THE ENTRANCE AND COMMUNION ANTIPHONS

Dr. Paul Ford, whose work for the Church I greatly admire, posted an "emendation" to a couple of sections of the most recent General Instruction of the Roman Missal submitted by the U.S. Bishops. This is in light of concerns about the Entrance and Communion antiphons as provided in the Roman Missal. It turns out that...

Recent research, confirmed by unofficial discussions with officials of the Holy See during the past several years, has made clear that the antiphons of the Order of Mass were never intended to be sung, but are provided without notation to be recited whenever the Graduale Romanum or another song is not sung. The antiphons of the Missale Romanum, which differ substantially from the sung antiphons of the Roman Gradual, were never intended to be sung.

I remember this coming up in conversation somewhere, but I forget where. Even most missalettes knew enough to print under "Entrance Antiphon" and "Communion Antiphon" that "when a processional chant or hymn is sung, the antiphon of the day is omitted."

On the Musica Sacra message board thread on which Dr. Ford posted the .pdf, I took the liberty of asking him:,

Would one still be free to use the Graduale propers or even a translation thereof? I would at least hope anyways.
And what about the priority of Lectionary vs. Graduale when singing the "intervening chants" during the Liturgy of the Word?

I got this reply from Dr. Ford, which I found very helpful and thank him for:

Yes, Brian, one would be free to use the Graduale propers or even a translation thereof. That is what we in the Collegeville Composers Group did in our Psallite project for The Liturgical Press.
It seems to be, however, that the Lectionary has priority over Graduale when singing the "intervening chants" during the Liturgy of the Word. This is because the Lectionary of the Mass of Paul VI was composed on a different principle than was the lectionary of the Mass of Saint Pius V.

This will help me greatly in compositional endeavors in the very near future.
Peace,
BMP