7 Replies to “Interview with Adam Wood, reviewer of settings for new ICEL text”

  2. Thanks for the interview. Good to see him in the video. He has been quite a controversial figure in the forum I would say. (Maybe contemporary outside but traditional in his heart? 🙂
    And thank you for all the hard work reviewing the settings, very helpful indeed.

  3. Ah, to be young and so visceral is an ineffable joy.
    Adam, (so you know I'm not talking in the 3rd person like you're not in the room) there are layers upon layers of authentic perspectives concerning so many of the bullet points of your interview with Jeffrey.
    For example, just the brief little blurb about "troping the Agnus Dei" cannot simply be waved away as a non-issue for serious deliberation just upon prima facie, "black/white" legislation or "feeling." And that point was clearly driven home by a simple and direct observation of a functional "dilemma" between different utterances of the USCCB by Mike Joncas, who is no small intellect in these matters.
    And that brief aspect of the interview is what drives people like Todd Flowerday bonkers; and they have a valid point about a thorough grounding in liturgical history and contemporary praxis, and if we all are "liberal and progressive" as you have defined the term (in sync with the Holy Father) then we are obliged to be intellectually honest when saying "I think this ought to be "A" and not "B."
    The example you cite of the length of a Sanctus, I hope, will illustrate my concern-
    One cannot on grounds of time duration alone consign the validity of one setting versus another. (On a cosmological point, its duration is infinite, BTW.) But, if Haas' gospel setting (I've never heard it) has a distinguishable merit of artistic and liturgical unity of text and music, why would it be inappropriate to use it, but to endorse a polyphonic or classical Sanctus of even greater time duration?
    This is my freakin' progressive raisin duh-truh. We ought never to make generalizations about darn near anything concerning sacred and liturgical music genres and styles. Once you go out on that limb, you will have to contend with many other magpies on many other limbs whose voices are just as resolved as yours.
    OTOH, you have endeared yourself to me and many other geezers because you've done a service with the new and revised settings: reviewing them on their own merit, not upon other criteria.
    But again, if we debate and argue from any narrow perspective, we will trip over our tongues eventually by uttering a logical inconsistency.
    Keep up the good work.

  4. But I wouldn't program a long orchestral or polyphonic Sanctus at a normal OF liturgy, either.

    My issue with various Sanctus settings (and refrain-style Gloria settings, which also came up) is not some kind of ideological point about what should or should not be done: such statements are certainly beyond my authority, and probably beyond my competence. What I was saying, really, is that I find it tiresome personally, and I feel like (in the case of the overly-long Sanctus) like we have temporarily left the Mass and then have to come back to it. I certainly don't think there should be any rules or regulations prohibiting Gospel-music-styled Ordinary settings, or specifying the maximum length of a sung Sanctus.

    As to the Agnus Dei troping… I'm sorry. I just don't get it. The text is what the text is. Troping it with other Christological invocations opens up to saying whatever you want. (And, lets be clear, most parish "liturgy committees" are nowhere near as capable of coming up with appropriate tropes as Mike Joncas or Todd Flowerday.)

  6. >>(Maybe contemporary outside but traditional in his heart? 🙂

    I describe myself as "Progressive" and "Liberal" because it's the closest approximation to a description of my theological/liturgical beliefs as I can find. But as I said in the video, many of the practices (and beliefs) of the liberal/progressive establishment either annoy me, baffle me, or down-right make me crazy.
    (Conservatives and traditionalists also annoy me and make me crazy, but baffle me much less often.)

    I like to think of myself as a bridge-builder between the varying factions, but that might just be self-aggrandizement.

  7. The Mass setting referred to at 21:38 is "Mass of Grace" by Lisa Stafford.

Comments are closed.