Advent Vespers Accompaniment

Jeff Ostrowski · December 17, 2022

Available Now! • 4th Sunday of Advent

Those who so desire may now download this organ accompaniment booklet (25 pages) for the 4th Sunday of Advent, including the “O ANTIPHON” for 18 December 2022.

Jeff Ostrowski · December 7, 2022

PDF Download • “Organ Accompaniment Booklet” • Vespers (3rd Sunday of Advent) — 23 pages

Were Pothier and Mocquereau homeless? The answer might surprise you.

Jeff Ostrowski · December 3, 2022

PDF Download • Organ Accompaniment Booklet: Vespers (2nd Sunday of Advent) — 27 pages

Dom Gajard said to Jean Langlais: “Hear the blackbird! It doesn’t know what an ‘ictus’ is, yet it sings better than we.”

“Music List” • Easter Sunday

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the Easter Sunday (20 April 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Several of the selections are quite beautiful.

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF Download • “Easter Sunday Introit”

Some may wish to download the EASTER INTROIT (PDF) in accordance with the official edition. You can hear this live version sung by women. The ‘thumbnail’ image on that video is particularly beautiful, as it shows our Savior as a gardener. (If you don’t understand why, cf. John 20:15: Illa exístimans quia hortulánus esset.) You can also hear a rehearsal video wherein I simultaneously accompany myself on the pipe organ while trying to sing it.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” • Holy Thursday

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the Holy Thursday (17 April 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Since Holy Week reduces usage of the pipe organ, I marked with an “X” all the selections being sung a cappella. The name “Maundy Thursday” comes from MANDATUM a.k.a. “the washing of the feet.” — For the record, anyone so inclined can download our music list for Good Friday; formerly called Missa Praesanctificatorum (“Mass of the Presanctified”).

—Jeff Ostrowski

When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962

There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop

—Veronica Brandt

The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum

Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.

—Daniel Tucker

Antiphons Don’t Match?

A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music).

—Corpus Christi Watershed