the Psalter is all I need). Benedictus & Magnificat are on separate note cards (including the chant notation). Using the Proper of Saints is a bit more complicated because of the several commons, but even then there is less page flipping than some other manuals. There are 3 ribbons and a notecard to help keep place.
Re: chant notation: uses simple chants (reciting note plus 2 or 3 note cadence in square neume notation and simple italics pointing). Best of all, all the notation is right where you need it, at the beginning of each psalm. No need to flip to an index and pick out the right tune. Hymnal at the back of book contains notation, or you can recite the hymns within the text without notation. Compared to, for example, Monastic Diurnal Revised or St Helena Breviary, Monastic Edition, the chant in Mundelein Psalter is far easier.
Uses standard 4-week catholic cycle of psalms, with extensive antiphons. A heading at the top of each week in proper of seasons tells you which psalm week to use, making it easier to keep up. No complicated tables or counting required. Proper of Seasons contains readings, responsory, canticle antiphons, wonderful intercessions, and collect. The collect varies each day, so you are not using the same one for the whole week.
The length of the office is medium -- a hymn, psalm, canticle, psalm, reading, responsory, gospel canticle, intercessions, and collect. Compared to, e.g. MDR with its 5 psalms and 2 readings per office, it is much shorter.
There is a week's worth of compline, with I Sunday being the "traditional" version. Antiphons to the virgin (latin) are on separate section, which requires a page flip. Sadly, no notation for it! Also, there is no prayer of confession in compline, which is disappointing.
There is no invitatory/psalm 95, but you can download one from their website and paste it into the front of the book.
The only complaint I have is that, since it uses the standard catholic 4-week cycle, not every psalm is represented.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great way to pray, April 6, 2008
This review is from: The Mundelein Psalter (Hardcover)
This is a great book to have if you are interested in chanting the Divine Office. One may complain that this psalter does not include the office of readings or the daytime offices, but the reasoning behind choosing only the morning, evening, and night prayers is easily understood in light of the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours (GILH No. 272). But, what this book does contain is wonderful. I pray these hours exclusivley using this psalter.
There are some things I'd point out to a prospective buyer. First, I get the impression that at times The Mundelein Psalter assumes one has some knowlege of, or at least access to, the rubrics of the Liturgy of the Hours and the Roman calendar. I have the 4 volume Liturgy of the Hours, which contains these, and once or twice I've found myself having to refer to them. I would not let this dissuade anyone from buying this book. It does contain the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, which will answer 95% or more of your questions. It's only some of the little nuances that pop up in special seasons, such as the Triduum, that aren't clarified as well as they could be. A lay person, however, should not worry about these things, but for someone from whom the Church expects a bit more care in praying the liturgy (ordained, religious, perhaps even seminarians) it might prove slighly inconvenient.
The hymnal is a little limited, and it's not unheard of that I have to just receite the hymn due to there not being any chant notation. This most frequently happens on days for which there is a proper office, such as a solemnity. What annoyed me more was the lack of any notation for the Latin Marian antiphons. If you are interested in these though, I would simply recommend searching online for open source Gregorian notation for these. I did this and found them easily. I printed them out on a single page and use it as an insert. What I found were the traditional modes, and so they are not as simple as the Mundelein modes, but they are not difficult to figure out.
There's very little flipping involved in general. The three ribbons are very nice, but one more would have been optimal in my opinion. I do, however, find it a bit inconvient that in some places the chant notation is not printed there on the page requiring a little extra flipping. The particular mode to be used for responsories, intercession, and concluding prayers is simply listed by a letter designation. The reasoning for this is that chanting thse parts of the office are secondary to chanting the psalms. All the modes are found in the front of the book, and so if you want to chant the entire office, one has to flip to the front to see the notation for the responsories, intercessions, and concluding prayer... that is at least until you've memorized the mode for those to parts. It really only took me two weeks before I found myself no longer having to refer to the front list.
Those things aside, definitely do check out their website and listen to their audio files. They really help give you a feel for the notation. And if you're anything like me, don't be surprised if find yourself creating your own modes as you become more and more comfortable with chanting. Of course, such creativity may not always be possible in a communal setting, but when I have to chant alone, I find it adds more depth to my praise.
This is a wonderful book. Don't let anything I've said above turn you away even a bit from buying The Mundelein Psalter. If you have any interest in actually chanting the Divine Office in English, this will not disappoint. I love chanting it so much I even often wish there were chant notation for the short readings themselves, sort of the like how the Gospel is chanted at papal Masses in St. Peter's.
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