Recently, a cultural association has been founded
in the city of Milan to promote the liturgical patrimony of the Ambrosian Rite,
with the name Signum Ambrosianum.
Among their various activities, the association has begun a project to reprint
several of the books necessary for the celebration of the traditional Ambrosian
liturgy. The first of these is the “Antiphonale Missarum”, the Ambrosian
equivalent of the Graduale Romanum; the new edition contains all of the Masses
of the Temporal cycle, plus those of the principal Saints’ feasts, as well as
the ordinary of the Mass and associated chants. The new Signum Ambrosianum
edition is a reproduction of the last pre-Conciliar version, the work of the
Benedictine chant scholar Dom Gregory Suñol, published in 1935 at the behest of
the Blessed Card. Ildephonse Schuster. The book also includes a table which
explains which chants may be used in the reformed Ambrosian Rite wherever the
traditional arrangement is no longer appropriate, similar to the 1974 Ordo
Cantus Missae in the post-Conciliar Roman Rite. Their website offers a fuller
explanation of the edition in English, as well as a preview.
Those who are interested in acquiring this hitherto extremely rare book may
contact the association at the following address for information on shipping
and availability: info@signumambrosianum.it For the time being, Signum
Ambrosianum is offering copies of the first print at the special price of 25
euros, rather than 40. In the future, other chant books such as the Vesperale
will also be offered, as well as a bilingual missal for the faithful (in Latin and
Italian; for a preview, click here.)
Although the chant of the Ambrosian Rite is quite
different from that of the Roman, there is no reason why parts of the Ambrosian
repertoire might not be judiciously incorporated into the celebration of the
Roman Rite in either the Ordinary or Extraordinary forms, especially as
additional music for the Offertory or Communion. Many editions of the Liber
Usualis include an Ambrosian version of the Gloria in excelsis, and the special Lenten litanies “Divinae pacis” and “Dicamus omnes” are in the
Cantus Selecti. (I once attended a Roman Novus Ordo in which the latter of
these two litanies was used as the Prayers of the Faithful.) Over the
centuries, there have been many such exchanges between the Roman and Ambrosian
Rites; the re-publication of the “Antiphonale Missarum” represents an
opportunity not just for scholars, but for choirs all over the world to
increase their knowledge of this important part of the Latin liturgical
patrimony.
