Author: Mr. C

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Seven Days of Heaven, or a week in “Indie”

Photo courtesy of Charles Cole

I have a certain respect for the cultural assignation “indie.” Basically it’s a post-boomer rhetorical add-on to both the lexicon and parlance for artistic endeavors and projects un-beholden to “the man” or “the machine.” In filmdom and popular music is where one finds its most common usage. Directors like Gus Van Zant. Werner Herzog, John Sayles (to name but a few) and musicians such as Jewel, Kurt Cobain and Ani DiFranco distinguished their total independence from the artistic status quo and the requisite funding and handling that attends their respective industries. However, for the hundreds and even thousands of secular (and, who knows, sacred) “indie” artists who achieved acclaim on their own, by their own rules and inertia, most of them ended up integrating into the interdependence of the “machine” who recognized, funded and marketed their unique visions and voices so as to charm and enchant larger audiences to the spices and perspectives of their particular artistry to massive scales. It’s how this world works.

It is to this progression from independence (not liberty) to interdependence that occupies my heart this day after finally getting home from “Indy.” That and “jet lag” (four hour flight, hour to car from LAX, three hours to home and hugs, including total facial from senior French bulldog!) I was eight years ago almost disdainful of the attribution of “Seven Days of Musical Heaven” to the CMAA Colloquium. Seven years ago I decided to check out for myself this clever shill and then discovered true intra-dependence among the faculty and 100 attendees at the 2007 DC colloquium. Coming from a perspective informed both by independence (at the job level of teaching and parish) and corporate mindsets cultivated by NPM and ACDA, I had never before been swept away by the intra-dependence of absolute consensus about the “task at hand.” That, of course, was and remains the fit, right, universal, beautiful and (to the best of all abilities) sacred worship of our Creator by a manner of His creation: the art of music.

(Picking up essay Wednesday morning.) The first thing that comes to mind about the willingness and discipline involved in moving from independence to interdependence results from listening to one recording at Carl Dierschow’s website, the ubiquitous Mozart AVE VERUM CORPUS sung at our first Mass by all 250 of us at Indy under Horst. I personally was transfixed and transformed in those moments, not using the score at all. It was glorious and truly enthused. And you can hear that, feel that when listening to the mp3! Well, think about this: Carl wasn’t there, yet he gifts us by taking upon the compiling of our archives. (A bunch of other folks I love and respect weren’t physically there, but they can be because of Carl.) And no one then or at any other moment of the week engaged in what other groups call “showcases” at their confabs. Another moment flashed through my synapses- a particular moment when Dr. Buchholz asked assistance from his brilliant wife for unifying an incipit passage in the Requiem among the sopranos, addressing her as “Dr. Nam.” It was both so appropriate and so loving a gesture. And this was my first year with any meaningful encounters with Dr. Nam. She had heard of my bronchitis and made a point of checking upon me and asking me if I was aggressively treating the infection. Then later she noticed me leaving the hotel for St. John’s Church and shouted after me, offering to drive me in her car.

Oh, and did I mention the Requiem? Oh, well, it was literally “musical heaven,” an occasion of deep faith and witness, but also of ineffable joy. The profound, unfathomable presence of the Catafalque, Fr. Pasley’s explication of it prior to Mass, and then his amazing, word perfect mini-homily about the cross-relation (pun intended) between what the Catafalque represents and the eschatology of the light emerging the jeweled windows of St. John’s providing us sure hope, even knowledge that “we are not alone.” And because of the Requiem (and particular the Dies irae, for myself) we are not independent of each other and our Creator, Savior and Succor.

There are not enough superlatives to laud Janet Gorbitz, Mary Jane Ballou and sweet Mary “Mezzo” for their efforts they inherited early this year in order that colloquium could even get off the ground. And it soared! Enough thanks I cannot express privately or publicly to Richard Chonak for untold hours and years he’s personally provided me life and career-edifying help. Those who’ve known me and yet remained my friends (!) over these seven years of colloquia and fori know I’m a puddle-of-tears softie emo (in the parlance of our time) but little things such as claiming dearest Wendi and her mom as my sisters, the brave, undaunted Jessica as my adopted CMAA daughter, the new tangible friendship of my incredibly hospitable roomie who essentially made my visit to Indy possible, which I caricatured as the new CMAA “Felix and Oscar Odd Couple,” and upon whom I saved my requisite faux pas for the very end, when I spilled red wine upon his immaculate white shirt simply by standing up when Dr. Labounsky was leaving the table at the final brunch! David, you are delight! May all good graces come your way.

I think of the amazing Aristotle! Our Aristotle, Esquerra, and his loving bride, flashing that incandescent, Cheshire Cat smile at every encounter, but yet so humble of heart after all the very real musical contributions and references for us for decades. And we are still interdependent upon those of us whom we’ve met at CMAA events for so many years. Kathy from Reno who’s quarter century of faithful, (gotta be sacrificial) attendance at colloquia is a sure foundation upon which all these beautiful young people can stand and sing our prayers. And the clergy? I’m speechless in anticipation of the renewal that some of our boomers, genX’ers and millennial priests and seminarians will assist our Lord in reviving the living traditions of our ritual faith expressions. Can it be that the ever eloquent and intellectually gifted Fr. Smith was the same person who quietly giggled when I uttered a sibilant a split second too early on Saturday and ducked when Horst’s head turned faster than the Terminator’s knowing that face would have red eyes of death by lazar beam? Yup, same guy.

We are also indebted to the Kathy Pluths, Arlene’s, JT’s, Norman from Oregon, Mary Ann the Singing Mum, and our cyber buds Noel, CDub, Liam, francis, J.Quick, RollingRJ, et al who were absent this year but ever-present. Told you all I’m a crier, in all meanings of that word. Lastly, there is only One-in-Three to whom we are totally DEPENDENT, and to Him I offer my thanks. And I should not be surprised, hopefully upon the moment when the purgatory light turns from red to green in my eyes, that when I first see my Maker, He’ll probably look not unlike William Mahrt. We were Indy, not “indie.” (No Pelagian implication intented!)

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You will sing, and you will like it! Really.

Photo courtesy of Charles Cole

My bronchial infection worsened a bit Saturday, but I was bound and determined to sing the Victoria Requiem. I thank our most merciful Lord for His grace that fulfilled that desire. Allow me a small digression. One of  our celebrants this week was singing in Horst’s choir with us. I. had noticed a very beautiful cobalt/royal blue shoulder sling bag and casually remarked to him how enchanting it looked. He replied, “It’s yours.” Little did he know, but yesterday was my Geburtstag! I actually got a B-day present at Colloquium! And this wonderful priest was my confessor in addition to delivering one of the most stirring homilies I’ve ever heard on Visitation Day.

But this is about Horst Buchholz and his amazing charisms, his love for our Church, and his obvious devotion to reverencing our Lord through the achievement of sheer beauty.

I remember my first colloquium (I think 2007, at CUA/Shrine) when attendance was still around 100 or so folks. There were only two choirs- the everybody choir and a select chamber choir under Scott Turkington. Horst had us all. God bless them, the lovely ladies of the soprano section had trouble all week with various issues throughout various pieces. I think the Elgar “Ave Verum Corpus” was particular nettlesome for them. But through the week of rehearsals I observed Horst’s methodical but mirth-filled prodding of them to match this, blend that, and so forth. And by Sunday Mass the ladies sounded quite solid and sure. Horst Buchholz.

I’ve sung intermittently with him on a few motets over these years. But this is the first year that I wanted to be his chorister for the Victoria Requiem. His direction of the Vierne Mass in SLC 2012 was the choral highlight of that wonderful colloquium for me. And this year, a substantial number of very talented singers thought likewise about Horst and we had us quite a quire.

Despite his obvious impish jokes and mannerisms (from his huge Teutonic aura) he is one serious and demanding Kapellmeister! He knows exactly what he wants down to the turn of a phoneme to the arch of an entire Mass movement, and he doesn’t settle for the choir he hears in his mind, he molds the choir facing him into that ideal ensemble. Relentlessly. But never ruthlessly.

“The net result in this case was a masterful performance teased out of group of singers of various levels who’ve never sung as an ensemble prior to this week.” was my friend David Saunder’s very apt observation. And how appropriate is it that the joy of the architecture of beauty described in Father Pasley’s homily regarding the sure knowledge we have of the light from outside the jeweled windows of the pro-cathedral was also reflected on the faces of Horst’s choristers via the medium of a Requiem.

Thank you maestro Buchholz, all of the other faculty, the board and especially Janet, Mary Jane, Mary “Mezzo” and Kyle for a most rewarding week, and certainly one of the more exhilerating birthday gifts yesterday I’ve ever been gifted. (I remarked to the pro-cathedral’s young, brilliant Spanish organist/(DM?) that should I expire from joy before the Dies Irae, he was to assemble impromptu pall bearers and place my former self in the catafalque subito! With a smile like Horst’s on my face, no doubt.)

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We are the “Large Array”

If you’ve ever seen the film version of Carl Sagan’s “Contact,” you’ve seen two of many magnificent earthbound radio telescope installations, namely the Large Telescope in Arracebo, Puerto Rico and the Very Large Array of dish telescopes in the New Mexico desert. Jodie Foster’s character resolutely believes that “little green men” have and are trying to contact “us.” So, she and her crew relentlessly listen for frequencies that are unidentifiably “foreign” to cosmological emmissions.

I’ve had my second bout of bronchitis at a colloquium this year, but got antibiotics called in from California which I got onboard immediately. That allowed me to participate in my schola and choir for each day, amid getting some rest at other points of the day. But, during yesterday’s Mass (Latin OF) and Wednesday’s EF I purposefully sat in the very back- does that make me a real Catholic or just a conscientious PIP?- even though bronchitis isn’t contagious.

The Reverend Doctor Ed Schaefer’s schola chanted the Latin Introit from the very front of the nave on the gospel side. From the back of the church I could hardly hear them without intensive focus on my part. When I psychologically adjusted to that I heard first the men effortlessly sailing through the antiphon in a manner that would suggest an almost sotto voce vocal technique, but it really wasn’t. They sang with what Horst Buchholz says, “sing with two ears, not one mouth.” And then the more accessible treble women took over the antiphon adding the beauty of womenchant with almost sheer perfection. I had to write down, “I’m listening to angelic choirs (literally?) crossing, or permeating the noises and frequencies that reverberate through both the cosmos and our earth. AKA, “Contact.”

It was yet another revelation to me from yet another moment in a colloquium. Actuoso means that, like those telescopes, we have to have our human “operator,” our will and desire, predisposed to listen for those beatific sounds. Maybe all of them won’t be perfect or pretty or pristine, but they’re there at every Mass. And if you don’t understand what I’m saying, get thee to a colloquium.

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The Turk and he’s back!

Scott Turkington channeling his inner liturgical dancer

So, we’re about to start second day chant session after a traditionally long (looooonnnnnnnggggg) first night and Scott Turkington walks up to me and my bunkmate and sez, “Do you think we ought to re-arrange the seating, it seemed like some of you guys only had a view of my backside?” Scott’s back!
And he’s, as one would expect, at the top of his form! We’ve got a mighty experienced men’s schola with folks from the UK to Uganda taking in not only the thoroughly founded, but humorously grounded expertise of one of the finest chant pedagogues and practicioners on the planet.
I don’t really have to tell Cafe folk about Scott’s breadth of wisdom and knowledge. But there was an very interesting and telliing little anecdote I’ll share from later in the morning. Among the assigned texts to us was one that employs “mihi.” So as we were sight-reading through the whole proper, those of us who’ve trained with Turkington naturally sang “MEE-kee” as many of us had that conversation years ago. But, of course, its phoneme was challenged. Scott really doesn’t seem to want to have to reiterate the pronunciation again, and the inestimable Fr. Christopher Smith chimes in. Scott asks Fr. Smith upon whose instruction does he cite when his choristers in South Carolina challenge the Hebraic/Germanic “ch” as “that’s how we learnt it!” Fr. Smith didn’t miss a beat, he answers, “I have it on authority of SCOTT TURKINGTON.” Hearty laughter ensues!
But, it really is a joy to have him return to colloquium, he compliments the same generosity and levity as well as true devotion to the cause and the faith that folks like Buchholz, Cole, Morse, Donelson, Treacy, (even Meloche!), bring to the sacred treasury table of tunedom.
And while we on other faculty, Scott and many others (myself included) have been truly inspired by the absolute beauty of the advanced women’s schola under Jonathan Ryan.
There were so many new hands raised at Monday’s gala dinner of first time attendees who have no idea what monumental strides colloquium has made in seven years!
And as a brief follow up to my first report from Indy, in talking to the millenial priests, deacons and seminarians who are here in force, these young men to a person absolutely believe what Fr. Smith foretold of his vision of RotR et cetera: pervasive change for the better will be achieved in this country, if not the world, within this century. Amen, young brothers!

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Questions from Fr. Smith’s wonderful plenum address

In order to verify Scelata (G’s) beatific review of a hamburger heaven two blocks down on Ohio St.,

“Punch,” I decided to set out early in search of the perfect burger (I’m really not a burger guy!) *       I thought I could fisk out some thoughts and concerns on the Cafe that Fr. could take or leave and answer here, if he chooses.

Concerning ambivilence-
*Why did Father Smith demur that Sacrosanctum Concillium could have been the crowning achievement of liturgical legislation from 1903 through Mediator Dei to that watershed document?
*That Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI articulated  his opinion that the “doings” of those crafting further documents (ie. MS and the Pauline Missal) was the provenance of a “virtual” council (a Bizarro  Council?) and that the real, true council had started to emerge in the wake of decades of disastrous results in ecclesia, that inference seems to subtlely challenge the licety of the process and misapplication of SC in real praxis, doesn’t it?
*And roughly around the same time as Joseph Gelineau made his infamous quote of the death knell for the Vetus Ordo, saying it was essentially dead, buried and forgotten, the equally famed “Agatha Christie Indult” provided an abrogation of the constitutional integrity that progressives such as Gelineau and others championed. Why were there no bells, whistles and sirens going off then as we were “slipping into darkness?”

Juridical pressure-
*The Millenial generation may be forecasting and projecting fearless audacity since Summorum Pontificum. But even prior to HHFrancis’ ascendency, innumerable individual bishops and conferences have inculcated suppressive atmospheres towards the faithful priesthood of all Christ’s people, locally and globally. And recent, newsworthy sanctions reported in Catholic Blogdom have mitigated an even more subdued sense of a burgeoning grass roots movement.

*What the heck happened in seminaries between 1966-75 with the Boomer generation of clergy besides the Baltimore guys strumming new tunes out for Mass in the crypt churches? Roger Cardinal Mahony wasn’t the only prelate (nor Weakland) who influenced my generation’s clergy to be so openly disdainful for chant, Latin, ars celebrandi and their trappings in so uniform a mindset that I’ve encounter for over three decades. Were the “Greatest Generation” of priests who murmered thousands of Low Masses from the Depression forward form the Boomers to embrace the cult of the NO and make it their (and THE PEOPLE’S) own? I know plenty of now-deceased SJ priests who not only helped open the windows, but almost were iconoclast-happy to break the stained glass with bricks we’re now picking up and recycling.

Lastly, Fr. made no mention of the current crop of bishops nor the USCCB’s seemingly AWOL effect upon the national sensus fidelium regarding worship. What is up with that do you think, Father?

Thank you for a most stimulating and challenging address.

*PS, I had the Thai Peanut Butter Ground DUCK (well done) with pepper jack. Oh my.

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Colloquium Predux

Reminding upon all CMAA events of the past whilst sitting in a very inexpensive but accommodating hotel near the Indy airport…

The first and imperial memory I have is of Duquesne II, Thursday. I had bronchitis. JT gave me a whole new Z pack Tues/Wed., but I hadn’t recovered a chant voice. Wendy was at her third Colloquium with me, soaking up the grace, and her schola was chanting for an EF. I made the decision to not chant with JMO (like he needed me) and just be PIP. Best decision of my life.

In Chicago, both W and I benefited by the chubby FSSP celebrant’s homiletic expiation of the VO (the new nomenclature replacing EF and Usus Antiquior or EF) and it was artfully brilliant. But as I chronicled here (I think) I became a child of God that Thursday in Pittsburgh.  

I suppose in a word I would say I “got” Sacrosanctum Consilium in its fullness right there in Pittsburgh, PA., of all places where the dubious efforts of Msgr. Rossini were legend, save for those who have his books and can read the reality.

So, from  the discount ho tel the night before registration, praying, hoping,  begging that this week for which I’ve done no preparation, don’t have a clue what didactic benefit(s) might fall my direction this week , and  which maybe my “last colloquium” I will doubtless behold the glory of God which then I hope bring home to the homespun folks of the San Joaquin Valley of California, a glorious The foretaste….
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Oh Wally, Wally! – How to Define Profanation?

Wally (right) and Beaver, no so vexed!

Over at CCW’s blogsite
http://www.ccwatershed.org/
our CMAA Indy colleague Andrew Motyka (busy guy!) has the third installment of different folks’ take upon (Portland) Archbishop Sample’s now well-known “Letter on Sacred Music.” Some of the archbishop’s concerns not only focus upon the music in and of itself, but upon the “performance practice” of that same music. Is a bell-tree acceptable when singing a Ricky Manalo song, but a drum kit an absolute travesty? If we have to sing Scholte’s “They’ll know we are Christians…” must we use the infamous “strum diddy strum strum” pick pattern on a thousand guitars, or could we lipstick the pig by using a reggae back-beat which the folks will grin ear to ear over? Well, that’s not where I’m going to go in this response.

The concern about profanation of musical aspects within the Mass (and presumably all ritualized worship such as the LoH) has vexed the Church likely before the recognition of the parody Mass (L’Homme arme comes to mind.) I have to wonder what set of circumstances is in play when the fulcrum point of profanation is finally overwhelmed by secular association to certain musical motifs, that it should be obvious to all present “hearing” Mass in any particular moment? Familiarity with secular musical motifs is subjective, not easily quantifiable, and more often than not culturally based.

For example, I have never programmed Jaime Cortez’s immensely popular “Somos el cuerpo de Cristo” for decades as off the page, not to mention the recording, I couldn’t disassociate its refrain from the Beatle’s “Oob la di, oob la da….” (I won’t finish the line out of respect for the subject matter.) Sometimes the instance verges on near-plagarism as in the case of one song in OCP’s library by a very popular “Spirit and Song” composers that interval by interval almost quotes George Harrison’s “Here comes the sun.” Other lit-wags have excoriated songs such as “Here I am, Lord” (Schutte) repeatedly for its resemblance to the theme music for the “old” TV comedy “Gilligan’s Island.” Let’s move onto more serious considerations. Would we sing “What Child is This” during Christmastide had not RVW written his famed “Fantasy on Greensleeves?” For that matter, if we knew the exact source of the amalgam hymntune KINGSFOLD, would that make us less inclined to use the nobler hymn version we generally associate with “I heard the voice of Jesus?” We know of patriotic and worship tunes whose genesis is “Bar the door, Katy!) certifiably within the confines of public houses all over Europe. I have a student volume of folk songs from the British Isles compiled by Stanford that is rife with tunes, some well known, others obscure, that are now found in popular hymnals. Do we thank St. Thomas More’s Chris Walker alone for that reality. Not really. But let’s confine the rest of discussion to the factors concern profanation to “isle tunes” for brevity’s sake.

The likely candidate for most prominent secular tune that’s successfully crossed over many times is O WALY WALY. If one thinks of just the music, it’s an oddity. It demands sheer lung power for each phrase, it has a tessitura demand beyond many other songs, and despite other concerns, it is constantly set and reset to new texts and sung well. Now, the test of profanation has to include the text wedding of the original tune. Like many of those Stanford-collected songs, the original text likely remains a lost love lament common to popular song since Morley madrigals. I’m sure text and tune crossed the pond in the 17th century quite in tact, so it became cross-cultural as well in the colonial south. At this point I want to ask then, why haven’t I encountered a hymntext set to BARBARA ALLEN or SHE WALKED THROUGH THE FAIRE? (Maybe Dr. Ballou has, as a harpist and musicologist, had that fortune, I haven’t personally.) Let’s face it, would anyone be singing Bell’s “The Summons” if there was a pervasive knowledge and association with the original lyrics of KELVINGROVE? Who’s to say? But where does one draw a line between appropriating SUO GAN or ASHGROVE (from Wales) for famed texts, and Walker deciding “SKYE BOAT SONG” (Scotland) would make a nifty vehicle?

On this side of the pond, has anyone ever encountered a hymntext set to “The streets of Laredo?” On the other hand, though I’ve never found one, it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a hymn set to “Shenandoah” somewhere out there. Here’s the deal, unlike the Beatles or Gilligan associations proximity to recent cultural memory, no such association exists for these seminal, beautiful ballads I’ve mentioned. Is it only time passage that mitigates a profanation association? One can parrot “O say can you see” having its origins as a flagon-hoisting huzzah song in old Brittania pubs, but when played or sung with reverence and dignity at any ballgame or historic gathering, its integrity (sorry, couldn’t resist using that word) holds strong by the strands of tears on peoples’ faces. Well, I think that’s enough grist for the mill of discussion as regards how we discern and discriminate such issues. Were it just as easy as we old hippies used to think it was when someone drags up that somebody somewhere (not me) used “My Sweet Lord (doo lay doo lay doo lay)” or “Jesus is just alright with me” back in the day in the crypt church!

It does, however, lend a lot of weight to the PiusX/Marht/Kwasniewski paradigm arguments of sticking pretty darn close to the musical patrimony, no?