On the next two pages, you get a choice between a threefold and a ninefold Kyrie ("Lord have mercy upon us," etc.), each with a written-out organ intonation and (again) a choice between singing it in Greek or in English. A two-plus-page setting of the Goria in Excelsis ("Glory be to God on high," etc.) begins with that first phrase pointed for the celebrant to chant. The chant notes for the Saluation and the "Let us pray" and "Amen" bookending the Collect for the Day are very simple—Gs all the way across. The "This is the Word of the Lord" / "Thanks be to God" responses at the end of the first two readings are also quite simple and familiar to Lutheran liturgy watchers. Lessons, graduals, Alleluia verses or tracts are indicated with references to the propers, which (I rejoice to see, after 20 years of enduring LSB) are actually in the pew book, within the page range 368-461. Again there are five different chant tones designated for the Alleluias depending on season. Gospel acclamations are also chanted to very simple musical cues.
Moving on to p. 334, we find the Nicene Creed given as the presumptive creed for the service, which in turn indicates a presumption of weekly communion. The alternative option, in red rubrics (if you'll forgive the tautology), is to sing the Creed to Willan's setting of the plainsong melody back in hymn 236. Certain phrases of the Creed ("and was incarnate..." and "is worshiped and glorified") are italicized, suggesting, I think, that you bow your head during those bits, and the sign of the cross is suggested at "life of the world to come."
After the hymn of the day and the sermon, the service suggests singing the offertory ("Create in me a clean heart") either immediately after the sermon or while offerings are being brought forward. The prayer of the church indicates the responses "Let us pray to the Lord" / "Lord have mercy" after each bid, concluding (p. 336) with a paragraph-long eucharistic prayer. Then the Service of the Sacrament commences with the Preface, all chanted, with the pastor taking rather familiar notes and the congregation responding with phrases a bit more elaborate than I am accustomed to playing out of TLH, LW or LSB. The "It is truly meet, right, and salutary" bit indicates that the Proper Preface be inserted, again, from the propers later in the book. Then you get Willan's quite attractive setting of the Sanctus ("Holy, holy, holy"). The Lord's Prayer is started by the pastor saying "Our Father" and all joining in from there; the traditional text all Protestants used to be able to say in unison until updated-language hymnals started splintering us into innumerable sects. A page reference is also given for an option to chant the Lord's Prayer, toward the end of the book.
"The Words of Christ's Testament (Verba)" follow, fully pointed for chant according to the instructions Luther notated in his liturgical writings. It's followed by the "Pax Domini" ("The peace of the Lord ..." / "Amen"), the Agnus Dei ("O Christ, Thou Lamb of God") and the distribution of the Sacrament, then the Nunc Dimittis ("Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant," etc.), the chanted post-communion thanksgiving, two choices of collect and Amen, concluding salutation ("The Lord be with you" / "And with thy spirit"), Benedicamus ("Bless we the Lord" / "Thanks be to God") and Benedicition ("The Lord bless you ...") with threefold Amen. So, basically, it's point-by-point exactly like the Communion liturgy in TLH, LW's Divine Service 1, LSB's DS 3 and so on, only with different melodies thanks to Willan.
Then you get a woodcut. And a new section, The Propers, headed by a painting of St. Alcuin of York, apropos of I know not what. And some notes (p. 348) on the organization of the propers and chanting instructions. I think families and congregations thinking about starting to use this book will be well served by starting here and attentively going over these notes and instructions. And then, one service at a time from the First Sunday in Advent, some of them subheaded by their Latin names such as "Ad Te Levavi" for Advent 1. Each set of propers has a specifically notated chant tone for the Introit, Gradual and Alleluia, and also gives the full Collect for the Day, lists the lessons and gives hymn choices for each day.
It's a one-year lectionary series, of course. Here are some interesting signposts along the way. Epiphany is given as Jan. 6, then the First Sunday After the Epiphany follows with the gospel lesson from Luke 2, the Boy Jesus in the temple; then propers for the Baptism of our Lord, with no preference toward it vs. the previous propers. I guess you can pick between them, or even use both in separate services. For the Fourth and Fifth Sundays After Epiphany, Introits, Graduals and Alleluias are indicated "as for the Third Sunday after the Epiphany." Also, The Presentation of our Lord and the Purification of Mary (Feb. 2) is interpolated after Epiphany 4. Epiphany 6 is identified as Transfiguration with a rubric saying it's customary to use these propers on the last Sunday after Epiphany except when there is only one such Sunday. Then you get the Pre-Lent Sundays—Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima—which folks accustomed to a three-year lectionary may have forgotten about amid longer Epiphany seasons and later Transfiguration Sundays. Then Ash Wednesday, the Sundays in Lent with their Latin titles, the Annunciation (March 25) interpolated after Lent 4, propers for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday as well as a Holy Saturday specifically desingated for the Office of Matins. This includes a long canticle, the Song of Hezekiah from Isaiah 38, and a reference to the Litany later in the book. Easter services include propers for Easter Dawn, Easter Day, Easter Evenng/Easter Monday and Easter Tuesday, before continuing with Sundays After Easter by number and Latin subtitle. Ascension comes after the fifth of these six Sundays.
Pentecost gets its old-fashioned name, Whitsunday back, followed by propers for Pentecost Evening/Whitsun Monday, Whitsun Tuesday and the Feast of Holy Trinity, and then it's Sundays after Trinity numbered from one to five. Next we get the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (June 24), SS Peter & Paul (June 29), and the Visitation (July 2) before the numbered Sundays resume with 6-18. The next interruption is for St. Michael and All Angels (Sept. 29), then Trinity 19-23, then the Reformation (Oct. 31), All Saints' Day (Nov. 1), then Trinity 24 ff. with 25-27 subtitled as the third-last, second-last and last Sunday of the church year. Propers conclude with a day of national thanksgiving, followed by a table of Psalms for Sundays, weekdays and principal feasts (pp. 461f) and a tiny woodcut of David at prayer.
The next major section of the book, then, is Matins, opening with a full-page painting of the Annunciation. The book credits the setting of this morning prayer office to a 1589 prayer book by Matthäus Ludecus, with organ intonations, unaccompanied chanting by the liturgist and harmonized responses for the congregation. The Alleluia after the Gloria Patri can be replaced by a "Praise to You, O Christ" dealie from Septuagesima to Passiontide. Proper invitatories (the antiphon framing the Venite/Psalm 95) are actually laid out on the page under the chant tone. It's a Gregorian tone, don't you know, sung responsorially between the liturgist and the congregation. Chanting continues with, for example, responsories for different seasons, set to more elaborate music than in LSB (another challenge you'll have to carefully prepare your congregation to get over), with seasonal options going on for several pages. After the sermon comes Luther's paraphrase of the Te Deum, actually the first thing I am truly thrilled to see (as opposed to just generally pleased) because no Missouri Synod hymnbook, outside of a 1970s worship supplement, has ever included Luther's Te Deum ("Lord God, Thy praise we sing") and this has frustrated me since time out of mind. As an alternative, there's also a chant setting of the Benedictus (Song of Zechariah). The office continues with a chanted Kyrie, spoken Lord's Prayer and Apostles' Creed (with the option to chant them on the pitch G), collects, versicle, the concluding Collect for Grace, Benedicamus and Benediction ("The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ..."). As an appendix, the Matins office concludes with Willan's setting of the Te Deum, a through-composed piece that goes on for eight pages; similar modern settings can be found in LW and LSB.
Vespers (the evening prayer office, again per Ludecus) begins on p. 490 with the Bidding Prayer, traditionally prayed on Good Friday, followed by a painting of Noah's Ark from what looks like an illuminated manuscript. It's similar to Matins but without the Venite or anything in place of it. The canticle is a choice of the Magnificat (Song of Mary) or the Nunc Dimittis (Song of Simeon), set to Gregorian tones with full harmony. After this service comes the Litany on p. 505, pointed to be sung responsorially. And the last page before the Appendix is another color picture, David tuning his harp.
Appendices: p. 518 is an "ektenia" prayer of the church. Pages 519-521 give us the proper prefaces for Communion, with space at the end for a depiction and explanation of the Luther rose. Page 522 presents handbell settings for the chant tones used with the propers. The next two pages provide modern and traditional accompaniments for the Gloria Patri chants set to all those tones. Then there are two pages of copyrights and acknowledgements in fine print, and a note from the publisher.
Indices: p. 528 starts an index of composers, authors and translators, alphabetical by last name. Page 530 is an index of artists and artwork. Page 531 is a hymn-of-the-day index. Hymn tunes are indexed alphabetically on pp. 532-33, then hymn titles on pp. 533-35, and finally historic collects and prayers at the bottom of p. 535 and that, dear reader, is the book.
Question answered. New question: What shall we do with this book? More than any other hymnal I have reviewed so far – including ELDoNA's book as well as the Reclaim project – I'd be keen to see congregations, Protes'tant Conference or not, give serious consideration to using this book. I'm not necessarily admonishing anyone to pitch out the hymnal they're currently using and replace it with this. But it would at least serve well alongside the other book, used in alternation with it or as a supplement to it. Families who are seriously into hymns and liturgy, and I know several of them so don't tell me there's no such thing, should get enough copies of this book for everybody in the household and use it for home devotions. Private persons who are away from family, say, on a secular campus or even at a sectarian school whose campus chapel has gone flaky, should take this book into their closet with them and maybe, if they can interest someone in joining them, start a pirate chapel in a dorm lounge, a stairwell, a student union, a dining room, a collaborative learning space or a practice room in the music department. Get some music learners working on the hymns, the Healey Willan Mass and Luther's Te Deum. Try it out, introduce it with care, talk about it and then decide.
Meanwhile, if your congregation is using Reclaim, or Evangelical Lutheran Worship and its supplements, or Christian Worship: A Hymnal, or This Far by Faith, or the Ambassador Hymnal, for a few examples, and asking them to look at this book as a possible supplement if not replacement gets you ejected from fellowship, so be it. Shake the dust off your feet and start your own church around this book, perhaps with an additional resource like ELH or LSB. Or if the same premise holds but the result is they're interested and your suggestion takes hold, work patiently toward the day when those other books can be loaded into a rollaway recycling container and, you know. Rolled away. † The peace of the Lord be with you.
EDIT: I've discussed this with a fellow pastor and taken his comments into consideration and I'll grant him this: If a pastor decides to plant his flag on this hill, he will die on it. Your ministry won't survive without much putting more weight in the balances of hymn selection on what modern congregations are accustomed to singing. So I want to underscore once again that I would only advocate using this hymnal as a supplement to another hymnal and introducing the musically challenging, rhythmic chorales and chant music gradually and with great care. My friend is of the opinion that this book and its type of thing are mostly of value as historical documents. Except that he would love to find a way to introduce the Willan Mass to his congregation. I won't identify him any further except to hint that his church body's primary hymnal already has the Luther Te Deum in it.
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