Hello Joseph,
Now is a good a time as any to give a quick recap of the project status.
- Our priority has shifted from producing a book equivalent to Sandhofe's (containing everything except the lessons and collects) to producing separate books according to liturgical roles: an invitatoriale (invitatories and invitatory psalms), a psalterium (antiphons, psalms and versicles, plus invitatories but not their psalms), a responsoriale (in two tomes, summer and winter), a lectionarium (scripture lessons) and a homiliarium (other lessons).
- Currently, we are looking for a printer or a publisher - either we self-publish and find a printer, then we run a subscription to finance a print run and distribute the books accordingly; or we find a publisher, the books will be more expensive because of the publisher's share, but we will benefit from the publisher's distribution network and not have to care about storage, shipping and finances. In the meantime, the books will be available on Amazon print-on-demand, which is a very low binding quality (the printing is actually OK) and therefore acceptable for interim, proofreading prints, but not for definitive editions.
- The invitatoriale has been proofread once and is ready for user feedback before publishing the definitive edition. The proofread edition pending user feedback is available on Amazon.
- The psalterium festivum (with sundays and feasts that have proper psalmody) is under proofreading; a whole lot of it has been done, and it is due for an update. The proofreading edition is available on Amazon (but you might want to wait for the update, which might take a year ?).
- The recent discovery of dom Mocquereau's drafts for the daily Matins psalter at Solesmes will enable us to quickly go forward with the psalterium feriale.
- As far as the liber responsorialis is concerned, all the temporale (for both summer and winter tomes) will be done by summer. There is not much left to do in that regard. The whole sanctorale is waiting for contributions. Sanctoral pieces present in Hartker should be taken from Gregofacsimil, late medieval ones can be revised from Sandhofe's versions using the manuscripts, a few recent ones ought to be composed using the formulas hinted at by Plantin 1773 like Sandhofe did. In any case, verse melodies and GP melodies should be taken from the repertoire already restituted for NR, according to the SG tradition. Of course, priority should be given to the commons. The Commons of Apostles (in and out of TP) is done.
- A lectionary is ready in French. No work has been done towards a lectionary in Latin or other languages. An index of all lessons in the 1954 breviarium romanum is available for those who would like to work on this.
- Some work has been put towards a homiliary in French but it has no concrete results yet.
We are always looking for vector artists available to vectorize and "revamp" woodcuts (or create new ones). Woodcuts have the advantage of already existing, but if a singular artist is ready to commit to provide artwork for the whole project, we can ditch woodcuts and go with that - the important thing is stylistic consistency across the whole project.
We are also looking for font artists to help create a new NABC font for the liber responsorialis, which will have NABC. This font will be based on a consistent set of base glyphs (scanned from a human's hand, namely Anne G.) assembled to form all of the necessary glyphs.
Would-be contributors can always email me in private to discuss their skills and availability.
In Christo,
Matthias, de facto project leader :-)