Cantate Deo

IMSLP / Petrucci Music Library

2008-07-03T09:59:00.001-05:00

Maybe you knew about this site already, but I didn't.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

Same premise as CPDL but with tons of instrumental stuff.

Colloquium 2008

2008-06-23T22:59:00.002-05:00

I have thoroughly enjoyed sleeping in my own bed and hugging my children, but I wish I could have left my ears in Chicago. Some of the music that I heard last week was a true foretaste of the heavenly banquet . . .

Kudos to all those who worked to make the Colloquium as fabulous as it was. Nearly everything was wonderful.

Here's what I've taken from the experience:

1) I need to improve my organ skills. I feel like such a hack compared to some of the wonderful organists that played for our liturgies. Some of the improvisations were just exquisite . . . yeesh, I need to practice more.

2) I need to improve my compositional skills. I really only arrange/compose anything out of necessity, and often in haste. Being able to spend a week with some of the pieces that we performed (and some of the wonderful new music of Kevin Allen), I realized that I need to be more of a craftsman and less of a "Oh crap, I've got rehearsal in 2 hours and I haven't written that setting of the Gospel Acclamation verse that I was supposed to do yesterday!" -type composer. Do I have the patience for something more is the question . . .

3) We need to target the children. Hearing stories of children singing multiple settings of the Gregorian Ordinaries never seeks to amaze me, though I certainly don't doubt children's abilities. If any real change is going to happen liturgically and especially musically, then solutions will have to be long-term, and it needs to start with the young'uns. I've been pondering the idea of starting a children's chant schola here in my area for the past couple years . . . this week has been a good kick in the butt to start the ball rolling.

4) Homeschoolers love chant! Holy cow, there were a lot of homeschooled folks there! I went out for pizza one night with a random group and five of the ten there were homeschooled (through high school to boot!). It's no secret that the homeschooling movement has been growing exponentially as has the "CMAA" movement; it seems that they have intersected!

Much more, of course, but that's the only things I can think of at this late hour (well past my bedtime). Thanks again to the CMAA for hosting a wonderful, inspiring week!

Easter 5 through Pentecost

2008-05-30T17:06:00.003-05:00

Well, I'm making myself post this for the sake of finishing what I started; honestly, I haven't had the inclination to blog for awhile . . .

Easter 5

Offertory: Jubilate Deo (Lassus)

Communion: Tanto tempore (chant)
Panis Angelicus (Palestrina)

We did the offertory w/ a quartet. I took it way faster than we'd rehearsed it, but it was actually thrilling, now that it's over. : ) The Panis is wonderful (though I still question that it's Palestrina); I wish an SATB score of it would go up at CPDL (last time I checked, only a TTBB version was there).

Easter 6

Offertory: If Ye Love Me (Tallis--TTBB)

Communion: Non vos relinquam (chant)
O Lord, with Wondrous Mystery (Andriessen--SA)

I was out of town this weekend (5-year wedding anniversary), but I heard that the choir did well in my absence. I like the original scoring of the Tallis better and I was sad that I didn't get to hear it. The Andriessen is a nice text and haunting melody, and easily prepared.

Ascension

Offertory: Ascendit Deus (Palestrina)

Communion: Data est mihi (chant)
God Has Gone Up with a Shout (Weidner)

Our last choir Sunday of the semester. The Palestrina was done by a quintet. This was probably the fourth Offertory setting of his that we did this year, and man, are they fun! Not easy, but very rewarding.

The Weidner (published by Paraclete) is great. Very Anglican, but I did it anyway. : ) This was the first time all year that we had all of our active members and the sound was thrilling! Gosh, if I could have that group every Sunday . . .

Pentecost

Offertory: Confirma hoc, Deus (Handl--TTBB)

Communion: Factus est (chant)

The Handl piece was done w/ a quartet (again, choir was done). I'm fascinated by Handl's counterpoint; very unique among his contemporaries it seems.

Confirmations are over....

2008-05-23T22:30:00.002-05:00

Whew.

Confirmations were a bit of a hectic affair this year. We had 150 or so confirmandi, two of whom were choir members, so I’ve been organizing surprise gifts/cards for them.

We pulled out the Lowenberg “Pentecost Prayer” again. That’s a cool piece, but a few of the lines and chords are tricky. It’s not super-melodic, but harmonically very nice. The organ part is sort of a mini-fantasia on “Veni Creator”. I had the sopranos sing the “Veni Creator” melody once (in Latin) before the hymn, so hopefully a few out there might recognize the connection.

Another trick I tried, to great success, was having a guitar strum (a single time) the chord changes in a psalm-tone responsorial psalm. (My own, à la Guimont.) A harp would be more ideal, but the guitar wasn’t too bad.

Nothing that remarkable otherwise.

Some things just aren’t supposed to happen.

2008-05-22T00:03:00.002-05:00

I have the joy of having made a few pretty close friends down here—close, that is, for having known them less than a year and a half.

Anyway, one of them (let’s call him “Chris”) suffered a tragic-beyond-words loss in his family recently. His younger sister (let’s call her “Mary”), days after graduating from college, with a serious boyfriend-future-husband eager to propose in a few months, and plans to start a Ph.D. program in the fall, died in a fatal car accident. A tow truck was speeding and broadsided her car. She died some hours later from brain injuries.

It’s the kind of thing that’s just not supposed to happen. Mary was someone who, by all indications, brought a lot of joy to those around her. Someone about whom you might say, if the world had more people like that, we’d all be better off.

I attended Mary’s funeral today. I never actually met her (was there to support Chris), but the sense of how special a person she was was very palpable. I found myself choked up for a while....which I’m not exactly sure why. Maybe seeing how sad Chris and his girlfriend (who knew Mary) were and feeling powerless to help? Or, maybe reminded subconsciously of my own recent family loss, which was not a tragedy at all but still hard.

Ironically, she had told a friend of hers only weeks ago what music she wanted at her wedding. Those music plans were the basis of the funeral music today. So, this was the first funeral where I ever heard, or sang, Ubi caritas. Or where I sang the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei from the “Jubilate Deo Mass”. (The deceased wanted Gregorian chant at her wedding.....did I mention that the world needs more people like her?)

I wonder, poetically maybe, if the wedding music was appropriate for the funeral, but that she is being married after all, and instead of to a guy who will leave his socks out and forget to take the garbage out, to the best Groom a girl could ever find.

Requiescat in pace.

We do change, don’t we....

2008-05-19T08:15:00.002-05:00

Every now and again I read the early posts I made on this blog, and I am struck by how I personally seem to have “mellowed” in the past couple of years.

It’s not that my views on many things have changed, but I am less of a zealot about them, more conscientious of how far it will take for us to go until “Our Lady of Averageparishness” (ok, that’s a stretch...) will accept things like a sung dialogue Mass, or choir-only introit/offertory/communion. (Tace, please, those of you here who contest the prudence of these practices.)

BTW, we missed posting about this blog’s 2-year anniversary, which came about back in March. Thank you to those of you who still read what we write here, though it is less abundant than at some times in the past. (For myself, I often feel the urge to opine in fits and starts.)

Formality

2008-05-07T00:14:00.002-05:00

I think I have it.

I have figured out what “feels wrong” to me about, say, Tom Booth “Find Us Ready” at Mass, or even just “One Bread, One Body”:

here it is.....

What is at odds between some types of music and the nature of the liturgy is the lack of formality present in the environs that society associates with the music’s characteristics.

Even a cursory glance at the Roman liturgy will reveal a great deal of formality in these rites. Almost everything is structured and planned. Vestments are described in the documents with words like “dignified”. Even the materials to be used for the vessels are specified.

In how many environments in American society do we find guitars in use in formal environments? Some, to be sure, but they are the exceptions rather than the rule. Guitars are “cool”, and formality is rarely “cool”.

How many people would hear Tom Booth’s “Like the Bread” and think of something as formal as the text of the Gloria? (And even the current English translation uses language quite far removed from everyday speech!)

It’s not a value judgement of the music, but these are sounds that don’t really accord, in our society at least, with the formality of the liturgy.

Yes/no?

A “great” parish??

2008-05-06T09:08:00.003-05:00

http://www.stclementofrome.org/

Apparently this parish was judged to be “great” in some sort of review of parishes across the country.

Maybe it’s just my own prejudice, but the front page does not seem to me to depict a church whose sanctuary cares to communicate that anything “great” happens there!

Handel “Dixit Dominus”

2008-04-29T23:59:00.002-05:00

An 8-movement setting of Ps. 110 from Handel’s early period, when he was learning to write Italian opera:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73flpArsYo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yp3PhvyMYHY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S5UYPGiUVM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbkKMgQnmCk

I have had the joy of singing this once. It’s a beast - he definitely wasn’t being kind to his singers. Just hunting down all the notes is an accomplishment. The orchestra for our performance, as I recall, commented that they were “used to doing this piece with choirs that couldn’t really sing it!”

This recording takes the first and last movements at pretty breakneck tempi. I want whatever those sopranos ate for breakfast to fire off those melismas at the start of the 8th movement. :)

Anyway, it’s a great piece. Enjoy.

Pärt’s magnificent Beatitudes setting

2008-04-20T19:19:00.002-05:00

I’m not sure how this is legal, but here is a very good recording of Arvo Pärt’s setting of the Beatitudes:

http://www.last.fm/music/Arvo+P%C3%A4rt/_/The+Beatitudes

I will never understand why someone decided that the gospel reading for All Saints (in the pre-V2 Missal, mind you!) should *not* include the part of the Beatitudes that talks about “prophets”. Duh...

Easter 2, 3, and 4

2008-04-19T08:13:00.002-05:00

Easter 2--Year A

Processional: As Newborn Infants Long for Milk (ST. ANNE) (Tietze Introit hymn

Sprinkling Rite: Springs of Water (By Flowing Waters)

Sequence: Victimae (chant)

Gospel Acclamation: O FILII ET FILIAE w/choral verse

Offertory: The Strife is O'er (composer escapes me at this point . . . arrangement from New Oxford Church Book)

Communion: Mitte manum w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Jesus Christ is Ris'n Today

Between the Introit hymn harmonization (we sing the Doxology acappella each week), the Sequence, the GA verse, the Offertory anthem, and the Communio, we had five choral-only items to get ready in only one rehearsal (they just returned from spring break). It was a bit of a stretch so I deliberately scaled things back the next week.

Mass itself was wonderful. We didn't get to go all out for Easter 1 since the choir was mostly gone, so I hired a trumpet for this week and took things up a notch. We had most of the choir present and the choral sound was better than the average Sunday.

Easter 3--Year A

Processional: Tietze Introit Hymn (LASST UNS ERFREUN)

Offertory: Lauda Anima (arr. Praying Twice)

Communion: Surrexit (chant) w/Viadan fauxbourdon

Recessional: Draw us in the Spirit's Tether

Last year, I posted this (see item number three), relaying an experience I had at last year's Colloquium. The Lauda Anima of this week is a piece I composed as a result of that particular situation and the thought-process that followed. Basically, I took the chant from the Graduale and set it polyphonically with the chant line rhythmically unaltered. It is without meter, and therefore, the hardest part was nailing entrances from the choir (and the fact that I didn't know how to conduct it!). I want to revise it further, but it turned out fairly well, actually.

Easter 4--Year A

Processional: (Hmm. Can't remember . . . I must be getting old. : )

Offertory: This Joyful Eastertide (arr. William Harris)

Communion: Ego sum pastor w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Christ the Lord is Ris'n Today

The Harris setting is very nice. Good part-writing, nice variety of textures and moods, thrilling organ accompaniment . . . well worth the time to prepare it. This weekend and last, we had all but one of our active members present. It's a pipe dream of mine to have my whole choir together some time for Mass . . . I don't think it's happened in my two years here! Anyways, they sounded wonderful both weeks; it sure does help to have a healthy balance between the sections . . .

Triduum Music

2008-03-24T00:41:00.002-05:00

Holy Thursday--2008

Processional: Then Let us Glory in the Cross (Tietze--OLD 100th)

Kyrie: chant

Gloria: Community Mass

(Organ turned off)

Psalm: Weber

Gospel Acclamation: chant

Washing of the Feet: "A New Commandment I Give You" from By Flowing Waters

Offertory: Where Charity and Love Prevail

Euch. Accl.: chant

Communion: This is My Body--English, newly composed

O Sacrum Convivium (Polleri)

Transfer of the Holy Eucharist: Pange Lingua (chant)

As I mentioned in a previous post, our Holy Week coincided with the school's spring break, so I had limited resources. I was able to put together a small choir that did an admirable job. I did have a few folks that had little Latin exposure, so I had to do quite a bit of English to keep things manageable.

We were actually able to all the Proper texts in some form or another. The Tietze hymn is a paraphrase of the Introit text. The BFW tune was spruced up a bit by adding a couple drones in octaves to keep it interesting. "Where Charity" is an English paraphrase of "Ubi Caritas", and a fine melody to boot (I believe it's a modification of an office hymn melody, though it never gets credited as such). One of my previous student directors was kind enough to compose a re-working of "Hoc Corpus", put into English. He made it a bit more syllabic in some places, and made it easier to prepare in our short amount of rehearsal time. It's an excellent setting; I hope to modify a couple things and then (with his blessing) make it available on-line somewhere.

"O Sacrum" is a 3-part piece from the Ravenello collection over at the CMAA site. I put the tenors on the top line, basses on the bottom, and the ladies in the middle; dignified setting, and easy enough to put together in a couple short rehearsals. They did it quite well.

Good Friday--2008

Psalm: My setting, with Chabanel verses

Passion: chanted

Veneration: The Reproaches (Sacramentary refrain with Penkala Trisagion)
Adoramus te, Christe (Haugen)

Communion: O Sacred Head
Were You There

I was a bit nervous about the Passion, as I had lost my voice about a week prior. I did fine, I think, as it was at about 90% by then. My other two chanters are excellent musicians, and we didn't even have to give it a full run-through anytime prior to its performance.

I love the Sacramentary's setting of the Reproaches; the "My People" melody is very effective, and when coupled with the "Eastern-sounding" Trisagion by Gary Penkala, it's been quite moving both years that we've done it, in my opinion. The Adoramus te, Christe is Taize-like, and malleable enough to extend or shorten as the liturgical action requires. The Communion hymns were sung beautifully by the choir and the congregation from what I could tell.

(No Easter Vigil this year for a variety of reasons)

Easter Sunday--2008

Processional: Christ the Lord is Risen Today (LLANFAIR)

Kyrie: Mass for the City (Proulx)

Gloria: Community Mass

Psalm: Gelineau

Sequence: Victimae--English setting

Gospel Acclamation: O FILII ET FILIAE

Sprinkling Rite: "Springs of Water" from BFW

Offertory: Alleluia for Easter Sunday (English-set by Bruce Ford in The American Gradual)

Euch. Accl.: Community Mass

Agnus: Holy Cross Mass

Communion: "Christ Has Become . . . " (Weber)

Recessional: Jesus Christ is Risen Today (Lyra Davidica)

Only had four gents this morning, so we did mostly chant. I was a bit distracted throughout most of Mass by my overtired, whiny children (so much for a family Mass), but the "Schola" sang well and we had a nice crowd downstairs.

Lent 4, Lent 5 and Palm Sunday

2008-03-21T08:49:00.002-05:00

Trying to catch up before I post my Triduum music . . .

Lent 4--2008

Introit: "Rejoice, Jerusalem" -- Tietze Introit hymn

Psalm: Chabanel

Offertory: Aus der tiefen from BWV 129 (J.S. Bach)

Communion: Lutum fecit (chant)

A somewhat more festive atmosphere for Laetare Sunday. I had a violinist come in for the Bach, which went surprisingly well; we had some difficulties in rehearsal, as we don't do much Baroque music and the exposed entrances were initially unsettling.

Lent 5

Introit: Judica Me

Psalm: Chabanel setting (by Arlene Oost-Zinner)

Offertory: Confitebor tibi (Lassus)

Communion: Videns Dominus (chant)
Purge Me, O Lord (Tallis)

We did the Lassus with a quartet which turned into a trio for the second half as my alto turned to the wrong page and didn't get back on until the end. : )

The Tallis is beautiful. I'm very intrigued by his music; he's clearly firmly entrenched in that 16th-century style, but he really seemed to go his own way. His treatment of dissonance is unique and fascinating.

Palm Sunday

Processional: All Glory, Laud, and Honor (ST. THEODULPH)

Psalm: Chabanel

Offertory: Improperium (English chant--Bruce Ford)

Communion: Pater, si non (English chant--Bruce Ford)

Recessional: O Sacred Head

The beginning of our spring break. I actually jumped ship to catch a performance of the Bach "St. Matthew Passion"; my cantor took the reins and did the two chants with a remnant of my males. I heard things went well!

Three nice “Ego sum panis vivus” settings

2008-03-17T12:39:00.003-05:00

Michael Haller

Josef Surzynski

Juan Esquivel

To my surprise, this text is not part of the Mass Proper. It is the Benedictus antiphon for Lauds of Body & Blood.

The Haller, especially outside Easter season (where the “Alleluia” can suitably be omitted), would make a good “quick” choral communion motet, perhaps preceding a congregational song in parishes where congregations expect to sing at communion.

A really nice Ascension anthem

2008-03-12T23:39:00.004-05:00

I find that Ascension is a difficult time to plan music. Very little of the standard congregational repertoire fits it well, and while there are lots of choral Psalm 47 settings, very few seem to be well-known or accessible. For exeample, RVW “O clap your hands” has 4-part male divisi. Finzi “God is gone up”, while awesome, is way beyond most parish choirs’ limited resources.

If you haven’t yet picked up this collection for your SATB church choir, you really should grab the “Sunday by Sunday II” collection from St. James Music Press. Several of the anthems in here are top-notch pieces, and you can reprint as many copies as you want for only $55.

Another such anthem is “Go Forth and Tell” by David Ogden. The theme reflects the Gospel reading (in all 3 Lectionary cycles) of going forth to baptize the world.

It teaches easily, with lots of unison and a very broad, sweeping, majestic melody.

The niggle is that there is a lot of high soprano descant in the last few pages. That could be rewritten pretty easily, though, if needs be.

“Metrics” to evaluate liturgical music and texts

2008-03-12T07:38:00.005-05:00

I believe, based on his recent comment, that Mike J. is an engineer. :)

I think it is difficult to establish any objective criteria for evaluating many things, perhaps most, in life in general. That said, I will try to offer these as criteria for evaluating liturgical music:

(Since I really think texts and music should be evaluated separately, I am going to do so here.)

Appropriateness for performers. Does the music adequately suit the nature of the performers’ liturgical role? For congregations, this means a question of how accessible the music is and, perhaps, how memorable the melody is. With what degree of ease could a Southern Baptist, who is visiting a “papist service” for the first time, pick up and sing the music?

For choral music, this means a question of how “choral” the music is. A piece like Kendzia “Pietà” fails in this regard, IMO, because it’s all homophonic, the SATB parts are mostly a chorale, and the congregation is intended to sing part of it. In short, it’s too simple not to ask a congregation to sing it. By contrast, Berger “The Eyes of All” is also all homophonic, but its harmonic activity and range very clearly are written for a choir, not for a congregation. Likewise, most chant and polyphony are too tricky to ask an unrehearsed congregation to step in and to sing them.

Aesthetic value. How on earth do we evaluate this? I imagine every reader here would consider a good performance of Palestrina “Sicut” to be of more aesthetic worth than, say, Sr. With-it strumming a guitar and singing “Abba, Father!” But how can we demonstrate this with any objectivity - especially since there are folks out there who think Renaissance polyphony is like nails on a chalkboard and that any guitar-accompanied music is an improvement upon the “old stuff”.

That said, I do think that, if we go to extremes, there is objectivity in aesthetics. All humans, for example, would probably dislike a very loud screeching noise, for example, or a very loud chomping sound. These are things that we instinctively perceive as threats.

Certainly if we go to other senses, we find objectivity in human aesthetic judgement: facial symmetry (quoth my undergrad psych professor), sexual intercourse, ice cream .... is there anyone who would contest the idea that anyone in a normal psychological state enjoys these aesthetic experiences?

Texts are another matter. The question that I see is: do we accept as unimpeachably perfect the liturgical texts as given? In my opinion, we should not do this, but I also think more weight should be given to the chant proper texts than is currently done.

For example, an improvement on the Gospel reading for All Saints that I can see is including the last line of the Matthew Beatitudes: “For thus did they persecute the prophets who came before you.” (Hel-LOO?!?!?? All SAINTS?? Prophets???) Lucien Deiss felt that improvement could be made to the Pentecost introit, as he wrote in “Spirit and Song of the New Liturgy”. (I disagree with him that the given text is poor, but I do think other texts could work as well.)

But if one takes the tack that the currently given liturgical texts are the de facto “optimal” texts, then yes, we have some easy criteria with which to evaluate the suitability of sung texts: specifically, the closer one gets to those chant texts, either with the chant melodies or in other settings, in Latin or in translations, the better job we have done of choosing texts.

EDIT:

Gavin pointed out an additional concern in the comments: suitability of music and text to each other.

Many, for example, might question the somber character of the sinfonia of Bach BWV4 for Easter Sunday. Likewise, it would be strange to many people to use a bright, confident melody with, say, Brady/Tate Psalm 22. Gavin’s example of “Your Hands, O Lord, in Days of Old” to MOZART is more food for thought.

Lest we become what we behold....

2008-03-02T20:53:00.003-06:00

The following forum thread has gotten me thinking....
http://musicasacra.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=322&page=1#Item_0

ISTM that it was an act of closed-mindedness to close and sink a thread that directly deals with the “600-lb. gorilla” facing many who decry the use of Marty Haugen’s music: what, specifically, is it in the music that makes it unsuitable for the liturgy? Those few who work with “scholas” that sing for liturgies that focus overtly on tradition can avoid this, but the majority of us who grunt and sweat in average parishes need to address this issue head-on and in very intricate detail.

I am glad to be a member of CMAA because of many of the helpful (philanthropic?) endeavors that they pursue (e.g. Communio, PDF of the 1961 Liber Usualis, book reprints), but more and more I am glad that this organization remains “on the fringe”.

The current CMAA leadership sometimes appears to have no grip on the reality that those of us in average parishes face. I mean, imagine showing CMAA’s Sacred Music FAQ to Joe & Jane Catholic with 2.5 kids and a dog who enjoy singing “Here I Am, Lord” at Mass. You might reach a handful of them with a taste for the esoteric, but by and large, the “start from the ground up” approach that the FAQ uses is asking for people to ignore it. It might work with brand-new Christians, but not with very many cradle Catholics. Every good schoolteacher knows this axiom: “start with what they know”. Every good liturgical music director, too, knows to “start with what they know” when going into a new parish - even if the intent/hope is to introduce radical change eventually.

If you are ever going to critique, say, Haugen 51, there has to be some basis for that critique besides the simple, emotion-laden dismissals like “boy, I’m glad I don’t have to do this music” in the aforementioned thread. And I would also suggest that tales of the difficulty of teaching it to cantors carry little weight with those of us who have worked with many, many volunteer cantors who have little trouble singing it (and/or who have just as much trouble singing unpulsed or Gelineau psalms). Frankly, I have no empathy with the “pain” that these pieces have caused because I consider them all to be of at least decent, if not outright good, quality. (see below) Certainly none offend me.

What is desperately needed, eventually at least, is a real, unbiased engagement with the musical status quo in American parishes. What is good in it? The answer cannot be “nothing of the status quo is good; it all must be discarded.” (Nor do I think the answer can be “things are perfect as they are.”)

This relates well to Todd Flowerday’s situation. He did invite the scorn he experiences of late, and much of his criticism of Mahrt’s SttL appraisal seems unfounded to me, but I do think we need to examine, for example, with as little bias as possible, whether anything good comes from having the piano in church. Is a harp ok? If so, what if I play it by striking the strings rather than by plucking them? If so, what is the difference between that and a piano? I am of the opinion that the piano, just like the organ, can be played in ways that are sacred and in ways that are secular. (organ accompaniments to silent films, anyone?) Let us not forget that organs were BANNED in early Christian liturgy because they were secular instruments!

I am often frustrated with NPM because of the closed-mindedness I see in that organization. The Church’s rich patrimony of sacred music is relegated to the fringe; just recently have they finally added a section to deal with chant - the very music that is intrinsic to the Roman Rite! Many prominent voices in contemporary liturgical music still insist that the congregation must sing “everything”, giving no thought to the singing of dialogues and readings.

But I cannot and will not stand with people whose only expressed opinion on the music of Marty Haugen is “I’ve had such soo so much exposure to this music and am soo so glad I don’t have to deal with it.” This is an opinion that deserves to be closed and sunk, frankly, and is more harmful to liturgical music than Carey Landry’s entire oeuvre. It encourages us to close our minds and to replace thinking with simple emotion. It encourages us to sit on our laurels and not to grow. It closes us off from other people. In short, it’s not very catholic. Were I to stand with such people, I would be no better than the people who so frustrate me in NPM.

My own thoughts on the proposed list of Haugen psalm-songs:

The texts of all are just fine.

best: 51. Straightforward, simple, and pretty.

then: 33. The 3rd and 4th verses don’t “work” as well as the first two, IMO. But I do really like the deceptive motion from G to D/A in the 1st/2nd verses.

then: 22. Again, simple and straightforward. The verses’ octave leap is unnecessary, IMO, but the harmonic motion is effective throughout.

then: 34. I liked the harmony in this more some years back. The cross relation (tonic to flat-3) motive has worn on me, but overall I still think the setting is pretty good.

then: 66. What I have always liked here is the unpredictable-yet-natural harmonic motion in the refrain. The verses don’t work as well, though, IMO.

In my parish, we use Haugen psalms at communion only, and somewhat sparingly. It’s a large enough parish that 3 communion songs are usually planned, so there is a lot of need for communion music.

Lest anyone think I am some enemy of traditional liturgical music, we definitely do more Gregorian chant and polyphony than does the average parish as well. So far this year, we’ve done or planned:

Byrd “Lord, Make Me to Know Thy Ways”
Anerio “Ave maris stella” (chant/polyphony alternatim)
all 7 O antiphons
Farrant “Lord, For Thy Tender Mercy’s Sake”
Lenten communions: Visionem, Qui biberit (2nd melody), Lutum, Videns
Mandatum & Si ego foot-washing antiphons
Pange lingua (Aquinas)
Crucem tuam
my Reproaches setting (incorporates the “Hagios” lines from the Gregorian)
Palestrina “Sicut cervus” (we did “Sitivit” last year)
Pascha nostrum communion
Victimae sequence
Viadana “Exsultate justi”
Veni sequence
Veni creator
Byrd Ave verum

And last year, many of the aboves plus:
Anerio Miserere
Palestrina “Sitivit anima mea” (2nd part of “Sicut cervus”)
C. Rossini “Improperium exspectavit”
Duruflé “Ubi caritas”
two more foot washing antiphons
Tallis “If Ye Love Me”
Aichinger “Confirma hoc, Deus”

Lent 3--Year A

2008-03-01T09:19:00.002-06:00

Lent 3--Year A

Processional: Oculi (chant)

Kyrie: chant--my arrangement

Psalm: Chabanel

GA: Proulx w/choral verse

Offertory: Iustitiae--Rossini (male quartet)

Communio: Qui biberit (chant)
Like as the Hart (Howells)

The Introit for this week is a long one. We axed the verse and the repetition of the antiphon since the priest was raring to go by the end of the first antiphon. My men (who are singing these for Lent) are discovering that the Introit is definitely more of a challenge than the Communio.

This is one of the rare weeks that we got to do all the processional Propers. The Iustitiae is a homophonic arrangement of the Offertory set for TTBB. I'm so torn about some of this music written around let's say 50-70 years ago. It's not Palestrina by any means, but it's turning into a guilty pleasure. This particular motet has some good part-writing and an extended harmonic vocabulary. I know, I know, I'm supposed to shun this stuff . . .

We used the easier melody for the Communio. The choir sang it well though we cut it somewhat short to fit in the Howells. Like as is one of my favorites; truly a wonderful setting of the text. It's not hard, but I always underestimate the time it takes to really do justice to the setting. I had to axe the descant since I only had one soprano on Wednesday (had 3 on Sunday for the actual performance). The only drawback to the piece is that the altos are twiddling their thumbs most of the time. Despite a little "hairiness" in the pre-Mass rehearsal, it really came off well for Mass.

Backlog . . .

2008-02-17T19:09:00.002-06:00

Yeesh, three weeks to catch up with. Let's rattle them off real quick:

4 OT

Processional: Tietze Introit

Offertory: Blest are the Pure in Heart (Davies)

Communion: Illumina

Recessional: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

The offertory was a nice meditation on the gospel reading (Beatitudes); simple, homophonic writing with some more modern harmonies.

I bristled at doing the Communio assigned for Year A. Beati mundo corde was just waay too long and involved for me to feel confident with it on Sunday. Knowing that I always have a couple people sight-reading it an hour before mass, I babied out and chose Illumina which is assigned for Year C. Much more manageable.

Lent 1

Processional: Invocavit (chant)

Kyrie: Kyrie XVI

Psalm: Chabanel

Gospel Acclamation: Proulx

Offertory: Scapulis suis (Rossini)

Sanctus: Sanctus XVIII

Mem. Accl.: Mortem tuam

Amen: chant

Our Father: Snow

Agnus Dei: Mass XVIII

Communio: Scapulis suis (chant)

Recessional: silence

I got sick as a dog the day before so I had someone else take over for me. We had our males take over mass since all my sopranos were gone. The Rossini is scored for TTBB and is very functional, if unmemorable.

We'll be chanting the Introits throughout Lent (minus Laetare Sunday). We're definitely discovering that they are a bit more challenging than the Communios.

Lent 2

Processional: Tibi dixit (chant)

Psalm: Chabanel

Offertory: Miserere (Lotti)

Communion: Visionem

Tibi dixit went pretty well; it's a bit easier than last week's, but not as hard as next week's (Oculi). I had to ask one of my student directors to take the Chabanel setting down a minor third to make it more comfortable for a seated congregation (I've noticed the tessitura on a lot of those settings is too high, IMO).

The Lotti was not gelling real well before mass. Attendance was poor on Wednesday and had a couple people struggling to get caught up. My cantor (and only active tenor) is out auditioning so I had to move a bass up and bring in one of our inactive tenors to help carry the load. They did fine, but were a little stressed about things, clearly. (Sigh) We had to have the parts doubled by the organ, which always feels like a defeat for me, but it was the only way I could feel comfortable with it at that point.

The chant at communion went really well, though. It's short, step-wise, and Mode I, which combines for a very manageable Communio. We had plenty of repetitions of it as well, since it was so short.

3 OT--Year A

2008-02-02T09:58:00.000-06:00

Processional: Tietze Introit hymn

Offertory: Dextera Domini (Lassus)

Communion: Venite post me w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Now Thank We All Our God

I was a bit nervous about this Sunday. The Lassus wasn't real solid at the end of our mid-week rehearsal and the Communio was more difficult than it looked. They both came together on Sunday though; I decided early on that I would have to have my organist double parts on the Lassus and that obviously helped. The Communio was the first we've done (at least this year) in Mode 8, we so we had to get used to it somewhat.

instrumental-only music in Advent and Musicam sacram

2008-02-01T12:47:00.000-06:00

In case there is any further want for evidence that Rome, at least, considers Musicam sacram to be binding, the following is in the CDW’s 2001 reply to the USCCB in response to proposed adaptations for the U.S. GIRM:

In addition, n. 74 needs another slight adjustment, namely the mention of the fact that purely instrumental music is to be excluded during Advent or Lent, during the Sacred Triduum and in Masses of the Dead, in accordance with the Instruction Musicam sacram n. 66. found in Acta Apostolicae Sedis 59 (1967) 319.

I was aware of the prohibition against instrumental music in Lent, but didn’t think it was prohibited during Advent, the Triduum, or the Masses of the Dead.

2 OT--Year A

2008-01-22T08:11:00.000-06:00

2 OT--Year A

Processional: Tietze Introit Hymn

Offertory: Jubilate Deo (Palestrina--quintet)

Communion: Laetabimur (chant)
O Taste and See (Vaughan Williams)
Recessional: Lord of All Hopefulness

With only one rehearsal under our belt before this first Sunday (the students just returned to campus), I picked the Vaughan Williams, an old stand-by. It's not a hard piece by any means, but we struggled through it more than I would have liked. I'll remember that next time . . .

The "Jubilate" turned out great. I rounded up some good musicians and we whipped it up in a short period of time. It's not easy; five parts, florid counterpoint, and Phrygian. The small group did a great job with it, though.

I love "Laetabimur." The choir sang it well from the word 'go' (though it helps when we already did it a couple months ago), and the chant "style" seems to be coming a bit more naturally to them.

liturgical music in a rural NH parish

2008-01-21T13:08:00.000-06:00

I attended two Sunday morning Masses. The music looked like this:

Entrance (called "Gathering"):
8:30: Dufford "All the Ends of the Earth"
10:00: Lift High the Cross (accompanied on the piano)

Opening prayer: sung

Resp. psalm: Cooney "Here I Am, Lord" (that's Cooney, not Schutte)

Alleluia: Celtic Alleluia

Offertory (called "Preparation"): Haas "You Are Mine"

Sn/MA/GA/Ag: Mass of Creation
"Jesus, Bread of Life" was the incipit for the 2nd of 3 iterations of the LoG

Communion: Behold the Lamb

Recessional: Sing of the Lord's Goodness

I think this is a "poster-child" for stereotypical American Catholic liturgical music. (Everything but the sung opening prayer.) The organ was a really crappy Allen digital thing, so I shed no tears over not hearing it very much. (The accompanist couldn't play it well enough to do the hymn, apparently.)

The congregation sang ok - most folks did not sing, but that's typical everywhere, so hey.

I avoid "You Are Mine". Enough people in a choir know it that they want to sing it, which necessitates rehearsing each verse because they're all slightly different. Then someone says, "can we run this whole song just once". Before you know it, 15 minutes of rehearsal time are gone that could have been spent developing the choir musically rather than teaching them congregational music.

I use "Behold the Lamb". It's simple and straightforward enough to be taught to folks who don't know it in about 5 minutes. And it's well-known enough that I usually have to spend little, if any, time on it.

Cooney "Here I Am" is not too bad. I'd use it outside the Liturgy of the Word, but I'd still probably use it. It's a good text for themes of mission. The accompaniment is very piano-ish, but it could reduce fine for the organ.

The Dufford is a little kitschy, I think.

"Sing of the Lord's Goodness" is fun, I think, but not consistent with an environment that Western culture connotes as sacred and awesome.

Christmas Concert 2007

2008-01-07T22:44:00.000-06:00

Well, I'd like to get this post done while we're still technically in the midst of the Christmas season, though this concert took place nearly a month ago. : )

All in all, it was wonderful. I was very proud of my directors and their respective ensembles for the time that they put in during that busy time of year and the outstanding result that I heard at the concert. The line-up:

Preludes (brass):

I Saw Three Ships (arr. Richard Price)
O Come, O Come Emmanuel (arr. Richard Price)

Processional:

O Come, O Come Emmanuel (chant w/organ)

Schola:

Ecce Virgo (Communio for Advent 4)
"O" Antiphons (O Oriens and O Emmanuel)

I direct this group; we had 4 men and 2 women for the concert. They did a fine job, though I wish I hadn't used the Dorian mode for both pieces.

Choir 1 (Traditional/Contemporary):

I Wonder as I Wander (arr. Rutter)
Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming (Praetorius)

The Rutter's a little more difficult than it looks, but they did a nice job with it. The Praetorius is always a winner.

Choir 2 (Contemporary)

Child of the Poor/What Child is This? (S. Soper)
Rejoice, Rejoice (M. Haugen)

This choir's a bit short on men, but the women did well and the director (a male) supplied the tenor part for the latter piece. Piano, guitar and flute were involved.

Choir 3 (Praise and Worship ensemble)

Welcome to Our World (C. Rice)
God Rest You/We Three Kings (BNL w/S. McLachlan)

Well, I definitely cringed a little when my director told me that she wanted to do a Barenaked Ladies arrangement, but I let it in and it was well-received.

Choir 4 (Traditional)

Jerusalem Surge (G.B. Martini and chant--Communio for Advent 2)
In Dulci Jubilo (Traditional, Gesius, and Bach harmonizations)

This is the other group I direct. I had learned a good lesson from the year before (when I foolishly chose Mouton's "Noe, Noe, psallite" (very difficult) and Bach's "Et Incarnatus Est" (not easy either)) and chose selections that weren't quite as challenging. It was fun to do "In Dulci Jubilo" since most of our regular repertoire seems to be more "meditative".

Choir 5 (Traditional/Contemporary)

Love is Born This Night (L. Dengler)
Carol of the Bells (arr. Wilhousky)

In the midst of so many unfamiliar selections, I think the audience was glad to hear the Wilhousky. The director was very pleased with how it went, as she informed me that it was bombing during the dress rehearsal earlier that evening.

Festival Choir

Ave Maria (chant--women)
Away in a Manger (arr. Praying Twice--men)
Missa "O Magnum Mysterium"--Gloria (Victoria--all)
Silent Night (arr. Kirk Franklin--all w/contemporary ensemble)

I used the same formula that seemed to work well last year: 1) chant w/ men or women, 2) folk song for other sex, 3) piece of renaissance polyphony, 4) show-stopping gospel number. They really nailed everything. The Victoria was a stretch for some of the musicians initially, but they did a spectacular job for the concert. The Kirk Franklin piece is great, though his recording is uber-cheesy. We did it tastefully while still retaining the flavor of the original.

Congregational hymns (w/brass)

O Come, All Ye Faithful (arr. Willcocks)
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing (arr. Willcocks)
Silent Night (traditional--acappella)

Man, those Willcocks arrangements are great. The sopranos absolutely love singing those descants.

Recessional (brass):

We Three Kings (arr. Richard Price)

An accessible choral Ascension offertory

2008-01-02T19:27:00.000-06:00

Not fabulous, but definitely worth a look or three:

http://wso.williams.edu/cpdl/sheet/scha-asc.pdf

The off-the-top-of-my-head list of anthems for Easter season at my parish is starting to coalesce into some combination of:
Billings “Easter Anthem”
Inwood “Easter Anthem”
Thompson “Hosanna to the Living Lord”
Lewandowski Psalm 23 (translated by myself)
Tallis “If Ye Love Me” (I think this is the year the Lectionary quotes that passage?)
Schaller “Ascendit Deus” (Ascension)
Aichinger “Confirma hoc, Deus” (Pentecost)

I would do a Gregorian communion or two, but they look quite a bit harder in Eastertide than in Lent. Gotta pick my battles.

A New Year

2008-01-02T12:57:00.000-06:00

Mr. Penkala calls for a cease-fire . . .

Lenten choral music of note at my parish

2008-01-01T20:06:00.000-06:00

Ash Wednesday: Godfrey “Lord, who hast formed me”

1st Sunday: a choral arrangement of (control yoourselves!) “On Eagle’s Wings”, my English congregational adaptation of the communion proper

2nd Sunday: J. Varley Roberts “Seek Ye the Lord”, Gregorian communion antiphon

3rd Sunday: Farrant “Lord, For Thy Tender Mercies’ Sake”, Gregorian communion antiphon

4th Sunday: Mark Hayes “Grace”, Gregorian communion antiphon

5th Sunday: Bach cantata 131 mvt. 1, “Aus der Tiefe” (up to the allegro), Gregorian communion antiphon

6th Sunday: David Ashley White “O Love Divine”, my English congregational adaptation of the communion proper

A few comments:
Godfrey is another great find from the St. James Music Press “Sunday By Sunday Collection II”.

Yes, I know. OEW. I know. I’m doing it partly because the parish already owns the copies (and I was strongly encouraged to use already-purchased music this season). And partly because it’s an easy arrangement that I know some of the singers will enjoy. Mostly, though, I want to associate Psalm 91 with Lent, particularly the 1st Sunday of Lent - since all the chant propers do the same.

Roberts and Farrant (score, recording) are standards that we did last year.

The Hayes is a great piece - a wedding of the popular idiom with good choral writing. The accompaniment is very idiomatic for the piano, so I suppose were my parish a “liturgical clean room” I might not want to do it, but given the prevalence of the piano otherwise in the music program, it’s not at all inconsistent. Anyway, it’s the “Amazing Grace” text sung to variations on the O Waly Waly tune. Very good choral writing with some nice harmonies. Here is a link to a (very beautiful) recording.

“Aus der Tiefe” is our second foray into Bach this year. This definitely is much easier than most Bach - a bit pithier than “Jesu, joy”, but very accessible for the average SATB church choir. You can find a score here.

The White is a piece the parish had before I arrived. I’d not heard of it. It’s not a bad piece, but honestly, I’d rather be doing either the Lassus or the Cannicciari “Improperium exspectavit” (the Palm Sunday offertory text). Maybe next year, when I’ll be that much more able to “sell” the polyphony to the singers.

On 1st Sunday and Palm Sunday we’re doing my original English-language adaptations of the Gregorian propers for communion. 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th Sundays will have a single singing of the Gregorian communion propers themselves. Men will do 2nd and 4th Sundays, while women will do 3rd and 5th. This arrangement should avoid overloading anyone with “too much Latin/chant” while accommodating our women’s apparently superior ability to sing it.

A nice “Christus factus est”

2008-01-01T20:01:00.000-06:00

http://wso.williams.edu/cpdl/sheet/cann-chr.pdf

It’s of about the same level of difficulty as the Anerio. Alas, since I am retreating a bit from polyphony and chant for the rest of the choir season at my parish, I won’t be using it this year.

The composer is Pompeo Cannicciari, who also has a nice “Improperium exspectavit” (the Palm Sunday offertory) on CPDL.

Christmas: whew, it’s over (or, at least, “started”)...

2007-12-30T19:36:00.001-06:00

It was a rough ride, but the general opinion seems to be that Christmas was a musical success in my parish.

First, the general positives:
1. The adult choir did well with their music overall. They’ve sounded better, even much better, but what they did at midnight Mass was generally good.

2. The kids’ musical, Shephard “The Birds of Bethlehem”, went very well. Though I have misgivings about doing it in the church again, hopefully this can be the start of a great tradition with our young singers. More and more, the little buggers grow on me...

Specific choral comments:
1) Dawson “Mary Had a Baby”
Maybe it’s because it was midnight, a very unusual time for the choir to sing. Maybe it’s because two of our older singers appear to have learned this song in a minor key. Maybe it’s just not as easy of a piece as, dash-naggit, it sure does look. But this was not a good piece for me to give our parish’s choir this year. We got through it, but it was probably the worst the choir has sounded all year, with a few very, very out-of-tune moments (cf. the above comment about two members’ having learned this in a minor key!). Thankfully, only a couple days earlier they sang the Anerio “Ave maris stella” quite well.

2) Biery “O Holy Night”
Lock-and-load. Once we learned the 2nd part of the verse and the refrain, this one came together well.

3) my “Personent hodie”
The men could have sounded “tougher” in the beginning, but otherwise, this one came off very well - which is reassuring since it’s mostly unison. :)

4) Proulx “Gloria for Christmastime”
Last-in, first-out, I guess: a few of the corrections we made to this one at the last choir rehearsal were “forgotten” in the heat of battle. Nonetheless, it came off well.

5) Halsey “Verbum caro”
This piece was a humbling experience for me, as it showed me a few conducting details that I need to tidy up. There were a few flubs while singing it, but I do believe they were my fault.

I did videotape both the musical and the midnight Mass. It’s humbling to watch myself conduct - even after how many years of conducting and three music degrees, I still see problems with my conducting that I fear would annoy me were I singing for myself. Hopefully I’m just being my own worst critic! :)

Anyway, we now finish up Christmas season with:
Epiphany: Pearson “Falan-Tidings (Out of the Orient Crystal Skies”
Baptism of the Lord: Shephard “Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day”

...and, for Ordinary Time:
Barnard “If God is Building When We Build” (a replay from the fall)
Charles Wood Jubilate in A-flat (awesome gem from CPDL!)
Friedell “Draw Us In the Spirit’s Tether”

Lenten choral plans are almost finished - will post soon.

of music education

2007-12-25T14:35:00.001-06:00

Despite that school teaching and I mutually agreed we weren’t a good fit, since graduating with an undergrad music ed degree I have maintained an interest in music education - admittedly, sometimes only because I find myself so critical of how it is done.

Anyway, a Christmas gift I got this year was the first volume of Choksy’s “The Kodály Method”. Apparently this was the modern genesis of the idea that music is integral to education.

I have at times thought this idea to be overly “romanticizing” music’s importance. After all, does being able to clap rhythms get any non-musicians a job? If you were stranded on a desert island and had to survive, would music be of much assistance there?

But the more I have thought about it, the more I arrive at ideas like, “if I were stranded on a desert island, there is very little that I ever learned in school that would help me to survive.” Knowing multiplication tables does not provide food or shelter any more than singing a scale in tune does!

I guess the question really is, “what is the purpose of school education?” In the sense that school education is designed to inculturate children, then music education certainly is integral to a curriculum, as are PE and all those other “easy” classes that so many found to be a warm refuge from the oppressiveness of, say, math and literature.

I think Spe salvi hit on a topic that ought to be discussed far beyond the subject of religion: what, precisely, constitutes this idea of “progress”? I love technology, and if it helps us to live longer and/or to mitigate physical pain or to communicate more easily, then great, but why are those things termed “progress”?

Progress toward what?

As to music education, I have “re-become” a convert to the idea of its integrality in a school curriculum, insofar as music is part of our culture, and we owe it to future generations to teach it to them.

update on the pop wedding song...

2007-12-25T14:23:00.000-06:00

Well, the bride balked at my insistence (thankfully, which the pastor supported) that the aunt whom the bride wanted to sing the 50s-or-whenever lubby-dubby pop song sing for me before we agree to have her sing at the wedding.

I’ve been burned once, and that was plenty for me, by “guest” singers who didn’t know what they were doing. Thankfully, a policy was already in place of approving outside musicians for weddings.

Anyway, the aunt lives out of town and so couldn’t sing for me beforehand - not that the bride would “subject” her to that anyway.

This is a couple that is opting not to have a Mass because they have an evening wedding and they want to get to the reception earlier. (!!) I hate to be becoming so cynical, but I’ll bet these are people who’ll rarely darken the doorstep of a church after their nuptials anyway. Chreasters, maybe, or PACE (Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday, Christmas, Easter) Catholics. How else could they not think it inappropriate to sing “Oh-I-love-you-my-darling-blah-blah” in church???

grr....cheesy pop wedding songs....

2007-12-20T08:20:00.000-06:00

I have a bride who asked if her aunt could sing “The Twelfth of Never” as a prelude to the wedding.

Go ahead and click on that link, but the second line of the text, “I need you, oh my darling, like roses need rain”, pretty much sums it all up.

I told her it’s purely secular and is thus better at the reception, but I can check “up the chain”. She asked me to do so and told me that it was sung as the prelude at her parents’ wedding in a Catholic church.

Ugh. Again, the “but this other church let us do it” tag. It wouldn’t be kosher, but I really wish I could reply that “some churches apparently just don’t care.”

At this point I am deferring to the liturgy director and the pastor. I’d be really surprised if they didn’t agree with me, but I always hate these kinds of quibbles.

The other question is, why do we even have to go through this? Can we please, pretty-please start telling these people to get married at a JoP if the Church is something they’d rather minimize in their wedding? (I know, we can’t and shouldn’t anyway, but yeesh....)

Lessons & Carols at my parish

2007-12-18T01:52:00.000-06:00

The program is too detailed to list completely here, but basically it went like this:

Seven “blocks”, each of which consisted of:

O antiphon, with corresponding congregational “O come, O come” verse
prophecy reading
carol (of one kind or another)
prayer, poem, or instrumental

The O antiphons were sung thus: men, men, women, women, men, women, all. Alas, my men don’t do chant as well as the women, and even with an extra rehearsal this past Sunday after Mass, the men were never quite “on board”. Mental note for the future: work on the men’s chanting.

The first, fourth, and last readings were sung to the prophecy tone. (BTW, does anyone know why the 1974 Graduale eliminated the re-do-ta ending for prophecy readings that the LU contains?) I had two other cantors lined up to handle two of the three (with myself doing the third), but they both came down with illnesses.

The carols were:

Victoria “Creator of the Stars of Night” (alternatim, congregation on vv1,3,5)
Haugen “Lord, Make Us Turn to You” w/ Ps. 80 verses
Howells “O pray for the peace of Jerusalem”
Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
Byrd “Lord, Make Me to Know Thy Ways”
My Soul Rejoices (Alstott)
Gelineau “Let the Lord enter”

The Howells had to be done by soloists for lack of rehearsal time. Alas.

Haugen “My Soul in Stillness Waits” and “People, Look East” were the opening/closing hymns. I had soloists for the verses of the opening, but they didn’t project well enough. Gotta rethink that for next year.

The choir processed in at the beginning and out at the end. It was cool!

The poems and instrumentals were the idea of one of our choir members. This choir member also wanted to include paintings by Fr. Sieger Köder in the program, which was a cool idea. They posters we ordered weren’t delivered in time, so they used a projector - which was not nearly as tacky as I was afraid it would be.

That same choir member also apparently thinks I am doing a poor job because she indicated she was not going to return to the choir. This is the same one who got very upset with me at the Easter Vigil this past year - but this time, I don’t understand why she is upset. I gave her quite a bit of influence on the L&C program, got the parish to spend a few hundred dollars on buying those posters (and we were told to slash budgets this year!), and basically did everything I reasonably could to appease her. She has been unhappy lately with what she feels has been inadequate musical preparation. In fairness, yes, we have canceled four choral anthems this year, two of which have been in Advent (Victoria “Creator” and Howells “O Pray”, scheduled for the last two Sundays, respectively). This was a result of my not looking carefully enough at how much rehearsal time we were going to lose in November from All Saints and Thanksgiving. But still - the L&C program was well-received, and though we are going to be rushed to put Christmas music together, it is easy enough music (see below). And for Pete’s sake, find me an all-volunteer church choir that doesn’t occasionally need to cancel something or put something together at the last minute!

Anyway, our Christmas choral stuff:
Dawson “Mary Had a Baby”
Biery “O Holy Night” (same music 3 times over)
my “Personent hodie” (mostly unison)
Proulx “Gloria for Christmastime” (almost all SB, i.e. two-part)
Halsey “Verbum caro factum est” (some tricky chords, but short & accompanied)

The Dawson was a challenge for the choir in my last parish, but the group I’ve got here should do fine with it. Halsey will need some coddling with its tricky harmonies, but it’s a gorgeous little piece. Biery and my piece are cake. The Proulx Gloria shouldn’t be a problem, either - and if it is, I can give it to a cantor.

Other Christmas selections:
Hark, the Herald
Angels from the Realms
O Little Town
God Rest Ye Merry
Angels We Have Heard
Entrance: O Come All Ye Faithful
RP: Guimont (vigil), Guimont (vigil), Gelineau (IIRC - day)
Alleluia: Chepponis “Festival Alleluia”
Sanctus/MemAcc/Amen/Agnus: Mass of Light
Communion:
What Child is This / Child of the Poor
Farrell “Bread of Life”
Dean “Taste and See”
Thanksgiving: Silent Night
Recessional: Joy to the World

The only ones of these that will need even a cursory glance are the Mass of Light and Child of the Poor. Everything else will be “lock and load” for the singers.

Advent 1 & 2--Year A

2007-12-17T15:12:00.000-06:00

Advent 1--Year A

Processional: O Come, o Come Emmanuel (vs. 1-4)

Kyrie: Mass for the City (Proulx)

Psalm: Chabanel

Gosp. Accl: Robert Twynham setting (WLP) w/choral verse

Offertory: Come My Way, My Truth, My Life (Paul French)

Euch. Accl.: Community Mass

Agnus Dei: Holy Cross Mass

Communion: Dominus Dabit (chant)

Recessional: The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns

One of my altos is a flautist and I had always admired the French piece (by WLP), so we gave it a whirl. Conditions were less than ideal since I had to play on it, but it went pretty well.

Advent 2--Year A

Processional: O Come (vs. 4-7)

Psalm: Oost-Zinner setting (from Chabanel site)

Offertory: Proper chant (hmm; can't think of it right now)

Communion: Jerusalem Surge (chant and Martini motet)

Recessional: On Jordan's Bank

I had hoped to stick with the Chabanel settings throughout Advent and give them a test-run, but I found the musical setting for the antiphon for this Sunday to be terribly difficult for a congregation. Luckily, Arlene had a mode 2 setting on there that worked perfectly.

We had our Christmas Concert about 36 hours before, so the "Jerusalem" was good to go. The motet is actually quite nice; a bit of "stile antico" with some more advanced harmonies.

“Cantor” goes to a Tridentine Mass

2007-12-08T09:51:00.000-06:00

Well, I did it. I hadn’t been to a TLM in some years, so upon the invitation of a friend, I got my lazy bones up in time to be at the local parish that regularly offers a TLM - heh, in this case, the TLM for Immaculate Conception was at 8am. (Cue the rant about the inconvenient times at which the TLM is offered.)

Full Gregorian propers and Ordinary were used (though I think it technically was still a low Mass). “Alma redemptoris mater” was sung as an offertory anthem, and I believe it was Victoria’s Ave Maria they sang as a postlude. The organ was used only to give a pitch to the priest, and I think just once.

A few observations:

1) I can see why people get swept up in the grandeur/mystery of what I witnessed; however, as many point out, none of these things is an innate difference between the OF and the EF.

2) The introit was good, and the communion was done ok. Much of the other singing (esp. the Gloria and Sanctus) was marred by one or two voices that were consistently off pitch. As I often tell my choirs, singing unison is like walking a tightrope - mistakes become very noticeable! Lots of the vowels got “splatty” - a pet peeve of mine. There was a nice delicacy in the musical lines.

3) The homily was nice and short. Good. The priest didn’t feel that it was his calling to prepare a lengthy oration, just to expound on the Mass texts.

4) Before I dismiss the practice of reading the readings at the altar ad orientem, can someone attempt to justify the practice to me (other than by tradition)? I can kinda see proclaiming the readings from different places, but why not facing the people

5) The first part of the homily was the reading of the readings in English; the congregation even made the motions and responses as if it were a regular part of the Mass. ISTM if we’re going to proclaim readings in Latin (an idea that I don’t dismiss!), we ought just to let them be as-is, hopefully also providing translations somehow.

6) The case for ad orientem would be strengthened in many parishes by the use of amplification and of using altars closer to the people than the far wall - neither of which was the case here.

SttL, USCCB, politics, and incompetence

2007-12-07T08:53:00.001-06:00

Those of us who have expertise with computers often recoil when the U.S. government decides to take some sort of action in the world of information technology because it often constitutes aging lawyers making legislation about technology that they barely understand, if at all. As an example, I recall one Senator who introduced a bill to create software that would blow up any computer that sent a virus .... or something along that line.

It occurred to me today that the same bishops who voted on “Sing to the Lord” (SttL) were once the parish priests who thought “Be Not Afraid” was just fine for funerals. In other words, I wonder if we don’t have a musically illiterate episcopate in this country.

And how many of us have pastors who appear simply not to care how well the liturgy is celebrated? It is out of this pool that the U.S. bishops have been selected. Again: the bishops who voted on SttL were the pastors when “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” was a responsorial psalm in the 1980s.

In this light, it is not at all surprising that there are things in SttL about Agnus Dei tropes, which the GIRM doesn’t envision (and, therefore, shouldn’t be done...?). It is not a surprise that, as Jeffrey has pointed out, SttL quotes the GIRM’s wording on responsorial psalms to draw the apparently incorrect conclusion that RPs are preferable to Gregorian graduals.

I mean, look at that awful translation of the GIRM for the U.S. that describes the options for singing at the entrance procession - the same body of bishops that approved that piece of dung are the same ones who now apparently give implicit OK to songs that “at least paraphrase” the Lectionary’s responsorial psalms to be sung as responsorial psalms. (Actually, I am waiting to see what the USCCB Directory on Music will say on this, since that document will have Roman approval.)

*sigh*....I hate feeling so pessimistic about the bishops’ conference here. Really, I do. And there is a lot of good stuff in SttL - I guess the perfectionist in me just doesn’t want to wait 35 more years to see the flaws worked out. Maybe Rome will come out with something, given the rumblings about B16’s attention to music.

NPM hymn competition winners

2007-12-05T22:08:00.000-06:00

Does anyone out there actually like these?

http://npm.org/assets/Family%20of%20Faith.pdf

http://npm.org/assets/That%20All%20May%20Be%20One%20in%20Christ%20Communion%20Song.pdf

They were presented at the NPM national. I am particularly unimpressed with the Manalo piece, all the more so because his training is from a major music school (can’t recall just where).

Enh. Puppies and sunshine (as Gavin would say), rainbows, smiling Jesus in an off-white bathrobe and sandals, and strumming guitars.

This morning

2007-12-02T15:16:00.000-06:00

Two interesting things from my two masses this morning:

1) I do a 7:30 AM mass (ugh) in a small, rural parish outside of town on Sundays. The pastor is an elderly monsignor who I respect very much. When he worked at our Newman Center last year, he came into into my office once and randomly sing a chant Credo by memory, though he hadn't sang it since seminary (in the 50's!). A great lover of chant . . .

Anyway, this morning he mentioned after mass that he thought it was unfortunate that he couldn't do what he's done for the past how-ever-many years on the 1st Sunday of Advent at his previous parishes. Apparently, he would come in singing "Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord" from "Godspell", continually adding voices until the whole congregation was singing. Yikes. Praise Jesus he didn't ask me to do that this morning.

2) My organist is down with an illness and I actually had to play the organ for mass today. I was a bit anxious (as he didn't let me know about this until Friday), but I did alright. But I experienced something that I rarely have experienced since I came here a year ago; during the opening hymn ("O Come, O Come Emmanuel"), I heard the congregation singing.

Seems silly, I know, but we're up in the loft, and between my usually-robust choir and my organist opening up the pipes, I can rarely hear what's going on downstairs. Anyway, I had some light settings on for the chant, and the sound emanating from the nave was wonderful. It was good to hear.

BTW, this is post number 300!

Honors Mass

2007-12-01T08:10:00.000-06:00

When the students are gone on break, things get real quiet around here, and so we were "choir-less" for the past 2 Sundays. I was able to round up some students to delay their Thanksgiving break a bit to sing for a Diocesan "Honors Mass." It's a real big deal here, when laity are given awards, priests are raised to monsignors, monsignors to double-monsignors, etc. 23 of my students joined the cathedral choir and sang some nice stuff. Highlights include:

Processional:

Gregorian Introit
Sing to the Lord a New Song (Hal Hopson)
Ecce Sacerdos (Bruckner-instrumental)
Old 100th (arr. Vaughan Williams)

Offertory:

De Profundis (Gregorian)
Alleluia (Randall Thompson)

Communion:

Panis Angelicus (Palestrina)

Hymn of Thanksgiving:

All Creatures of Our God and King (arr. Rutter)

Some upgrades had just been made to the organ, so along with the brass, things were sounding pretty "festive" up in the loft. The choir sang well and I was glad that they were able to participate in such a "high" mass.

“Sing to the Lord” now online

2007-11-30T11:49:00.000-06:00

http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/SingToTheLord.pdf

I haven’t read it yet - will update with thoughts when I have.

-------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE 1:

76. “The assembly of the faithful should participate in singing the Proper of the Mass as much as possible, especially through simple responses and other suitable settings.” When the congregation does not sing an antiphon or hymn, proper chants from the Graduale Romanum might be sung by a choir that is able to render these challenging pieces well. As an easier alternative, chants of the Graduale Simplex are recommended. Whenever a choir sings in Latin, it is helpful to provide the congregation with a vernacular translation so that they are able to “unite themselves interiorly” to what the choir sings.”

I think a lot of people may read this in a way to which many of us will object. It seems to give priority to congregational hymns; however, if you look at the wording, there really is no poo-poo’ing of choral singing of, say, a Gregorian introit. It simply says that when the congregation doesn’t sing, chants from the RG are appropriate. (That doesn’t mean that they are inappropriate when the congregation DOES sing...)

-----------------------------------
UPDATE 2:

“157. The proper or seasonal Responsorial Psalm from the Lectionary for Mass, with the congregation singing the response, is to be preferred to the gradual from the Graduale Romanum.”

“162. The Gregorian settings of the Gospel Acclamation are most appropriate for use in those communities which are able to sing the response communally.”

This I don’t particularly like. ISTM there are legitimate reasons for using the graduals and Gregorian alleluias/tracts.

“America” now has a blog

2007-11-29T07:25:00.001-06:00

It’s here:
http://www.americamagazine.org/blog/blog.cfm?blog_id=2

I have to say, I am looking forward to reading this blog — partly because of the erudition obvious in the prose of the postings, but also because here is a voice dramatically different from those of us whose views are, well, pretty straightforward.

I do NOT mean to say that I think America’s sometimes-controversial views are necessarily right. But, this makes the writers of the magazine more accessible, either for us to teach them or, probably more likely, them to teach us.

Randy the Main Man

2007-11-21T23:40:00.000-06:00

I’ve been preparing instrument parts for Christmas as I head into Advent. While last year I was in a GIA parish, my current parish is primarily of the OCP lineage.

As I have said before, I think OCP gets a bad rap. For one, they keep more of the “old-tyme” lyrics than GIA does: “Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.” They also are more careful in their editing, I find.

I am now discovering another asset this organization has: the wonderful trumpet descants of Randall DeBruyn. These parts just sparkle with interesting rhythms and meticulous articulation markings. The melodic makeup is nearly always interesting; in particular, his use of motives and quasi-canons (cf. his part for LASST UNS) is intriguing.

Then I broke open the Gather Comp C instrument book, and several thoughts pop into mind:
1) GIA does do us a favor by printing the melody lines along with the descants. (I am Finale-ing the DeBruyn parts because OCP only gives the descant.)
2) The descants are, on the whole, much less interesting. They look more like 1st-species counterpoint (i.e. note-against-note) .... which, ok, is what my own trumpet parts tend to look like when I write stuff.
3) I’m looking at a C book - why the blazes does GIA put a trumpet part in a C book? Even if our trumpeter is, in fact, playing a C trumpet, he/she is probably able to transpose readily.

What would be most helpful would be trumpet/woodwind/melody/bass editions of things in either book. Right now I am deciding whether to write new flute parts to these many Christmas hymns or to ask the flute player to play GIA’s trumpet parts - which, though they are less trumpet-ish than OCP/DeBruyn, are still not very idiomatic for a woodwind.

Missa Emmanuel and Gloria for Christmastime

2007-11-18T01:35:00.000-06:00

Since I know this is a bone of contention between myself and PT, I’ll give some extra commentary on these two choices.

The Missa Emmanuel has been done at my parish for the past few years. The sense I get is that it is well-appreciated here. I personally quite like it musically, particularly the Sanctus’s implicit connection between “Rejoice! Rejoice!” and “Hosanna!” The choral harmonies in the Lamb of God are goofy, yes, but we’re not doing them, so that ain’t a concern. :) We also are not doing those repeats. Apparently the parish sings well enough without them.

And then, the Gloria for Christmastime. Of the several responsorial Gloria settings with the LES ANGES refrain, GIA publishes the two that are musically the most solid, IMO: Proulx and Niel. The latter, though better crafted than Proulx, is in Latin - which would probably get me in trouble, at least with some of the singers who find Latin a substantial challenge. (And for such singers, the Gloria is quite a bit of text.)

Anyway, the Proulx is not too bad. It’s not his best work, but neither does it offend.

Why did I choose it? The parish is used to singing that refrain to a Gloria at Christmas. The Laginya setting that they have been using is pretty silly harmonically, IMO. The setting in Choral Praise is similarly so.

Yes, it was $60 or so for the parish spent on a Mass setting that a) is, owing to its responsorial form, not a liturgical ideal, and b) will possibly be obsolete soon anyway. Still, the musical benefits, IMO, outweigh these.

Advent/Christmas choral plans at “Our Lady of Anonymity”

2007-11-18T01:21:00.000-06:00

Proulx “Missa Emmanuel”
Advent 1: Byrd “Lord, Make Me to Know Thy Ways”
Advent 2: Victoria “Conditor alme siderum”
Advent 3: Howells “O, Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem” (from Ps. 122)
Advent lessons & carols: above 3 anthems plus all 7 O antiphons
Advent 4: Anerio “Ave maris stella”

Christmas midnight choral preludes (interspersed with the hymns):
Dawson “Mary Had a Baby”
Biery (arr.) “O Holy Night”
my own “Personent hodie”

Proulx “Gloria for Christmastime”
Chepponis “Festival Alleluia”
Christmas midnight: Hassler “Lætentur cœli” (from Ps. 96)
Epiphany: Fallan-Tidings “Out of the Orient Crystal Skies”
Baptism of the Lord: proper offertory

The Victoria will be a stretch for us. We are going to “cheat” a bit and sing the 6th verse with the same music as the 2nd. Since I’m giving verse 4 to soloists, that will let us do the piece with only one verse to learn - which, for some of my singers, will already be more than enough!

As I am looking over these plans, I am hoping I did not fall into my all-too-typical problem of overextending my singers musically. Howells will take a while to learn just because of how much music there is. Hassler - we’ll see. Anerio won’t be a problem.

What is problematic is that a lot of this is dependent on having those 1 or 2 “section leaders” there. Our rehearsal this past Thursday was pretty much a downer because we were missing most of our best readers in the tenor and bass sections. Alas, the Josquin “Tu pauperum” had to be dropped - again, not a difficult piece....I guess the Latin was a problem. (Heck, even the choir in my last parish pulled off the Josquin, though not without quite a bit of work.)

UPDATE: I’m dropping Hassler in favor of Halsey “Verbum caro” from SJMP. As I looked through the Hassler, a new awareness of “what the &^(* was I thinking?!?!” came to me; Halsey is still a cool piece and much more accessible to my group.

32 OT--Year C

2007-11-15T04:56:00.000-06:00

32 OT--Year C

Processional: Praise, My Soul

Offertory: Gressus meos (Lassus)--quartet

Communion: Dominus regit me (chant w/Viadana fauxbourdon)
Lead Me, Lord (Wesley)

Recessional: I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say

Good numbers in the choir; all my men (for the first time I think!), and the majority of my ladies. I added a new bass this week, who is an excellent musician. He's one of my student directors that I coaxed into singing. He'll be a great addition and pretty reliable from an attendance standpoint.

The Gressus is awesome! I sang tenor, had my cantor sing alto (he's more of a counter-tenor anyway), I brought in another of my student directors to sing soprano, and one of my strong basses to round out the quartet. It's a thrilling sing; the opening section is just this cascade of brisk eighth notes running throughout all the voices. Typical Lassus harmonic language; extended without being too much. The performance was pretty good, minus a stretch in the bass where he missed an entrance and sat out a line. Not bad considering we only had about 20 minutes where we could all be together.

The chant was fine. They're improving with their chanting every week.

The Wesley is simple and effective. I chose it because a decent choir can put it together in about 10 minutes, leaving ample time in rehearsal for the upcoming Christmas concert music.

Rough stretch this week; I had 2 rehearsals Tuesday night, 2 last night, another one tonight, another tomorrow night, and another one Saturday night to prepare for a big Diocesan mass this Sunday. I'm sure looking forward to Thanksgiving break!

“Sing to the Lord” passes

2007-11-14T12:55:00.000-06:00

88% in favor.

Some revisions were added, and a large part of it was shelved.

This is not in print anywhere (but here!?!?? - woohoo!), but I saw it live on EWTN.

I have not seen the document, but from what I have heard from those who have, it sounds basically like a rebadged MCW (which itself was a rebadged version of 1967’s “The Place of Music in Eucharistic Celebrations”). It does, however, apparently make reference to Musicam sacram, which will help those of us who defend the latter document against charges that it no longer is relevant in the Ordinary Form. It also does discuss Latin, though apparently in a spirit that doesn’t quite accord with the Roman documents.

My hope is that it encourages the singing of priests. The more I think about it, the more I think that could help the liturgy (re?)gain a sense of solemnity that is not often found in everyday parish liturgies. Have you ever noticed how awkward it is to extemporize a prayer when singing, even recto tono?

31 OT--Year C

2007-11-09T19:18:00.000-06:00

31 OT--Year C

Processional: For All the Saints

Offertory: Pie Jesu (Faure)

Communion: Notas mihi (w/Viadana fauxbourdon)
Panis Angelicus (Franck--arr. Rutter)

Recessional: Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones

Not my finest week as a director. We've had a lot of people getting sick and other commitments are vying for my choristers' time, and therefore, we've had some attendance problems. We have six sopranos and only 3 could make it to mass so the "Pie Jesu" was fine, but not spectacular. The chant was also fine, though numbers were such that I didn't feel comfortable splitting it between men and women, so we did it completely mixed.

I thought Panis was going to be disastrous as it was not going well in pre-Mass rehearsal, for a few reasons:

1) Though I have five altos "on the books", if you will, only one made it to Wednesday rehearsal, and then two others made it to mass (and the Wednesday alto did not). Therefore, they had had very little rehearsal with the piece before Sunday.

2) I dropped it a whole step since I wasn't thrilled with the tenor and soprano tessitura (it was in A; I dropped it to G). Some people had a real hard time with the switch, since they were still looking at the A major score.

3) I grabbed my accompaniment in G major for my organist right before rehearsal, only to find that I didn't have the last page with it. When we got to that last page, he couldn't really provide any harmonic support and honestly, the choir needed it at that point.

It was a good lesson for me. I should have prepared them better on Wednesday, but I was in a hurry to get to our Christmas music.

Anyways, I was a bit frazzled as the minutes crept by because we just didn't have the time to work on it. I was stressing about it during mass, but (by the grace of God) came together beautifully at communion. Thank you, Jesus.

30 OT--Year C

2007-11-02T07:12:00.000-05:00

30 OT--Year C

Processional: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

Offertory: Domine, vivifica me (chant)

Communion: Laetabimur (chant and Viadana fauxbourdon)
Sing of Mary (arr. Proulx)
Recessional: Immaculate Mary

Crazy weekend. It was Homecoming on campus and we coincided the release of our new CD with this weekend when parents/alums were in town. "Sing of Mary" is a track on the CD so we used it to cap off the Marian month. We sold quite a few after mass which was nice, as I still have a few hundred to move!

Mass itself was a bit messy, at least from my end. Originally, I had planned to Lassus' setting of the offertory text with a solo quartet; we rehearsed it and it was pretty well ready to go. Then I got a call from my cantor that morning; he had the flu and couldn't come in. No matter, I could have the organist play the alto part. Then I went to meet with the other two before our regular rehearsal and my soprano looked rough around the edges; turned out her voice was in pretty bad shape. I sent her home. My bass didn't show up until the regular choir rehearsal had started. Needless to say, the Lassus didn't happen!

When my cantor's gone, it's a bit stressful. I had to fill in since it was such short notice; I botched part of the Gelineau psalm (since I was basically sight-reading it), the offertory was less-than-inspiring (again, basically sight-reading), and I had to sing the psalm verses for the Communio while conducting. Oh yeah, and I had to sing tenor on "Sing of Mary" while conducting as well. It sure didn't help that I was getting over the flu myself and my voice wasn't quite up to snuff. Yeesh.

The choir did a nice job, though we had some other conspicuous absences (lots of illnesses). Get 'em next week . . .

YEE-HAW! Stanford “And I Saw Another Angel”

2007-11-01T22:27:00.001-05:00

http://wso.williams.edu/cpdl/sheet/stan-371.pdf

We’ve been working this one up for some weeks now. It hasn’t been easy - nothing in the piece is especially *hard*, but it’s a longer piece than my parish’s choir has been used to singing.

We put it together tonight, and even with probably a good third of the choir missing, it still sounded great! The pastor complimented us on it at the end of Mass - not sure I care for the public “spotlight”, but it definitely affirmed us for the work that I and the singers have put into it.

Highly recommended - not one of Stanford’s best-loved pieces, but still a hoot. We will be reprising it for Christ the King, too.

The cult of the soloist

2007-10-28T22:01:00.000-05:00

ISTM that there are three kinds of liturgical vocal music: congregational, ministerial, and presidential. The first and last categories are, ideally, characterized by easy melodies conducive to singing by non-specialists. The other kind, ministerial, is harder music that needs someone with more developed singing faculties - or that requires dedicated rehearsal outside of the liturgy.

I can’t recall if I have blogged about this before, but the role of soloists seems to be something of a question mark running through (what I know of) Western liturgical tradition. I believe a consensus is that graduals and Alleluias were often historically sung with soloists on verses, and particularly pieces like the great “Qui habitat” and “Deus, Deus meus” tracts seem more soloistic in nature than not.

We have an abundance now of music that is not well-written for its ostensible purpose of conducing congregational singing. Tom Booth’s “Find Us Ready” is a good example of what I mean. The refrain learns easily enough, but to me, it still bears stylistic traits of solo singing: syncopation and “stop-go phrasing” (e.g. 2-3 quick notes, then 3 beats of rest, then a few quick notes, then rests, ...).

Assuming that one accepts my idea that “Find Us Ready” & Co., aside from any musical judgement, are best considered “soloistic” music, we are basically left comparing such melodies to the melismatic chants of the Proper, in that each kind of melody is best sung by a soloist.

And, in my opinion, there is very little that truly gratifies a choir in singing “Find Us Ready” in a chorale harmonization. (For an explanation, review my post about choral harmonies to congregational music.)

Commentary on an article from WDTPRS

2007-10-28T17:59:00.000-05:00

I, like many, many others, frequent the blog of Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, What Does the Prayer Really Say? From time to time, though, I find stuff to which I with Fr. Z would reply with a bit more consternation.

For example, the following excerpt from a recent post on the blog:

Treacy Gibbens switched from attending Sunday Mass at St. Williams Parish in Naples to the Latin liturgy this summer. “There are fewer distractions,” he says. “You can really pray. I love it.”

And what, pray tell, does Mr. Gibbens regard as a distraction? The reading aloud of prayers in which he is to take part himself? How is it a distraction to do this?

Later in the same missive:

“It’s not somewhere where they can play around,” says Jared Kuebler.

“There’s things here that remind you this is something special, outside of your daily life,” he adds. “They notice the difference. They sit quietly and they play quietly.”

And what, exactly, is it about the Ordinary Form that encourages “playing around”?

I am all for having the TLM around - but its advocacy must NOT be for the reasons listed above. If it is so, then the problem is that these people haven’t raised enough of a ruckus about the celebration of the Mass in the Ordinary Form.

How about trying the following:

Sing everything except the homily. Yes, the readings, too.

Vest every liturgical minister (lay or priest) in an alb or “greater”.

Succinct homilies that eschew “theatricality” and, in general, restrain themselves to expounding on the texts of the Mass. (THE HOMILY IS THE LEAST IMPORTANT PART OF THE LITURGY OF THE WORD!)

Use of incense - or at least, something that looks like it (but that won’t bother people’s throats).

No attempts at humor. I love to laugh, but the Mass doesn’t seem the best place for that to happen.

I think these are the easiest things to change in the Mass that will address some of the issues that these advocates of the TLM are raising.

Maybe people should only be granted a TLM if they can describe what it is specifically about the TLM that cannot be done in the Ordinary Form. The Mass I describe above would be difficult to regard as “play time”, and fewer parts of it would likely be regarded as “distractions”.

There is a part of me that wonders if Summorum Pontificum isn’t destined to be a short-lived document: it may come to pass that a solemnly sung Ordinary Form Mass is universally regarded as just hunkey dorey. (sp?) Miss the prayers of the TLM? Fine - there’s no reason those can’t be added, at least as options, to the Ordinary Form. Don’t like the Sign of Peace? First, consider why it was added/restored, and then look into educating people so they don’t turn it into a hug-fest. (And please, let’s consider moving it to before the offertory - the Anglican Use has this right, I think.) Don’t like the general intercessions? They could be made optional - in the meantime, it’s not the worst thing to have them there.

29 OT--Year C

2007-10-26T09:05:00.000-05:00

29 OT--Year C

Processional: Tietze Introit

Offertory: Salve Regina (Liszt)

Communion: Domine, Dominus noster w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above

Added two more altos this week, which is exciting; I desperately needed at least one more. Both are fine musicians, one with aspirations of being a liturgical musician post-college.

The Liszt is beautiful, though not without its challenges. We rarely do Romantic music, so it was a learning experience for some of my choristers. It came together nicely for mass.

The chant was fine. I'm very pleased with the progress the group is making with this genre. The pedagogical approach is paying off, it seems, as well as the fact that everyone is singing it every week, as opposed to the every-other week situation I had last year. At rehearsal on Wednesday, they sight-read "Laetabimur" (Communion--30 OT) near flawlessly. Very exciting to see things "click in" with the chant repertory.

weddings....

2007-10-20T17:40:00.000-05:00

I did two weddings today, both of which were, to me, somewhat remarkable.

The first wedding was a couple apparently in their 30s who wanted things to be “different”. I guess the highlight of their wedding’s different-ness was exchanging wedding vows that they themselves had written. (I imagine that’s licit....heck, the whole wedding rite is replete with liberties to adapt etc.) They were ok - kinda sappy in some parts, but I liked how they ended it with something to the effect of “may God punish me if I ever seek to part from this marriage before death.”

This wedding was also remarkable in that the bride accepted a suggestion from me that she have some Gregorian chant - so, I did the “In te speravi, Domine” offertory, the second of two that the Graduale Romanum gives for wedding Masses. The text is, I think, stunning for weddings: “In You, O Lord, I have trusted; I said: You are my God; my welfare is in your hands.” (Ps. 31:15,16 - Klaus, I hope I translated that acceptably!) What a wonderful sense of surrender to God’s will, a reminder that we are and have nothing except by God’s design. Perhaps not coincidentally, this is the same psalm that Jesus quotes in St. Luke’s Gospel as He dies. (And, going a step further - remember 1 Corinthians: “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ laid down His life for the Church...”)

The second wedding was a more typical one except rather large for being so - 10 bridesmaids and groomsmen. The couple was about my age, give and take a few years. The bride was of Italian descent and wanted something sung at some point in Italian. She first came to me with a pop-style thingie that I really didn’t think was consistent with the concept of “ritual music”; thankfully I was able to find a simple Italian-language setting of the first couple verses of “Ubi caritas” - nothing musically remarkable, but it’s another text that I wish were sung more at weddings.

And, another remarkable element: the bride and groom were EMHCs. They had had the Cana wedding Gospel passage read, and I thought the symbolism was nice.

This second wedding was also the first one I have played since relocating to my new parish. I’ve been woodshedding for the last couple of weeks - it actually went better than I expected, with no major flubs from me save for a few “emancipated dissonances” in the pedals. ;-) The repertoire: Handel air in F, Jesu Joy, Kanon in D, Trumpet Voluntary, Mass o’ Creation, Schubert Ave, La réjouissance, Marcello Psalm 19. I was nervous, I confess, when the trumpeter told me he needed tempos that I thought were pretty sprightly - at least, they were peppier than I had been practicing!

28 OT--Year C

2007-10-19T06:04:00.000-05:00

28 OT--Year C

Processional: The Church's One Foundation (AURELIA)

Offertory: Ave Maris Stella (chant and Anerio)

Communion: Aufer a me

Recessional: The God Whom Earth and Sea and Sky

For Offertory, we sang the chant, vs. 1, followed by the motet, and then the chant, vs. 2. Turned out very well as the choir sang wonderfully. The motet itself is quite a gem: cantus firmus in the sooprano line with some early-Baroque harmonies fit within a "stile antico" framework. The following link will take you to a score (CPDL's version seems to be down), but I used an edition that Cantor whipped up last year.

http://psgloria.spolecenstvi.com/sbor/noty/anerio/ave_maris.pdf

The Communio was fine, though we've had a couple mis-steps the past two weeks that were absent prior to that. I told the choir that it was God's way of keeping me humble . . . that and pointing out my need to better prepare them before mass.

Contemporary music

2007-10-11T05:49:00.000-05:00

I was accused this summer in a personal correspondence of having a "disdain" for contemporary music. In the course of attempting to defend myself, I did realize (and which was confirmed by a colleague/reader of the blog) that if you only know me through my blog-writing, you could easily think that the initial statement was true.

I will admit that I have a much greater love for Palestrina/Lassus than for Haugen/Haas, and I'm very fortunate as to be in a position where I can do the former on a weekly basis. But I don't think I've ever called for the wholesale exclusion of the latter (or added my name to a site like this, which I see as being counter-productive), though I'm not shy about criticizing the shortcomings of the evolution of this music in general, and various flaws in specific pieces.

I like to think of my outlook on Catholic liturgical music as somewhat centrist, an idealist tempered by realism. Though I wouldn't be sad if every parish in the world turned to Gregorian chant and polypony, I'm astute enough to realize that that isn't going to happen anytime soon. Nor do I think it would be to the greater benefit to the Church Militant in this particular age.

I grew up in a pretty nominal Catholic household. We went to Church on Sundays, prayed before meals, and many of my moral values (though not all) were formed by Christian ethics. But to say I was a devout Catholic in high school would be highly inaccurate.

The first time I went to mass in college was pivotal for my life, no question. I remember going in with the attitude, "Well, I'll give this a try." I don't remember much about that mass except that I was enthralled with the music. No, not Byrd, Josquin, chant . . . Haugen. Haas. Joncas (well, OK, not Joncas--I've never liked his music). I joined the choir right after mass. From there, I participated in the various choirs at the Church over the next four years, slowly building my knowledge of the Faith and my relationship with the Lord.

It would be accurate to say that my knowledge, even after graduating, was lacking, especially in areas of liturgy. As I studied more after college and read more writings on the liturgy, my sensibilities definitely shifted, and I am now more firmly entrenched in the world of CMAA as opposed to NPM (my music studies played a role in this shift as well). But I am quick to add that if that first mass had been done by the traditional choir at the church (which I now direct!), there's a good chance that my life would have turned out much differently.

I'm in charge of six ensembles in my current position, ministering to college students with various music styles ranging from Gregorian chant to contemporary Praise and Worship with all the different gradations in between. And honestly, if my pastor approached me tomorrow and asked that I shift all the music to chant/polyphony, I'd fight it wholeheartedly (I don't foresee this happening BTW).

I'm a firm believer in the following:

1) College is a very transitional period in the faith life of a person.

2) Liturgy is vital to helping students retain and build upon their Catholic faith.

3) College students need a musical "entry-point" into the Liturgy.

I'm in this profession because I believe that music is vital to the Holy Mass, and I'm in a college setting because I believe that this is the time that young Catholics are most fully-formed. People are formed not only by the Mass itself, but also by the liturgical environment that we provide for them, including music.

Ideally, if freshman come in and prefer to attend one of the weekend masses with music in a more contemporary vein, hopefully, through adequate liturgical formation (which I don't feel we do enough of currently), they will wind up at the "traditional" mass by the time they graduate. We have to get them in the pews first though.

The problems I struggle with when addressing this issue, though, usually relate to many deficiencies I and many others see in the current repertoire of contemporary "folk" music. I think even the most hardened heart could agree that a lot of this music is trite, syrupy, poorly crafted in general. Where I differ from many in the blogosphere, is that I would like to analyze each piece individually as opposed to throwing everything out just because it was written after 1960 and seems to work with piano accompaniment.

So here's the question: what piece or pieces currently in existence exemplify a "model" for this music? Is there any piece out there (let's think congregational at this point) that has a quality melody, quality text, and just happens to be in the "folk" style?

Thumbing through my Ritualsong hymnal (the only one near me), I find the following to be noteworthy (Disclaimer: By no means do I believe all of the following to be beyond reproach; also, I left out anything I didn't feel was in the "folk" style):

*53 Ps. 25 (To You, O Lord--Haugen)

66 Ps. 33 (Let your mercy be on us--Haugen)

*69 Ps. 34 (The Cry of the Poor--Foley)

*70 Ps. 34 (Taste and See--Haugen)

*127 Ps 95 (If Today--Haas)

135 Ps. 98 (All the Ends of the Earth--Haas/Haugen)

152 Ps. 116 (The Name of God--Haas)

158 Ps. 118 (This is the Day--Haugen)

322, 323, 324 Sanctus/Mem. Accl./Amen (Mass of Creation--Haugen)

330, 331 Kyrie/Gloria (Mass of Light--Haas)

*341, 352 Kyrie/Lamb of God (Mass of Remembrance--Haugen)

*495 My Soul in Stillness Waits (Haugen)

516 Carol at the Manger (Haugen)

541 Tree of Life (Haugen)

555 Return to God (Haugen)

612 Send Us Your Spirit (Haas)

638 Canticle of the Sun (Haugen)

*697 Glory and Praise to Our God (Schutte)

*723 We Walk By Faith (Haugen)

758 Eye Has Not Seen (Haugen)

One more I would add that is not in this hymnal, but I just thought of:

*All the Earth (Deiss)

*Asterisks denote pieces that I think are good models for future compositions in this style. What do they have in common? Sturdy texts, singable melodies, conducive to variety in accompaniment and instrumentation . . . and well, IMO, appropriate for the House of God.

27 OT--Year C

2007-10-11T05:39:00.000-05:00

Processional: Introit Hymn (Tietze)

Offertory: Ave Maria (Arcadelt)

Communion: In Salutari w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Sing of Mary

Well, I'm always looking for excuses to explore the vast Marian choral repertoire, and the month of October (Month of the Holy Rosary) is a decent one. We'll be doing Marian stuff throughout the next few weeks.

The choir is growing steadily it seems; added another soprano and another bass this past week. In a perfect world where everyone was present for at least one week, this is what I'd have:

6 sopranos
3 altos
2 tenors
9(!) basses

The two tenors seems inadequate, but I have one who is fantastic and can carry the section by himself. I wouldn't be sad if I could add one or two more altos, as 2 of the current ones are not true altos. The nine basses seem to be a blessing, though we have nine very different voices, and making them blend/sing in-tune consistently has been tricky. This is the section with the least experience with choral singing in general.

The Arcadelt went well; I bumped it up a half-step for tuning purposes and the sopranos handled the higher tessitura admirably. It's a lovely piece . . . clearly, it seems that Biebl had it somewhat in mind when composing his own setting of the text. Turns out this piece originally had a madrigal text to it . . . hmm.

The chant was fine, despite a couple conducting blunders on my part. Keeps me humble.

an AWESOME Psalm 100!

2007-10-04T10:57:00.000-05:00

Charles Wood “Jubilate” in A-flat

Based on OLD HUNDREDTH, has lots of unison, and
has this super-cool quasi-ostinato walking bass line. Easy ranges and
lots of unison - any mixed choir should handle it well. Psalm 100 w/
doxology, BCP translation.

26 OT--Year C

2007-10-03T07:14:00.001-05:00

26 OT--Year C

Processional: Alleluia! Sing to Jesus (HYFRYDOL)

Psalm: Gelineau (I'm going to stop including this one; we always do Gelineau)

Offertory: Super Flumina Babylonis (Lassus)

Communion: Memento verbi w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Praise, My Soul (LAUDA ANIMA)

I didn't like the Tietze Introit melody for this week (and couldn't find a better tune to put with the text) so I scrapped it. Happens occasionally and probably the only person that minds much is me.

We had some growing pains with the Lassus. It was a challenge last year and a challenge this year; I wish this Proper fell a bit later in the year because I love this setting; I finally have to cave and ask our organist to double the parts because we were having some intonation issues that I just couldn't fix 100 percent in the brief rehearsal time we had with it. The choir seemed to have the hardest time with the rhythm; this is renaissance polyphony at its best and some of the entrances were tricky (especially since they are still adjusting to these editions that use the half-note as the pulse). In fact, on the last page I had to put the altos back on track when they entered a beat late (my fault) and then the basses did the same, though they corrected after a couple measures (also my fault as I was trying to fix the altos during their entrance). All in all, it came off pretty well, though we did need the organ to double and I wish I could have had one more week to rehearse it.

Memento was a nice introduction to the phrygian mode; it has a very "major" feel to it at the beginning and then eases its way nicely into mode 4. To get a sense of the mode, I actually had them sing the end first and worked my way backwards . . . not during mass, of course. Again, they are really doing a nice job with the chant; they're making some nice strides and it's seeming to click a little quicker than it did last year.

“My Shepherd Will Supply My Need....”

2007-09-30T22:27:00.000-05:00

This hymn was in my head a week or so back, and it always makes me laugh because the next word of the hymn has forever been ruined in my mind by this clip from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”.

On a more serious note, I am very grateful that the trendy use of that name for God (and its other form that begins with Y) seems to have been contained in the 1970s and The Jerusalem Bible.

Will I still be able to do this one?

2007-09-30T22:19:00.000-05:00

So, with the talk about regulating liturgical texts....

Generally, I think this will be a good thing, ensuring that all texts proclaimed in the Mass have gone through some approval process for theological conformity with the faith.

I have to wonder, though, will I still be able to do Farrant “Lord, For Thy Tender Mercies’ Sake”?

What about Telemann “Laudate Jehovam”, whose Latin text appears not to stem from any liturgical source?

Friday => penitence

2007-09-30T22:13:00.000-05:00

Someone wrote here in a comment recently:

We're now riddled with self-credentialed liturgists and DREs who quote each other as if they were magisterial, and who are genuinely clueless when you point out the facts, quoting chapter and verse from CVII dos or the GIRM.

I can’t speak to the overall veracity of this description, but I will share that my parish’s new DRE did not know until I told her recently that Friday is (still) a day of penitence, on which we are still obliged to make some act of penitence.

(A pretty good proof-positive, btw, of the penitential character of Friday is that Lauds begins with Psalm 51 on every Friday of the 4-week psalter.)

Allegri Miserere

2007-09-29T20:40:00.000-05:00

Hey, I might as well ponder Ash Wednesday almost 6 months prior, right? ;-)

Anyway, for those of you who have actually done this piece, how hard is it? ISTM that, if you split it into tutti/soli parts, it should be fairly easy, since the “tutti” parts are basically two pages of music, one of which repeats over and over.

I suppose, in my case, the problem might be getting my singers to digest that much Latin...

EDIT: The edition I think to use is this one on CPDL.

2ND EDIT: The verdict seems to be that it’s a very doable piece as long as you can accommodate the high C section - or, I would point out, use the handy fourth-down transposed version of same in the CPDL edition. ;-)

Nicholas Maria Publishers?

2007-09-29T19:34:00.000-05:00

Anyone heard of them?

http://www.nicholasmaria.com

They seem definitely in the CanticaNova/Adoremus camp, but I am wondering about the quality of the music itself.

speaking of young adult groups

2007-09-28T22:03:00.000-05:00

I first went to one of these before I moved to my current post. At first I thought it was a bit silly, like a “social catch-net” for people who couldn’t make friends otherwise. But, being recently out of school and in an area where I didn’t have any family or old friends, I did find myself feeling a bit short on social time.

It turned out to be a group I really enjoyed being with. They did exposition for an hour or so then had structured social time - you got to know people, but the idea was to discuss a particular faith-related topic. Folks from the group also played sports together.

My new area has a group that seems a bit more like a disguised dating service. It’s still a faith-centered group, but most of what they do is Mass and then dinner. It somehow doesn’t seem as “spiritual”. Maybe it’s because the social time is spent at a restaurant instead of in a church, and the topics for discussion aren’t necessarily faith-centered?

A new development

2007-09-28T21:56:00.001-05:00

So, like many single Catholics, I attend a Catholic young adult group. This group has Mass on Tuesdays, music for which is currently provided by a couple of guys with guitars. (I don’t mean to paint a derogatory picture by that description - it is what it is.)

I had the idea (since I’d probably be fired for it in my own parish where I work) of starting a chant group for this Mass. There is a not-insubstantial element of tradition-friendly Catholicism among the young adult crowd in my area, so I figured I would snag enough folks to start something. Perhaps ironically, two of the guys I got are the guitar players!

Right now I am trying to find a time when we can meet. Beyond that, though, I am wondering about repertoire.

Obviously, the Graduale Romanum is one ideal, if not *the* ideal. The Graduale Simplex is another option. I think By Flowing Waters might be our first step, though. And/or, the Anglican Use Gradual.

I don’t think this will be a full-blooded “choir” - though who knows.

Why it is hard to respect our elders....

2007-09-28T21:43:00.000-05:00

Or at least, an example thereof:

The liturgical reform of Vatican II suppressed the distinction between the low Mass and the sung Mass in order to open to [sic] the door to “the full, conscious and [sic] active participation” of the assembly (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy 14).

(Joseph Gélineau Liturgical Assembly, Liturgical Song)

....and if we check the CSL §14, we find this hard-hitting denouncement of the distinction between sung and spoken Masses:

14. Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.

In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work.

Yet it would be futile to entertain any hopes of realizing this unless the pastors themselves, in the first place, become thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy, and undertake to give instruction about it. A prime need, therefore, is that attention be directed, first of all, to the liturgical instruction of the clergy. Wherefore the sacred Council has decided to enact as follows:

......

Am I missing something? Where does that paragraph do away with sung/spoken Masses?

And I could go on by bringing in Musicam sacram and (IIRC) elements of the GIRM that recall the distinction. But I won’t. I am tired of this stuff. I bought a book by Gélineau so I wasn’t just reading Schuler and disciples, but it’s so chock full of propaganda and twisted thinking that I can’t get through it.

25 OT--Year C

2007-09-27T09:20:00.000-05:00

25 OT--C

Processional: Tietze Introit hymn

Psalm: Gelineau

Offertory: Si ambulavero (cantor)

Communion: Tu mandasti (chant) w/fauxbourdon (Viadana)
Ave Verum Corpus (Mozart)

Recessional: From all that dwell below the skies (DUKE STREET)

I panicked on Wednesday and cut the Isaac setting of the Communion, Tu Mandasti. We hadn't had hardly any rehearsal time with it and a great number of the choir members were going to be absent on Wednesday. The piece is just too tricky to throw together.

BTW, Prof. Mahrt showed us one setting of an Isaac Communio. Basically, Isaac took most of the Communio's and set them to polyphony, often (always?) using the chant melody as a cantus firmus. I love the idea of singing these settings in between repetitions of the chant itself. There are stumbling blocks, though; this style of polyphony is not very amateur-friendly, and the fact that I can't find any editions anywhere (I went to his complete works in our music library and punched "Tu Mandasti" into Lilypond.) was a deterrent. Anyway, these are definitely worth looking into . . . I wish someone would take it upon themselves to get all those put into a program and post them at CPDL.

So as a back-up, we whipped up the Mozart, which most of my choir can sing in their sleep. A couple run-throughs and it was ready to go. They sang it very well.

I was most pleased with the Communion chant. As I may have mentioned, I'm trying something a bit different this year with the Communios. Last year, I rotated men and women from week-to-week. I'd let one gender leave rehearsal early and then the other would stay behind to learn the Communio. This year, I've had everyone stay and learn the chant and sing it on Sunday. Mixing in the fauxbourdons, this is how we do them on Sunday:

Antiphon (all)
Verse (cantor)
Antiphon (men)
Verse (cantor)
Antiphon (women)
Verse (cantor)
Antiphon (men)
Gloria Patri (all w/fauxbourdon)
Antiphon (all)

It's worked out well so far, and it seems that the choir is singing the chant with confidence as they are now able to learn it with a bigger, mixed group, and they're getting twice as much exposure to it (though no one gets to leave early, much to some people's chagrin, I'm sure : )

I've also made it a point to take a more pedagogical approach to the chant this year. We've spent more time exploring the make-up of the various modes and the differences between them. Last year, I basically taught them by call-and-response: I'd sing a phrase, they'd sing it back to me. Now, I usually make them sight-read it (after preparing them somewhat by introducing the mode, range, etc.) and we'll clean things up as we go along. Seems to be working . . .

Choral Praise Comp 2: Grr!!!

2007-09-20T14:37:00.000-05:00

Ok, there are things to like here. It is an improvement over CPC1 in many ways, but two GLARING problems present themselves:

1) Non-alphabetical order of hymns, so now people REALLY have to look at the index to find the number (which, of course, corresponds to NO other published resource).

2) Hillert “Festival Canticle” is not there, apparently a victim of its not being popular enough for CPC2, albeit still popular enough for Breaking Bread.

Seriously, if “Abba, Father!” and “Only a Shadow” are still popular enough, but this big, bad, and beautiful piece isn’t, that is something to lament.

EDIT: Apparently “The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns” and “Jerusalem, My Happy Home” were also casualties; at least these, though, are public domain.

24 OT-- Year C

2007-09-19T11:57:00.000-05:00

24 OT--C

Processional: Tietze Introit

Psalm: Gelineau

Offertory: I Will Arise (Creighton)

Communion: Dico Vobis w/Viadana fauxbourdon

Recessional: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty

I spent a lot of time putting the assigned Tietze text into WINCHESTER NEW (On Jordan's Bank) since I wasn't thrilled with the melody in the book (don't have the melody name in front of me). Unfortunately, I gaffed and put last week's melody in the worship aid so all the work was for naught. Is a Proper text still preferred when it's a week late? : )

The Creighton is nice, though not earth-shattering. It's the only piece I've come across by this composer; he lived in the midst of the Baroque period, but this setting has a "stile antico" feel about it. Very appropriate for the Sunday as the text is lifted right out of the Gospel. Choir did a nice job with it.

It was a relief to have Dico Vobis assigned for this Sunday (text also from the Gospel). The first three Communios we've done with the choir have been long and tricky. Dico was a good one to break in our new members, all unfamiliar with chant notation. We gave it a run alternating between the genders and I was pleased overall. I'm digging the fauxbourdon at the end as well; gives it a little "spice", if you will. : )

Haugen “Shepherd Me, O God”

2007-09-16T19:49:00.000-05:00

I don’t quite get the emotional attachment that many people have to this one’s being sung as a responsorial psalm at Mass.

I thought my parish’s liturgy director and I had settled this question in favor of using approved texts for responsorial psalms. But, today here she went again with “we’ve used it so much; one more time won’t hurt us.” UUGH!

I actually don’t terribly mind it musically. I hear it sung pretty ungracefully with frequency, but a cantor who knows how to sing with a good legato can make this one sound quite nice.

Maybe I should buy her a Gregorian Missal for a Christmas present. :) She doesn’t seem comfortable with the degree to which she knows VERY little about the chant propers versus how I am, well, getting there. I would know them better if I were able actually to use them with any frequency, but I do consult the Graduale Romanum pretty frequently, so I am getting a pretty good handle on at least the texts of the chants.

For instance, a couple surprises:
1) It really is not infrequent to have fragments of the same psalm, sometimes even the same fragment, used at the same Mass. (cf. 1st Sunday of Lent)

2) Psalm 23 is not prominent in the funeral liturgy. (I suspect it’s an element of Protestant worship that we have subsumed?)

Since I can’t have a well-done Ordinary Form, can I have the Extraordinary?

2007-09-16T19:37:00.001-05:00

Scelata over at Scelata makes an excellent point in a recent post:

-----------
But now, praise Benedict and the motu proprio, I am at least entitled to ask for that, whereas I am not entitled to ask for the Ordinary Form with the Ordinary sung in Latin.
Or the Ordinary Form with the priest facing ad orientem. Or the Ordinary Form with no jokes. Or the Ordinary Form without being asked to squawk Lord of the Dance. Or the Ordinary Form without a glad-handing rotary convention inserted where the Pax Christi is offered. Or the Ordinary Form where no adolescent in a football jersey will address me from the sanctuary. Or the Ordinary Form with no mention of Jambalaya or sports enthusiasms.

So I am asking for the Extraordinary Form.
And my aspirations are rightful.
-----------

I am blessed not to have seen much along the line of Jambalaya or sports at Sunday Mass, but I sure do wish I could request use of ad orientem. Latin would be nice, but honestly, it is less of a priority for me.

We all know (or at least SHOULD know) about Pope Benedict’s writings on ad orientem. Given that Summorum Pontificum is, in many respects, a fulfillment of a vision set out by the late Msgr. Klaus Gamber, and given the Pope’s agreement with Gamber (and, AFAICT, every serious liturgist who really examines the question objectively) on the ad orientem issue, might we see something written by His Holiness in the not-too-distant future?

23 OT--Year C

2007-09-14T22:01:00.000-05:00

23 OT

Processional: Tietze Introit (OLD 100TH)

Psalm: Gelineau

Offertory: Jesu Dulcis Memoria (Victoria)

Communion: Vovete w/fauxbourdon

Recessional: O God, Our Help in Ages Past

We made our last recruiting push this weekend so I threw a bit more at the choir so as to . . . well, show-off a bit (in a humble way, of course : ). In addition to the usual choir-only stuff (acappella doxology in the Introit, Offertory motet, chanted Communio), we also did the following:

1. Incorporated the harmonies in the middle section of the "Community Mass" Gloria.

2. Fauxbourdon for the Gospel Acclamation verse.

3. Descants for the "Comm. Mass" Eucharistic acclamations.

4. SATB fauxbourdon for the Doxology at the end of the Communion chant.

It was a lot more than normal, and we nearly ran out of rehearsal time before mass (which rarely happens); but it was worth it. The choir rose to the challenge and sang wonderfully! I had five new faces at rehearsal on Wednesday (though it appears only about 2 will actually work out).

I think I may try to do the fauxbourdons every week now; I can just re-use them, so when we have all 8 modes under our belt, they'll be a breeze. The GA verses are just too much for me to work up every week; I'l probably get some ready for Advent, Lent, and Easter and the occasional college "Feast Day" (Homecoming, Dad's Day, etc.).

By the way, are there any resources out there with harmonized GA verses? (I know about "Respond and Acclaim")

A great (but obscure) Howells piece

2007-09-10T10:30:00.001-05:00

“Like as the Hart” is probably Herbert Howells’s most famous piece of choral music. It was published in a collection of 4 anthems that also included the well-known “O pray for the peace of Jerusalem”.

Two, though, of these four anthems are not available anymore from Oxford. A reseller might tell you that they are out of print, since Oxford no longer sells them. They are “We have heard with our ears” and “Let God arise”.

The title of the latter caught my eye, since after finding the connection that the Gregorian chant texts evince between Psalm 68 and Ascension and Pentecost, I have been kinda keeping my eye out for settings based on this psalm.

So, an inquiry to Oxford got me transferred and transferred around until I was finally referred to Banks Music Publications. Lo and behold, these people do sell new copies of this anthem - and it’s expensive as sin, probably because of low demand for it.

Anyway, I asked them to fax me a sample copy of it so I could look at it before ordering it. Verdict: it is AWESOME. It’s a crime that this one isn’t better known, IMO. The opening has this über-gutsy statement of “Let God arise, and let His enemies be scattered; let them also that hate Him flee before Him” - and from there it just gets better.

The only caveat, besides the price, is that it’s long - probably 7-8 minutes or so. I’ll try the Stanford mentioned in my last post on All Saints before I try this one. (There is also the fact that I lose so many choir members during Easter season to travel plans....alas.)

Incidentally, “Let God Arise” is £2.65 each, which currently is about $5.38. Ouch! BMP does also have “We have heard with our ears” (£1.85), but I don’t know anything about that piece.

Fall choral highlights at my parish

2007-09-10T10:05:00.001-05:00

Here are some of the nicer pieces we are working on this fall:

Stanford Ps. 150 (CPDL)
Funny, I went through 2 years of grad school for conducting, and we never spent even a minute on directing Anglican choral chant.

Barnard “If God is Building When We Build”
(St. James Music Press, Sunday by Sunday II)
Well-suited, actually, to this past Sunday. Easy if your folks know LAND OF REST.

Bell “Let All Mortal Flesh” (GIA)
Very easy arrangement, but a wicked-cool last verse where the organ has all these funky chords against the unison melody. Also good for teaching the melodic minor scale.

Weaver “Ave verum” (St. James Music Press, Sunday by Sunday II)
Very pretty setting that is also easy. This piece alone is worth the $55 for the Sunday by Sunday II collection from St. James. (Hat tip to Gavin for making me aware of this publisher!) Head over to sjmp.com and give it a listen.

Englert “The Lord is My Light” (GIA)
A more challenging piece, but nice.

Stanford “And I Saw Another Angel” (CPDL)
This one’s a big long, but not hard, and a fun sing. Very dignified.

Howells “My Eyes for Beauty Pine” (Oxford)
This should be a very easy teach, since it’s unison and basically just the same melody three times, but it also reinforces the singers’ ability to count.

Hogan “Hear My Prayer” (Hal Leonard)
I am usually not big on Afro-American spirituals in the liturgy. Part of it is a “gut sense”, I guess, that while many enjoy singing and hearing this music, it isn’t culturally how we express the awesome and the truly sacred. This piece is an exception, though, I think - it’s clear in its eschatological reference, and it’s more subdued.

Josquin (attr.) “Tu pauperum” (my own edition)
I would love to know something of the origin of this text, but alas, I haven’t had time to research it. A wonderful piece - albeit one that, IIRC, we now think was not written by Josquin. It’s the secunda pars of a motet called “Magnus es tu, Domine”, btw, but the first part is really boring. I mean, like, don’t even bother.

Smith “Choral Fanfare for Christ the King” (GIA)
Short, extroverted, and simple. Love it.

Handel “Worthy is the Lamb / Amen” (my arrangement)
I came up with this in college - an arrangement that, after the initial “Worthy is the Lamb” movement, cuts out the “Blessing and honor”, then skips from after the soprano entrance in the Amen to the last major bass/trumpet entrance. It works well, actually - yes, I know how cool the “Blessing and honor” is, but I just don’t have the time I would need to put it all together.

Gamber vs. B16

2007-09-09T21:52:00.000-05:00

It is well-known that Pope Benedict XVI has written approvingly of the work of liturgical scholar Msgr. Klaus Gamber. He even wrote the preface to the French edition of Msgr. Gamber’s “The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background”.

I am reading through this work of Gamber’s, and a very salient contrast between the thoughts of the two men has just hit me:

GAMBER: Given that the liturgical reforms of Pope Paul VI created a de facto new rite, one could assert that those among the faithful who were baptized according to the traditional Roman Rite have the right to continue following that rite; just as priests who were ordained according to the traditional Ordo have the right to exercise the very rite that there were ordained to celebrate.
(Gamber, p39, footnote)

POPE BENEDICT XVI: The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the 'Lex orandi' (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same 'Lex orandi,' and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church's Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church's 'Lex credendi' (Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite.
(motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, §1)

Am I splitting hairs here, or does the Pope here express a view that contrasts sharply with Gamber? The Pope asserts that these are two forms of one rite, while Gamber maintains that they are separate rites, not to be commingled?

Another, albeit weak, example: elsewhere in Gamber’s book (p91), though he does envision readings in the vernacular, the author specifically dismisses the idea of using the post-V2 Order of Readings (i.e. the Lectionary) in the pre-V2 Mass....a practice which many, even bishops, believe that Summorum Pontificum explicitly condones. (I disagree with that reading, btw - I think B16 had in mind that new vernacular translations of the Scripture passages of the traditional Missal would be prepared. Trying to mix the 1981 Order of Readings with the 1962 Missal, with their different calendars and different numbers of readings per Mass, is surely a mess.)

Actually, there is an implicit dismissal in Gamber of the idea of bringing propers from the post-V2 Mass into the pre-V2 form; surely the author would have considered the concept, and his insistence that the “two rites” be maintained separately implies a disapproval of the very commingling that the Pope has recently recommended in the motu proprio.

22 OT--C

2007-09-07T06:40:00.000-05:00

22 OT--Year C

Processional: Joyful, Joyful

Psalm: Gelineau

Offertory: My Eyes for Beauty Pine (Howells)

Communion: Memorabor (Chant)

Recessional: How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds (ST. PETER)

Labor Day weekend is always tough because so many students go home. I had about half my regular choir numbers, including 1 soprano and 1 alto! Fortunately, I planned ahead and selected the Howells, which is mostly unison with one short 4-part section. It went very well as did the Memorabor (though the compilers of the Gregorian Propers apparently didn't have a college semester schedule in mind when planning the communions; De Fructu and Memorabor are not easy!).

revised “O Come, O Come”

2007-09-05T21:59:00.001-05:00

As many of us are probably thinking ahead to Advent around this time, I thought I’d point out the work of an unnamed person here who has rewritten “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” to be more in keeping with how he reads V2’s Nostra ætate:

http://www.bc.edu/research/cjl/meta-elements/texts/cjrelations/resources/education/OCE_commentary.htm

I dunno. I’m not a theologian, but I have a hard time buying this one. The words are kinda trite besides. But, interesting that someone did this.

Good organ-based vernacular congregational communion music?

2007-09-02T21:26:00.001-05:00

Hi folks,

For those who read this blog, I would appreciate your input on what could be said to constitute good organ-based music that is suitable for communion and has a congregational refrain with vernacular lyrics.

Some that pop into my mind are:

Gift of Finest Wheat (Kreutz)
I Received the Living God (Proulx)
Bread of Life (Farrell)*
Taste and See (Dean)
Festival Canticle: Worthy is Christ (Hillert)

^*Yes, I know, Bernadette Farrell. She’s written a lot of garbage, but I do like this one, at least for its melody. The lyrics, admittedly, are a bit sunshine-y.

The background for this pondering is the discussion about communion music in the comments to PT’s last blog post. I came to realize that, when I was around PT’s current church, one reason the “organ Mass” did not have the congregation sing during communion is that the hymnal they used, Worship II, had almost no responsorial music. It seems the bulk of our responsorial music we use in the liturgy is, unlike most “hymns”, of fairly recent vintage - generally, after Vatican II. It also seems to be largely Catholic in its origin - the Hillert notwithstanding - whereas most of the “hymns” we sing from hymnals such as Worship are of Protestant origin.

EDIT: Add Hurd “Ubi caritas” to this list - thanks, Copernicus!

Nice Epiphany motet

2007-08-29T10:57:00.001-05:00

J. Clemens non Papa “Magi videntes stellam”

I love CPDL. :)

21 OT

2007-08-27T11:45:00.000-05:00

21 OT--2007

Processional: Incline Your Ear (RHOSYMEDRE) (Introit Hymns for the Church Year--Tietze)

Kyrie: Community Mass

Gloria: Comm. Mass

Psalm: Gelineau

Gospel Acclamation: Chant

Offertory: Exspectans Exspectavi (chant--cantor)

Sanctus: Comm. Mass

Memorial Acclamation: Comm. Mass

Amen: Comm. Mass

Our Father: chant (Snow)

Agnus Dei: Comm. Mass

Communion: De fructu
Ave Verum

Recessional: To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King

I was very excited to start another with my choir. All the students are back, classes are in full swing, and I have a fine group to start the year with. It's always tricky, though, at the beginning of the year before any new recruits come in: you've lost people to graduation so you're trying to recruit with smaller ranks. My group did a fine job though. I'm very fortunate.

We're going to give the Tietze hymns another go; we're not to the point where we can do a non-congregational Introit (at least outside of Advent/Lent), and I like to remain pseudo-faithful to the Proper texts if at all possible. We sing the doxology acappella with the choir alone; it's important to let the congregation know that we're up there!

De fructu is not the ideal communio with which to begin the year. It's long, and has a few tricky spots near the end. We did it mixed (which I don't like) for security, but we'll drop that practice in the next few weeks when we grow a little (fingers crossed) and the choir re-familiarizes itself with the chant notation. They actually did a great job with it, but we really spent quite a bit of time with it in rehearsal . . . I'm going to try to give a little more time to the chants this year, as we sometimes prepared them in haste before mass last year.

The Elgar went fine; I have a nice core of sopranos to carry those lines and they did a solid job. We'll break out some polyphony in a couple weeks, but I wanted to start out with something easier and familiar to build some confidence.

A very nice article on the Extraordinary Form from NPM

2007-08-27T10:20:00.000-05:00

NPM has a good article in the latest Pastoral Music Notebook that describes music in the solemn Mass according to the Missal of 1962. It seems to me quite free of polemical rhetoric; instead, we just have a straightforward description of how music works in the old rite, with a concluding aviso about the differences in the liturgical calendars. Check it out.

More on choral harmonies and congregational singing

2007-08-26T17:37:00.000-05:00

See, I am not the first one to notice this problem:

A certain number of settings have been
composed, simple in form and low in pitch, so that
the congregation, besides following, can reproduce
the top part when they have succeeded in picking it
up from frequent repetition. This is unsatisfactory
and unfair to the choir-who are an entity in themselves,
and are not only leaders of the congregation because
the trebles and generally the other choralists
are singing in the ineffective range of their respective
voices. It is also inartistic, inasmuch as the treble part
will be doubled in octaves with overwhelming force
if the congregation are doing their duty, and all
pretence of a choral balance will be at an end.
The problem really is how to combine artistically
the voices of a congregation singing in octaves
in the limited range of from about D to D with
the harmony of a choir singing in the effective
range of the respective voice parts. It is now
intended to show how this can be solved.

(S. Royal Shore, “A New Form of Choral Composition”, The Musical Times, 1 June 1919)

The ensuing discourse basically shows unison melodies in alternation with or independent of the choral parts.

I am really looking forward to trying out the Victoria Conditor alme siderum in alternatim with the congregation. I think this may be a nice new direction for my parish music program - heh, now if I can find alternatim settings of all the other congregational hymns we sing. :)

Assistance

2007-08-07T22:13:00.000-05:00

Any advice for the chant neophyte?

http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2007/08/i-dream-of-chanting.html

Colloquium follow-up

2007-08-06T10:34:00.000-05:00

1. I have updated this post in response to a concerned e-mailer who thought I was being a bit unjust in my critique. I hope this is a satisfactory conclusion to the discussion. If one of the CMAA folks would like to go a little more in-depth concerning the Chamber Choir situation in the combox, that may be worthwhile.

2. I'm pumped that the Colloquium is moving to Chicago next year! The drive time is cut considerably for me, assuming I can come next year. Great move CMAA!

3. I forgot to mention the best part of the Colloquium in my previous post. During one of the Schola rehearsals, I had to excuse myself to use the restroom. On my way back, I stopped outside in the hallway and heard the most wonderful sound. I heard the melodious singing of the Men's Schola but that was combined with the equally-as-melodious singing of the Women's Schola who was located in the next classroom over. They were singing different chants, in a different mode, in a similar tempo, but it was incredible! The pitch levels were combatible and the mix of consonance and dissonance interweaving throughout those long lines was absolutely breathtaking. I would have given anything to have a recording of it . . .

The moral of the story: That is how liturgical polypony should be. That "piece" was a true outgrowth of our beloved Gregorian chant. No doubt that the polyphony of the Renaissance (which I adore, mind you) grew from the model of chant, but much of that music either uses the chant as a cantus firmus (in unrecognizably long notes), or ignores the chant altogether, using the text and the "spirit" of the chant as a vehicle for their compositional prowess. (I guess I'm speaking more of later renaissance compositions)

So composers, how about some polyphonic writing in this style with chant as the basis. Men singing the chant line, women singing a counter-melody which is thematically related or vice-versa; 4-part writing with voices switching off with the chant melody phrase-by-phrase with voices coming in and out of the texture.

Is anyone writing like this? If not, why not? Any takers?

“Musical material of itself is neutral.”

2007-08-05T22:22:00.001-05:00

I just received a copy of “Sacred Music and Liturgy Reform After Vatican II” (ed. J. Overath) through Amazon Marketplace. Basically what it presents is the proceedings of the Fifth International Church Music Congress in Milwaukee, held in August 1966. It’s interesting to read what many (certainly not all) prominent musicians were saying in the couple of years prior to the promulgation of the Missal of Paul VI.

One particular quote deserves mention, an excerpt from the Resolution on the Use of Profane Music in Worship (183):

Musical material is of itself neutral. The distinguishing mark of music as something profane somes from the use which men make of the musical materials and their connection with certain realms of life. Music is considered profane because of the responsive images and feelings that it evokes from men. Music which readily conjures up in men’s minds a juke-box, a piano bar[,] or frivolous entertainment is not appropriate for the liturgical realm.

That first sentence is key: Musical material is of itself neutral. I find myself wanting to play devil’s advocate here and look for ways by which one could argue that Josquin’s polyphonic works might have an intrinsic liturgical merit that is lacking in the music of Harry Connick Jr., to cite a popular artist whose work I find to be of high artistic caliber.

quick amendment: “Domus mea”

2007-08-05T15:47:00.000-05:00

As noted earlier, “Domus mea” is indicated for communion for the 20th Sunday of OT in year A in the Graduale Romanum but not in the Roman Ordo cantus Missæ. I didn’t notice this earlier, but this chant, taken from Matthew 21:13, is also a reference to the Old Testament reading for this day.

I wonder if this and the “Qui vult venire” case, also noted previously, are instances of connections between the chants and readings not being noticed “in time” to make it into the OCM, so Solesmes felt inclined to add these connections.

Good stuff: Saint-Saëns Requiem

2007-07-31T14:53:00.000-05:00

Check it out on CPDL.

Very different in character from the more popular Mozart and Fauré settings, this one strikes me as being overtly liturgical. The choral parts are easy, yet there is plenty of musical interest (check out the “Tuba mirum”). No brass or timpani are in the scoring (according to Kalmus online, anyway).

I’d love to see this one get done more often. If there is a case to be made for use of full liturgical Requiem settings, I think Saint-Saëns is a much better example with which to argue than Berlioz, Mozart, Fauré, or Verdi.

Duruflé - not sure here. ISTM this is kind of a hybrid liturgical/concert setting.

Rubbish in the NYT

2007-07-29T06:41:00.000-05:00

I mean, not that it’s a terrible surprise, but anyway.

“Clueless in New York” rails on Latin (apparently oblivious to what SumPon really means):
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/opinion/29sun3.html?ex=1343361600&en=383cec8e9a637a38&ei=5089&partner=rssyahoo&emc=rss

Be it resolved: the right tempo of Hillert “Festival Canticle”

2007-07-27T12:44:00.001-05:00

Lutherans have, I believe, sung this one to death since the late 1970s. It’s interesting to observe the various tempi used, though - some places are literally twice as fast as others are.

Here is what I think is a very nice tempo for this (IMO) very majestic-sounding song:
http://www.litpress.org/mp3s/feast.mp3

(I have heard it sung almost twice as fast!)

I do know the conductor of the recording (J. Michael Thompson), and I would be surprised if he did not confer with Hillert on tempos, especially since it comes from an anthology recording of Hillert’s works.

Two very nice OCP titles

2007-07-26T20:34:00.001-05:00

Yes, you read that heading correctly.

OCP has a label called “Trinitas” under which they publish some really nice
choral repertoire.

A couple examples:

David Hurd O How Amiable (Ps. 84:1-6)

Colin Mawby The Light of the Trinity (text by St. Ambrose)

Both of the above links are to the full octavo in downloadable preview. (Mawby is a very well-known British composer.)

These are, alas, both beyond what I feel comfortable giving to my church choir. But, maybe some of you out there have more resources than I for doing this stuff.

EDIT: All of the Trinitas titles are listed in the following link. Several of them have web previews:
http://www.ocp.org/octavos/category/7

Another nice-looking one is the “Four Advent Antiphons”, which sets all of the Sunday Advent introits to what seems a modern polyphonic idiom - not as “intense” as Palestrina, but more accessible and making use of the still-official English translations from the Missal.

Dear CMAA: Where did those communion psalm verses come from?

2007-07-26T17:00:00.001-05:00

CMAA has on its web site a number of communion chants with psalm verses.

For a large majority of these, the origin is clear, spelled out in the Ordo cantus Missæ (though CMAA apparently went off Solesmes’s 1974 Graduale Romanum, which has a few typos noted here earlier).

Could someone from CMAA please post here, though, the origin of psalm verses for such chants as “Unde huic” and “Intellege”, which are not given psalm verses in the Ordo cantus Missæ and do not even appear in the 1974 Graduale?

Summorum Pontificum and Dies iræ

2007-07-26T16:19:00.000-05:00

Quick thought - now that the pre-V2 and the post-V2 forms of the Roman Rite are officially to be regarded as more or less “complementary”, a peculiar situation is created concerning Dies iræ.

As most of us know, this hymn is a sequence in the 1962 Missal. It is not found in the post-V2 Missal, though all four of the other sequences from the 1962 Missal are.

Jeffrey Tucker at TNLM (check the links on the right) asked a few weeks back about the potential for reintegrating parts of the 1962 Missal into the modern Mass. Jeff talked about offertory prayers and the Last Gospel - these, I would think, are something of a stretch because their being removed/replaced was a more decisive act, and introducing these into the modern Mass would be a bit “messy”, since nothing in the modern Missal envisions anything like Last Gospel, and (IIRC) the modern Missal has its own texts that take the place of the offertory prayers.

But the case is different with Dies iræ. Here is a removed text whose spot is indeed in place in the modern Mass. The rubrics account for texts of its genre in a specific location.

So, I will update my stance on DI in the modern Mass: I still would regard it as contrary to liturgical norms, but it is an absurdity for the norms not to permit the sequence in one form of the Mass but to forbid it (albeit implicitly) in the other.

(Of course, another absurdity comes into sight soon: the U.S. Lectionary has a responsorial psalm refrain on 18OT-c that comes from Ps. 95, with verses from Ps. 90. This is because the 1969 Ordo lectionum Missæ used Ps. 95 for both verses and refrain, while the 1981 OLM uses Ps. 90 - and the 1998 U.S. Lectionary botched the change.)

Congregational singing when printing was expensive

2007-07-26T15:48:00.001-05:00

When printing was expensive, and there weren’t pews with hymnals, how did congregations sing hymns?

Consider, too, literacy - how many Christians through the centuries have been literate?

(I think this idea bears repeating - vernacular Scripture translations in the Renaissance could not have “opened the Scriptures to the masses” unless the masses were literate....which, as I recall learning, they generally weren’t.)

I think of Bach BWV78, where JSB uses four different verses of the hymn (in different places - mvts. 1, 3, 5, and 7). How well did how much of Bach’s largely illiterate (correct??) congregation know all of those verses? Were the quotations just for the composer’s own edification (not an entirely absurd idea, considering the didactic natures of the never-published Mass “in B Minor” and the Art of the Fugue), or did Bach really target a certain segment (however large) of his congregation that actually recognized the quotations?

I mean, these aren’t verse 1, 2, 3, and 4. This is, like, verse 1, half of verse 4, half of verse 9, and verse 12. Yes, *12*! Some of those hymns have 30+ verses!!

And, when did congregations begin to sing in parts? Was it new in the 19th century?

B16: choir recruiter’s best friend

2007-07-23T07:28:00.001-05:00

...and this just weeks before I intend to do a recruting drive. Have I mentioned that I love this man? :)

http://zenit.org/article-20190?l=english

Pope: Choral Singing Educates for Peace

Calls It Training for Life

LORENZAGO DI CADORE, Italy, JULY 22, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI says that choral singing is an authentic education in life and peace, and an exercise in the "hearing of the heart."

The Pope said this Friday following a concert in his honor performed by Alpine choirs at the Castle of Mirabello, near where he is vacationing until July 27.

"Training in singing, in singing in choir, is not only an exercise of the external hearing and voice; it is also an education of interior hearing, the hearing of the heart, an exercise and a education in life and peace," the Holy Father said in his improvised remarks.

"Singing together in choir and with other choirs together, demands attention to the other, attention to the composer, attention to the conductor, attention to this totality that we call music and culture. And," he added, "in this way singing in choir is a training in life, a training in peace, a walking together."

Seven different choirs from Cadore participated in the concert, offered by Bishop Giuseppe Andrich of Belluno-Feltre.

Before the beginning of the concert, Bishop Andrich spoke of the dramatic stage of the First World War in which the Dolomites were also a theatre.

The Pope too spoke of those dramatic moments "when this mountain was a barrier, a terrible and bloody theatre of war."

"Let us thank the Lord because there is peace now in our Europe and let us do everything to make peace grow in us and in the world," he urged. "I am certain that precisely this beautiful music is a commitment to peace and a help to live in peace."

“Before long, I knew all the prayers in Latin by heart....”

2007-07-21T14:01:00.000-05:00

I could admit a case that Ms. Murray is being polemical with some of her article here, but MUCHO BLESSINGS for that one phrase.

I am still reeling a bit from my email discussion where so many asserted that it would be impossible for them to learn the people’s parts of the Mass in Latin. I just don’t buy it. Fuff. Phah. It ain’t rocket science.

There is much else to be liked, as Fr. Z comments here.

Choral harmonies for congregational music

2007-07-21T07:24:00.000-05:00

I think most of us around here would agree that congregational singing, per se, is a good thing that ought to be cultivated. Let’s assume, for the sake of this discussion, that the practice of replacing the processional propers of the Mass (i.e. introit, offertory, communion) with congregational songs from Breaking Bread, Gather, et al is legit.

If we are to ask the congregation to sing, we might as well facilitate that as much as possible. Besides choosing congregation-friendly melodies (e.g. “I Received the Living God” or “Christ, Be Our Light”), the music ministry should support the congregation’s singing as much as possible. Right?

And into this swirling vortex of liturgical astuteness, I now posit the question of choral harmonies when the congregation sings.

In a standard four-part chorale, the congregation’s melody is in the soprano voice. This part, however, is NOT a true soprano part! It is a congregational part whose upper range generally should not go above D, with an occasional E-flat maybe. Thus, the “soprano” part is, instead, more like a “medium low” part. (And in some instances, even is more like an alto part - e.g. “One Bread, One Body”!)

Since the melody in the soprano voice sits lower than a real soprano part, this pushes the alto part down even lower than a typical choral alto line. Likewise, the tenor and bass parts are pushed down. I don’t know that that is so problematic for tenors, but for basses it can be a real issue. LOBE DEN HERREN, for example, depending on what key you’re singing, has all kinds of low Fs and Gs.

Now, low notes are not a problem in and of themselves. They often create a wonderful effect in choral music or even in solo music. But as any good composer for the voice knows, not as much sound comes out down there, so music that uses the low range of the voice tend to be quiet. Accompaniment is often thinned, with piano markings in orchestration.

This explains why a choir singing a 4-part congregational chorale, like LOBE DEN HERREN, will usually be quieter than when singing in unison: the altos and basses are usually singing in the part of their ranges where not as much sound comes out. This can create vocal problems, though, with an organ blaring (as it should!) to support the congregation’s singing.

If you’ve ever been to (or sung in) a performance of the Berlioz Requiem, you know the incredible “wall of sound” created when multiple hundreds of voices sing together. Shouldn’t this same thing happen in the Mass, though? Heck, my parish’s new church will hold almost 1,500 - can you imagine the sound if all of those people actually sang?? It would be stupendous. It would probably change lives.

And, it would completely drown out the choir’s pretty harmonies.

We live in a music-absorbing culture rather than a music-producing one. People are more accustomed to hearing music than to making it. A problem that I see with choral harmonies for congregational music is that it gives the congregation an incentive not to sing: if they sing, they won’t hear the choir harmonies.

Another thing to observe is that the sopranos must sit by in boredom while the other voices learn their harmony parts in rehearsal.

For these reasons, I personally would rather see a choir sing in unison whenever the congregation is expected to sing. It supports the congregation better, is better for everyone’s voices, and it won’t have you spending valuable rehearsal time on music for which you ostensibly hope the congregation will sing strongly such that they only hear the organ. It leaves you with more time for rehearing song that only the choir sings.

But, in most parishes, those kinds of songs are limited to the offertory; whereas the liturgy itself gives the choir much more freedom to sing its own part, the implementation effectively cripples that “duet” between choir and congregation.

So, my own choir members have not all taken well to my suggestion that they sing unison whenever the congregation sings, since this effectively relegates them to singing only offertories as the choir. My compromise, then:

1) New congregational music: All unison, all the time.

2) Familiar strophic hymns, which we use almost universally for entrance and recessional, are sung unison for the first and last verses. Middle verse harmonies are sung ad libitum and generally are not rehearsed.

3) Familiar responsorial songs, which we use regularly for communion, are sung unison on the first refrain and verse, with choral parts on refrains thereafter. These refrains we probably will rehearse; I figure it won’t take much time, and I see many congregants who, though they sing at other moments of the Mass, do not sing at communion, esp. after receiving.

In addition, I think we will try singing the Alleluia verse with the entire choir, in parts. (I continue to hope, too, that we can eventually try a short eucharistic motet at communion.)

Rough week

2007-07-21T06:49:00.000-05:00

In the same week:

* My dad came to visit and stayed with me all week. Not bad in and of itself, but it just brings up tensions and things that give me some trouble.

* I’ve been “putting out flames” about some discussions with my choir members on choral harmonies for congregational music. (More on that in another post.)

* Two choir members apparently set up a meeting with my supervisor concerning the congregational harmonies thing. (On which, as I will post later, you will see that I basically capitulated.) This is fine, except one of them is one with whom I work a fair amount. “Normally”, choir members should come to me directly with concerns unless they are uncomfortable coming to me; it was bothersome to see that this person is, in fact, uncomfortable with me. It made me feel untrusted and brought back the defensive feelings from another choir member telling me that some with whom she is in contact think I don’t really listen to people - and this after many instances, even in the 5 months I have been at the parish, of accommodating people’s feedback.

* The other choir member is one who, with her husband, left the choir in anger after the Easter Vigil. (Apparently they are planning to give me another chance, which makes me breathe a sigh of relief.) I don’t often take it very well when people become so upset with me, particularly when I feel (as, justified or no, I did) that so little has provoked it. Suffice it to say it was the worst I hope I ever feel after an Easter Vigil - which usually for me is an almost euphoric high. (WHY a Catholic, esp. without kids, would ever miss the Vigil is beyond me.) Anyway, that whole thing still makes me uneasy. She did, though, email the choir in support of the idea that “let’s all just reset and give this thing another try, since (Cantor) came in at such a strange time of the year”. (I started a week and a half before Ash Wednesday - yikes!)

* Another choir member in particular set up a meeting with me to discuss her issues. This is a choir member who compulsively gives you 30 minutes of background information. She is such a sweet lady that you just can’t (or, at least, I can’t) bring yourself to say, “get to your point, please”, but UGH.

* This same choir member related how she was very surprised when I told her what Vatican II really said about Latin. The choir was a little uneasy around Easter with an amount of Latin that, relative to what they had been given previously, was pretty abundant; this choir member thought it would interest many to know some of the rationale behind the retention of liturgical Latin. So, I shot off an email to the choir that gave CSL 36, CSL 54, MS 47, GIRM 41, and SacCar 62, then the following commentary:

The reasons why Vatican II’s expressed desire for congregations to sing and/or to speak in Latin was not heeded are mysterious and complex, and they certainly are WAY beyond the appropriate scope of an email. But a significant fact to bear in mind is that the term “Latin Mass” can accurately describe the *modern* Mass just as it describes the Mass as it was before Vatican II.

I have planned a good deal of the choir’s choral repertoire for the coming year; at this point, not much Latin is “on the plate”. (I do have in mind to sing the “O antiphons” in Latin at the Advent Lessons and Carols.) What Latin we do sing will be introduced early, with translations made available to the choir and, whenever possible, to the congregation.

As an aside, you may have heard of Pope Benedict’s liberalization of the pre-Conciliar Mass (i.e. “the old Latin Mass”) on July 7th. What this means is that any priest who so desires *may* (not “must”, or even “should”) now celebrate the Mass as it was before Vatican II. As you may expect, the number of priests who want to do so, *and* who know how, is very small, especially in the United States.

* This apparently didn’t sit well, for whatever reason, with the choir member who is/was upset with me, who had another meeting with my supervisor.

* Also, the day before, the supervisor, having been apprised of my email, ordered me to place her on the choir email list. She’s not in the choir, so I felt this was a bit inappropriate. The strange thing was, she told me she thought what I had written was ok, but at the same time was pretty clearly upset about it.

* At the same time as all this fun and goodness, I have been engaged in a defense of liturgical Latin (i.e. diversity with vernaculars, not to the exclusion of either) on an email list populated largely with people who are glad not to be praying in Latin except the occasional “Ubi caritas”. I think I’ve got a very good case, but I did not persuade many except “legalistically”. Finally I was informed that I was becoming “a bore”. Too many posts in too little time. Again, not something I take very easily - esp. given the conviction that I have concerning liturgical Latin.

ANYWAY. Reset. I just hope I won’t regret taking this job; I moved cross-country to come here, and it seemed such a nice prospect to work for a large parish. The strange thing is that I hear, and hear of, very few complaints from the congregation itself. I mostly deal with complaints from a few of the choir members. I think what bugs me the most is not being seen as trustworthy.....I guess that just will come with time.

Lilypond is really stupid

2007-07-19T10:11:00.000-05:00

I love open-source software. I regularly read slashdot.org. While I am a Windoze user, virtually everything I use regularly is open-source software, from Vim to OpenOffice.org to Firefox and Thunderbird to Pidgin. Open source software got me my first job out of college, where I was a network monitor and a programmer designing web applications with Perl.

Most stable open-source software that’s been around for a while is well-documented, and documented in ways that a programmer understands and appreciates. If, for example, one wants to see a list of functions available in PHP, you just go down to the function reference in the online manual, and voilà. If you want to see the syntax of a function, you can even go to http://php.net/(the function name), and boom, there it is, with usage examples and all.

Perl is much the same way, though without a centralized site that explains the language itself; instead, you buy a book from O’Reilly or take your chance with Google. (Usually a safe bet.) Or, Perl’s provided documentation works well, too. And certainly for using Perl modules, CPAN is a gem that explains everything in concise, clear terms. Lots of usage examples for the code that save buckets of time. (I don’t think I am the only programmer who learns more, and more quickly, from example code than from a prose explanation.)

The list goes on. MySQL has dev.mysql.com. Javascript has mozilla.org’s exaplanations and example code. The W3C DOM, HTML, and CSS all have w3.org’s specifications, which are surprisingly helpful. w3schools.com and other sites provide much help.

And then....*sigh*. There is Lilypond. A system for music notation designed by programmers who are also musicians. The output is very nice-looking usually, and you generally don’t have to spend the time futzing with making this note not overlap that note etc. that Finale makes you spend. It could be so nice.

But, you basically have to learn a programming language to use the thing. In other words, you don’t point-and-click notes/rests onto a staff the way you do with Finale; rather, you open up Notepad, Vim, emacs (God forbid!), or your other favorite text editor and create what is called a “source file”. The Lilypond program then takes that “source file” and turns it into a PDF that has your music in it.

That in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean there is a substantial learning curve. It also means there is no way to enter music via a MIDI keyboard, so it can take a while to enter a score. Again, not the worst thing, but it means the documentation should be helpful, as it is in the programming languages above described.

But the documentation for this thing is AWFUL. I mean BAD. If you want to look at a source for the various keywords and commands available to you, you are either a better geek than I, or you will search in vain ’cuz it ain’t there.

If you download the lilypond source for the Victoria “Conditor alme siderum” and then try to turn that source in the current Lilypond, it will tell you that this source file is for an old version of Lilypond, and you need to run a different program to update the file so that modern Lilypond knows what to do with it. Fine.

And....*barf*.

Lilypond will then tell you that it doesn’t know how to update this particular source file. A little bit of googling shows that certain commands are deprecated - of course, the Lilypond documentation doesn’t have a clear explanation, as any decent language would, of what the old command did and what has replaced it (preferably with sample code for both).

It took me several hours to figure out that what I needed to do was a mechanical update of the commands used for lyrics and an updating of the syntax for entering the lyrics themselves. This *could* have been done by the script. It *should* have been easy to find something on this in the documentation.

Oh well. At least the output is pretty. But I certainly can’t drop Finale, which lets me enter a score quickly (since I know it inside-and-out after 7 years now of using it) and in whose format I already have tons of music entered.

CPDL anthems for various days

2007-07-19T09:54:00.000-05:00

A few treasures I have found on CPDL that would be very appropriate for various days:

Marian days: Anerio or Grieg “Ave maris”

All Saints: Stanford “And I Saw Another Angel”

Christ the King: “Worthy Is the Lamb” from Messiah

Early Advent: various settings of “O Pray for the Peace” (i.e. Ps. 122), Victoria “Conditor alme siderum”

4th Advent:
any Ave Maria - I had in mind Elgar

Christmas Eve: “And the glory of the Lord” from Messiah (communion)
Christmas midnight: Hassler “Lætentur” (offertory)

Ash Wednesday: Lotti “Miserere”

Lent: Farrant “Lord, for thy tender mercies’ sake”, “Hide not Thou Thy face”, or “Call to Remembrance”

Palm Sunday / Good Friday: Anerio “Christus factus est” (gradual, BEFORE GOSPEL and not after first reading where the gradual usually goes)

Easter Vigil: Palestrina “Sicut cervus / Sitivit anima mea” (tract after Ezekiel reading, BUT you should resolve the slight text discrepancy between the chant text and the “Sitivit”)

Easter Sunday: Stanford “Why seek ye the living?”

Easter: Billings “Easter Anthem”

Ascension: Billings “Washington”
This piece could actually be easily adapted to any stanza of long meter.

Pentecost: Aichinger “Confirma hoc”

Body & Blood: Byrd or Mozart “Ave verum” - heck, tons of other settings of this text, too. Tallis “O sacrum” is nice if you have lots of altos.

Alas, the Anerio is apparently not up anymore. There is a MIDI, from which you could make a score, up at this site. Or email us, and I’ll send you a score.

I also have Victoria “Conditor” in English, for those interested. A nice thing to do with this, I am thinking, is to have the congregation sing the non-polyphonic verses.

St. James Music Press

2007-07-19T09:47:00.001-05:00

I need to echo Gavin’s erstwhile endorsement of St. James Music Press.

Their deal is that they give you, for $55, a book or CD that contains music for 25-ish anthems, with a reprint license for making AS MANY COPIES AS YOU WANT. Ever. Period. If you have a 40-member choir, using just one of the anthems more than pays for the cost. If you have 20 singers, using just two anthems pays for the cost.

Yes, there are costs of time and money with making the copies. BUT, the advantage here is that you can mark up the scores however you wish. Many in my own church choir want to be “hand-held” through any use of Latin, so this lets me write in both phonetic spellings and word-for-word translations.

A collection I purchased, and from which I plan to use several anthems this coming choir season, is the Sunday by Sunday Collection II. A particularly fine piece from it is, I think, the “Ave verum” of Geoff Weaver.

Another bonus is that you can listen to many of the pieces before you purchase a collection. Check out the Weaver.