www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros The cantor's bookshelf

One of the main reasons for starting this forum was the sharing of resources. So what is on YOUR bookshelf? Why not share a few of your favorites? A brief (1-4 sentence) summary of the content and a 1-2 sentence assessment of its value would also be helpful.

Oh heavens! I have Vernoski's music "weeklies" from 2002 to present along with a whole lot of (basically miscellaneous) stuff that has anything to do with the liturgies. One thing I'm lacking is a good library of opening/closing hymns. Everything I have is valuable to me as I have taken the time to organize it by service or feast. When it's time to sing, I pull it right out! Actually, I'd like to think a beginning cantor could look at my files and figure out what "should" happen during a service

Most of my bookself is electronic, things both culled from the internet from various sites and from email lists (like the Prostopinije list and the Metropolitan Catnor Institute) and thins i have typed myself.

So i have books for the Divine Liturgy for weekdays-the saints material, that is for September-February, April-July; Vespers and Matins books for Sundays (all these recent publications); the Bokshaj and Malinich Prostopinije, as well as Racin's revision, and the Sokol editions; Dinev's collection of Bulgarian podobny; various small collections of sedalny, troparia, stichera, katavasie, hypakoi, and exapostilaria podobny and samopodobny (collected from various manuscripts); the main Moscovite Synodal collections from the early 20th cen. (Obichod, Lenten and Flowery Triodia, Octoechos, and most of the Prazdniki); two volumes of Old Believer chant collected by Igor Sakhno (one of my favourite collections); the Kalishnikov, Uchebnyj, and Kutuzov Obichods (more Moscovite collections, but independant of the Synod); and the Polutniuk Napivnik ( a Galician collection from Peremyshl').

I think that covers most of what i have. A good resource besides the Bokshaj, Racin or Papp collections is the L'viw Irmologion (1904, available in photo reprint).

In Christ,
Adam

FYI: I chant mostly in Ukrainian, according to the Galician tradition, though I occasionally sing in Church Slavonic, English, Greek and Romanian using Galician, Kyivan, Obikhod, and Byzantine chant.

My main (and first) chant reference book is Joseph Roll�s �Music of the Ukrainian Catholic Church for Congregational Singing�. I supplement this with �Церковні наспіви / Tserkovni naspivy� printed by Svichado in Lviv. This is mostly a Ukrainian text version of the �Напівник церквоний / Napivnyk tserkovnyi� by Dzerovych (of which I have a photocopy). Finally I�d have to list the L�viv Irmologion and Osmohlasnyk (1906).

I have a few prostopinije sources (including Bokshai), a book of Valaam chant, the Sakhno music referenced in an above post, and others, but I rarely use them at the moment. These, and other materials, including a recently published book of music for the All-Night Vigil from the Kyiv Caves Lavra (Church Slavonic, Russian orthography), can be downloaded from www.synaxis.info. [synaxis.info.]

For texts I rely heavily on the books published by Patriarch Joseph I, of blessed memory, supplemented by the books recently published by the UOC-KP.

For planning purposes I use the calendar in the Apostol as well as the yearly calendars published by the UOC in Canada (Ridna nyva) and the �Liturgical Calendar� published by the St. John of Kronstadt Press.

There are also an number of other books I reference when preparing services. These vary depending on circumstances.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

Rather than music, I'll take a different direction in the "cantor's bookshelf" concept, understanding liturgy. I've updated my bibliography of material on liturgy for my web site. As a cantor, I've always enjoyed reading about liturgical history, structure, order and spirituality. In this section of my bibliography I've collected what I think are some of the most helpful books in English on the topic.

I'd love to hear more suggestions, either here or via the e-mail link on the web page. The list is obviously not exhaustive nor even highly detailed. I've just tried to include at least some sources for all the major areas.

Liturgy bibliography [puluka.com]

Steve Puluka
Cantor, Holy Ghost Church
Mckees Rocks, PA

In my case, a literal answer to the question, "What's on my bookshelf"; most of these stay on the two shelves in our family prayer corning.

Bibles:
- New American
- Douai-Rheims
- New Jerusalem

Psalters:
- The Abbey Psalter (Grail text, hand-lettered, beautiful)
- The Psalter: An English Translation of the Church Slavonic Version of the Greek Septuagint (Detroit, 1985) (includes kathisma prayers, Scriptural odes)

Divine Liturgy:
- The Divine Liturgy (1978 Pittsburgh "pew book")
- The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (Carpatho-Russian Orthodox, with music)
- The Divine Liturgy, an Anthology for Worship (new Ukrainian people's book, with music)

Sacramental services:
- Euchologion: A Byzantine Ritual (Hamtranck, MI, 1986)

Prayer books:
- Book of Byzantine Prayer
- Old Orthodox Prayer Book
- Byzantine Daily Worship (Raya; Melkite)
- A Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians (Holy Transfiguration Monastery) - Greek tradition

From the Sisters of Saint Basil in Uniontown (fairly complete, contain few rubrics and some errors):
- The Office of Vespers
- The Office of Matins
- Festal Menaion
- Lenten Triodion (their best work)
- Pentecostarion

From Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos (very important Orthodox books, complete rubrics, somewhat old-fashioned English; cantors should be familiar with these):
- The Festal Menaion
- The Lenten Triodion

Typikon:
- Father David Petras' common and annual typikon
- copies of the Mikita and Dolnitsky commentaries on the typikon, for reference on Ruthenian usage
- The Ordinary Order of Orthodox Divine Services (St. John of Kronstadt Press; very valuable)

Liturgical year:
- The Liturgical Year of the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite, by Fr. Basil Shereghy
- The Year of Grace of the Lord, by "A Monk of the Eastern Church"
- Great Lent, by Father Alexander Schmemann
- The Prologue from Ochrid (in four volumes, an important Orthodox collection, with some minor anti-Western commentary here and there)

Slavonic:
- 1891 Sluzhebnik (Kiev "altar missal")
- 1936 and 1937 Velikij Sbornik (texts for Sunday and festal Vespers, Matins and Liturgy; Presov edition is in Latin characters, Uzhorod edition is in Cyrillic)
- Vecernya i Utrenya (Ukrainian, year-round vespers and matins in two small volumes)
- Trebnik (Euchologion in Slavonic)
- Casoslov (Zhovka, 1909 - still looking for the Roman edition)

Miscellanous:
- Ambon Prayers (small spiral-bound collection)
- Instruction for Applying the Liturgical Prescriptions of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches (Rome, 1996)
- Ordo Celebrationis: An English Translation with Annotations and Illustrations
- The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West (Taft)
- Russian Church Singing (von Gardner)

- The Paradise of the Fathers (Budge, 2 volumes)
- The Desert Fathers (Waddell)


Editions with MUSIC:
- Holy Week Services
- Christian Burial
- The Order of Vespers for Sundays after Pentecost (MCI)
- The Order of Matins for Sundays after Pentecost (MCI)
the "gray book" (Pittsburgh, 1965)
various small booklets

Slavonic chant books:
- Bokshai's Tserkovnoje Prostopinije
- Ratsin's Prostopinije
- Papp's Irmologion
- Sokol's Basic Chant and Plain Chant
- Hlasnopisnets (Galician chant)

Remember that this is the result of 20 years of trying to learn all I can about our liturgy and plainchant; if I get a chance I will come back and annotate these a little

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Here's my partial list of books:

"The Divine Liturgy" Levkulic, Byzantine Seminary Press, 1978
"Holy Week Services", Levkulic, Byz Sem Press, cantor ed.compilation, 1976, reprinted
"Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic Church", Hapgood 1956 (ENG)
"Epistles and Old Testament Readings�" Byzantine Seminary Press
"Byzantine Liturgical Chant", 1970, Byzantine Seminary Press, original, (ENG)
"Trebnik", 1926, Premeshl, original (OCS)
"Prostopinije", Bokshai, 1906, reprinted (OCS)
"Prostopinije", Ratsin, 1925 reproduction(OCS)
"Prostopinije" Hungarian language, 1906, original
"Liturgy of ST John Chrysostom for SATB", 1945, Very Rev. Joseph Havriliak, photo-reproduction (OCS)
"Triodion", Kiev, 1903 original (OCS)
"Pisni Pri Bozestvennoi Liturgia" Choir arr.for SATB 1920, Wilkes-Barre. PA. original (OCS)
"Evanhelia Svjatich Strasti" 1892, Lviv, original (OCS)
"Psalter", 1921, Dr. Peter Zeedick, (OCS/Eng)
"The Divine Liturgy, Liturgical Music", Rev Vladimir Soroka, 1969 (Eng)
"Plain Chant", Msgr. Andrew Sokol, 1946, original, (and later 1982 reprints)(Slavonic)
"Basic Chant" Msgr. Anrew Sokol, 1955, original (Slavonic)
"Eastern Orthodox Hymnal", Bishop Fan Stylian Noli, 1951 (Eng)
"Bozestvennaja Liturgia", Choir Music,Nikolai Petrik, Scranton, PA 1946 (OCS)
"Duchovi Pisni", Stefan Papp, 1969 (Slavonic)
"Tserkovni Pisni" Winnipeg, Manitoba, 1923 (UKR)
"Koljadi", Peremeshl, 1925 (UKR)

"The Other Catholics", J.P. Bonchonsky
"Byzantine Theology". Meyendorff
"The Changing Face of the Priesthood", Donald B. Cozzens
"A Commentary on the Divine Liturgy", Nicholas Cabisilas,Translated by Hussey/Mcnulty
"The Liturgical Year of the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite", Basil Shereghy, 1968, re 1993
"A Living Stream of Water", God With Us Publications, 1988
"Light for Life, The Mystery Believed", God With Us Publications, 1994
:Light for Life, The Mystery Celebrated", God With Us Publications, 1996
"Six Books on the Priesthood" St John Chyrsostom, translated by Graham Neville, 1996
"On Marriage and Family Life" St John Chrysostom, transl by Catherine Ross/David Anderson
"Counsels on the Christian Priesthood", St John of Kronstadt, W Jardine Grisbrooke, 1994
"Why Catholics Can't Sing", Thomas Day


"Common Typicon" Arranged by Archpriest Fr. David Petras S.E.O.D
"Tserkovni Typikon", Mikita, 1901, reprint, (OCS)
"Byzantine Missal", Raya, 1958
"Litutgikon / Sluzebnik" , Grigassy, 1945
"Prostopinije Tserkovnoje", John Vladimir, 1893, original (OCS)
"Main Services of Holy Week and Resurrection", Grigassy, 1950 (ENG/Slavonic)
"A Chatechism of Christian Doctrine for Greek Catholic Rusyn Youth of America", 1941, Braddock, Pa (Eng/Rusyn)
"The Office of Matins", Sisters of St Basil, 1989
"The Office of Vespers", Sisters of St Basil, 1982
"Pentecostarion", Sisters of St Basil, 1986
"Lenten Triodion", Sisters of St Basil, 1995
"Festal Menaion", Sisters of St Basil, 1985
"Office of Christian Burial", Byz Sem Press

There also several shelves of choir books, records, tapes of liturgies, file drawers full of sheet music. I also have archives of much of the MetropolitanCantorInstitute material from the last 5 years.

Most of my favorites are the older books that I inherited from my father, who inherited them from my grandfather because they have personal notes written in them (and the sentimental value).

Steve Petach

Hmm... Looks like we are our now listing our complete liturgical libraries. Must find a whole evening to set aside to write up my 'catalogue'.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

I think it will take you far longer than I, Andrij...

Dear Father Deacon,

[BTW, having any trouble adjusting to the new title? ]

I'm just wondering how many different character sets I can use in one post, and if ByzCath can handle more than Latin, Greek and Cyrillic alphabets.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

I had most of this list typed up a while ago just as a refernce of what books I already had to compare what books I should be on the lookout for.
Eventually I hope to have a complete list of the books and other related items. This list was only one of a number of 'mini-libraries' which focus on different subjects unrelated to church or cantors.

it wasn't meant to be a boast. I apologise if it seemed that way.

Steve

Steve,

Don't fret - I did not see it as a boast!
Actually, there may be a benefit to posting fuller lists of our collections. It could give us a better idea of what is out there. I have a list from a few years ago. I will update it (if I can find it) and post it on the web - it'll make for easier sharing and updating in the future.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

The following is a list of materials I use in the course of the liturgical year as cantor For St. Thomas Byzantine Catholic Church in Gilbert, AZ. There are also many different tropars, etc. that I have had to set to music in order to chant them faithfully, but I will not add them to this post. Here goes:

. The Ritual of Marriage with Divine Liturgy- 1978, Byzantine Seminary Press
. The Office of Christian Burial with Divine Liturgy- 1991, BSP
. The Order of Holy Baptism and Holy Chrismation- 1994, Eparchy of Parma
. Royal Hours in Preparation for the Birth of Christ- 1991, Eparchy of Parma
. The Office of Vespers for the Nativity of Our Lord- Rev. Levkulic, Duquesne, PA
. The Holy Supper- locally produced within parish
. Theophany Vespers, Divine Liturgy, and Sanctification of Water- edition unidentified, but probably Levkulic
. Royal Hours for Epiphany (Theophany)- 1980, Dormition of the Virgin Mary Church, Akron, Ohio
. Solemn Beginning of the Great and Holy Fast (Service of Forgiveness)- locally produced
. Acathist Hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary- Levkulic edition
. Matins for Thursday in Fifth Week of the Great Fast- 2005, Byzantine Catholic Seminary
. Bridegroom Matins- 2005, Byzantine Seminary
. Great and Holy Wednesday Healing and Forgiveness Service- produced locally
. Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts- Levkulic
. Holy Week Services- BSP booklets from Thursday Divine Liturgy with Vespers to Resurrection Matins
. Feast of Annunciation on Good Friday- 2005, Metropolitan Church edition
. Jerusalem Matins
. Divine Praises- 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 9th Hours- produced locally
. Moleben of Bl. Theodore Romzha- Cantor Institute
. Divine Liturgy of Our Father St. John Chrysostom ("the green book")- 1965, Eparchy of Passaic Press
. Daily Menaions from the Byzantine Catholic Seminary for Dec, Jan, May, June, July, & August (work continuing on remainder)
. Byzantine Liturgical Chant- BSP, 1970 ("the black book")

Othe materials used regularly:
. Epistle book
. Holy Bible (for Old Testament readings not in Epistle book)
. books of the Sisters of St. Basil: Vespers, Matins, Triodion, Pentecostarion, and Festal Menaion
. Third Hour- produced locally
. The Divine Liturgy- Levkulic, 1993, BSP
. Sunday & Major Feast Propers published by John Vernoski
. Typikon- Fr. Petras

Some of the above do not have musical settings included, but tell the cantor what tone should be used. Where possible I located settings. If none were available, I wrote my own, based on my knowledge of the tones. (We are a parish that uses almost no Church Slavonic, and are not planning to add it.)

Jim Sprinkle, Cantor (Moderator)

Two additional books that should be on every choir director's shelf are:

Pascha: The Resurrection of Christ
The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

both published by St. Vladimir's Seminary Press.

There is a 4 PART transcription of the Exapostolarion of Pascha in Carpatho_Rusyn prostipinije that our choir uses (redacted with our words, as opposed to the OCA translation). It was very easy to learn and EXTREMELY beautiful. It's now one of our choir's "greatest hits." We receive many compliments on it each year and people actually sing along with us, as opposed to listening when it was just cantored.

The Presanctified book has many beautiful and easy settings as well. I heartily recommend them both.

John K.

As I threatened earlier, I have worked on a fuller list of my liturgical materials. It can be found here [pivets.plus.com] . I have not yet had time to add entries to the "Music" section. This will require me to first sort out all the music I have downloaded but not had time to print.

I you have questions about any of the materials please feel free to ask.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

Wow! What a list! I look forward to your music list, too.

I have now entered the vest majority of my music collection, except for single sheets of music floating about the place. This will take a bit longer to sort out. :rolleyes: Also added to the list are recent additions from my latest trip to Ukraine.

Again, I will recommend folk check out both Synaxis.info [synaxis.info] and www.seminaria.ru [seminaria.ru] . Both sites offer complete books for download as .pdf. Just be sure to buy some extra ink cartridges for your printers.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

When priests and cantors pass on to the Heavenly Liturgy, their books often come to the Seminary. I am happy to make these resources available to interested persons and to augment the Seminary's pitifully small library budget in the process. If readers of this forum are looking for particular items (liturgical or other Ruthenian-interest books) we may have them and I'd be glad to supply them at reasonable prices. For example, we have multiple mint copies of Mikita's Typik (in Cyrillic), reprinted by Metropolitan Stephen; multiple gently used "Grigassy" bilingual books, etc.
I will gladly reply to "want lists" emailed to me at jackcus@verizon.net

Fr. Jack Custer
Byzantine Catholic Seminary

I have a couple of books that I ought to find a good home for:

March Menaion, published by St. John of Kronstadt Press

Horologion & Priest's Book, published by St. Tikhon's Seminary (2 volumes)

If there is someone out there who can use them regularly in their ministry, and who agrees to cover shipping, I can arrange to send them. Please PM me with your particulars.

Jim Sprinkle, Cantor
St. Thomas BC Church, Gilbert, AZ

One more item I should mention (this will be the last, I promise is the Presov hymnal published just after the re-establishment of our Church in Slovakia in 1968. We have a number of new or gently used copies of this latin-alphabet, Rusyn-Slavonic resource. It contains more than 100 hymns that did not come over on the boat with Baba and Dido--many composed in the 30's back in Europe.
Anyone interested in obtaining a copy (and helping the Seminary Library in the process) is invited to email me at jackcus@verizon.net

Fr. Jack Custer
Byzantine Catholic Seminary

OK, since this topic has fallen silent, I'll break my promise and mention one more title.

We have Sr. Joan Roccasalvo's doctoral dissertation on Byzantine Ruthenian Prostopinije, The Plainchant Tradition of Southwestern Rus' (East European Monographs, 1986) x + 185 pp. in multiple mint copies. I've seen them on Ebay for $40 or more. Any interested party who would like to own a copy and help the Seminary Library in the process is invited to email me at jackcus@verizon.net.

I highly recommend that everyone take Fr. Jack up on his book offers. You'll get friendly service, excellent prices, prompt delivery, and you are supporting a good cause in the end!

I'm not just a spokesman, I'm also a client.

Dave

Dear friends,

I have reworked my web page listing my 'liturgical library' - it can now be found here [pivets.plus.com] . I have redone this page using UTF-8 encoding and the font Palatino Linotype [fontfinder.ws] , so you should be able to see the letter ѣ (yat) as well as polytonic Greek. In theory, I�ll be able to use the �native� titles of my books in Coptic, Armenian, etc.

Some of my foreign books have titles and publisher information printed in all caps and so dispense with diacriticals. I refuse to type in all caps. If anyone can help with identifying the correct diacriticals for my Greek, French and Italian entries I would be most grateful. As always, please feel free to drop me a line with any corrections and/or questions.

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

P.S.
Dear Administrator,
I am thrilled beyond belief to see the character ѣ works on this site. Must now find an excuse to try fita and some other characters...

What books should a new cantor have?

Also, which books should the CHURCH have? All the books we have now are pretty old and falling apart, so we need to update. Any suggestions?

A lot depends on what services you celebrate in church - Divine Liturgy only? Vespers? Matins?

I'm putting together something for the Metropolitan Cantor Institute website [metropolitancantorinstitute.org]
along the lines of "Building a parish liturgical library" - but I would greatly appreciate hearing what other people have to contribute.

(Truth to tell, if the new Divine Liturgies book it published, it will have pretty much a complete set of music for the Sundays and major feasts throughout the year; then you just need Great Vespers and Matins, for which books are available at the MCI website, and materials for a Great and Holy Week, sacramental services and funerals, and whatever parish devotions your church takes.)

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

[font:Georgia]Liturgical books are like crack cocaine - the more you get, the more you want!

My Old Believer liturgical library is nearing completion! In a way it's a bit depressing that I can assemble a complete library of books in Church Slavonic according to the pre-Nikonian usage, but it's impossible to do so for the Recensio Rutena in Church Slavonic, Ukrainian or English. Then again, when the only service most people know is the liturgy...

Anyway, the updated library catalogue can be found here [pivets.plus.com] . [/font]