ICEL has uploaded vast quantities of new links to music for the forthcoming Missal. My strong sense is that much of this is not in the current Missal. We might even get back the Vidi Aquam. I would be very interested in an analysis of what is here as compared with the current Missal. Glorious days are ahead.
9 Replies to “The Glorious Music in the New Missal”
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I hope, as I have expressed here on occasion, that bishops' conferences will oversee the production of a worthy hymnal that includes the propers, and that the music in the Missal (e.g. Preface Dialogue and other chanted acclamations and responses) will be included.
Without a theologically orthodox and musically solid "book in the pews", I fear that those who currently subject the Mass to every imaginable abuse will, yet again, simply sidestep the opportunity to be faithful to singing the Mass as it should be sung. A well worded introduction containing the Church's official understanding of the nature of the Mass would be advisable. At least then the person in the pew can read about what they are missing when the choir insists on presenting music that genuflects to Gaia but never mentions God by name.
The music is glorious …. the tinkering with the Preface TEXTS, however, which transformed the 2008 accurate and literate translation (mostly the work of the now-sacked Father Alan Griffiths) into Moroney-ese is regrettable. The improper use of "acclaim" remains in Preface after Preface. The First Coming/Second Coming contrast, so clear in the Latin and 2008, is lost. In the most ancient of the Lenten Prefaces, IV, 2008's accurate translation "vices" has been watered down to "faults", reminiscent of the "lame-duck" ICEL (for the important theological distinction between vices and faults, see The Catechism of the Catholic Church and then imagine the Pope's disappointment when someone dares point this out to him!). Preface Sundays in Ordinary Time VIII still has a 10 word clause separating "might" from "be," rendering the text incomprehensible. Preface I for the Dead has the old ICEL "life is changed not ended" when the Latin and 2008 say "not taken away." But Preface II for the Dead, so ridiculed on another blog for its "escape from dying" has at least been restored to the 2008 version. Reconciliation I's "bond of love" is still "so tight" – UGH. Again, I hope those who were rightly critical of the "lame-duck" ICEL will have the HONESTY and INTEGRITY to point out the multiple tinkerings afflicting this translation. Gruesome English set to lovely chant isn't what we waited forty years for!
Jeffrey;
I have done an initial comparison of the chants to be included in the New Missal with what is actually in the current Missal.
Not surprisingly, the old Missal contains musical notation for virtually all of the chants that correspond to what is to be included in the New Missal version. (I am comparing to the 1985 "Sacramentary" which we use at our parish).
That being said… there is really not much comparison between the two as far as musical quality (the new settings are infinitely better), and of course, the texts are so different that it cannot really be said that the chants in the old Missal and those in the new version are "the same chant" in any way other than their corresponding place in the book and a similarity of title.
The new Missal also presents the Latin original version if there is one (Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, Credo), which the old Missal did not.
But insofar as a one-to-one comparison, there is not much in the New Missal that is not also in the old. What remains to be seen is if any use will be made of the much better settings in the New Missal in anything resembling a regular fashion. The chants in the Old Missal were by and large ignored, with only the most basic texts ever being used, and then only rarely.
Chironomo, I don't have my missal handy but what about Asperges and Crux fidelis?
As for the problems with this book, I have no doubt that Anon is right, and I did my best to weigh in on this with the most public article in print on the topic, but you know what? It's done. The end result is infinitely better than that current Missal. And, you know, sometimes you just have to suck it up and move on. It is completely pointless to kvetch about this at this point.
"At least . . . ."
The purveyors of beauty surrender to the inevitability of mediocrity.
Vox Clara and your ambitious but unskilled accomplices, rejoice!
It is turning out just as you hoped it would.
Still, imagine when someone of integrity and honesty dares to show the Pope what has been done by those he trusted and empowered.
Jeffrey;
As best as I can tell, the Crux Fidelis in the 1985 book I have is given as a text only, as is also the "Hosanna to the Son of David" on Palm Sunday. I couldn't find a music setting of the Asperges, but I only had an hour and a half or so to devote to this this morning (during my break while the Folk Group Mass was going on…) and as you surely know, some of the chants are scattered throughout the book in various places although the bulk of them are in the "Order of Mass section in the middle of the book. One humorous comparison is to look at the "Holy Holy" in the Order of Mass in the 1985 book, a very awkward and rather amateur adaptation of the Mass XVI Sanctus. It's absolutely understandable why nobody ever used these settings…
That is what I expected. The current Missal guts the whole of the music tradition and is so riddled with musical typos that one can barely make sense of it. I don't recall any of these seasonal chants or even a decent sprinkling rite. If you can write something on your blog, maybe a chart, that would be great.
I've just looked at the (Latin) Vidi Aquam. What's happened to the porrectus on "dextro" and "dicent"? And where are the liquescents? The modern notation Kyriale in my Saint Andrew Daily Missal manages to convey them and its use of crotchets and quavers gives the shape of the chant much better than the notehead-and-slur arrangement used here.
Jeffrey;
I will see if I can somehow get the chart that I made converted to Excel or some postable form. As I said, the chants in the old missal and the new are similar only in title. They are musically and textually non-similar, so saying that "this is in the old and the new missal" is in no way a statement about continuity between the two!