Category: Jeffrey Tucker

Vox in Rama, by Bernardino de Ribera (c.1520-?).

“A voice was heard in Rama, Rachael bewailing her children. . . and she would not be comforted, for they were no more.”

This is the first performance of a new edition by Bruno Turner. One of the singers drew my attention to this and says that Ribera was a teacher of Victoria. I know nothing at all about him, and there is nothing I can find online (but someone else might find something). What I do know is that this is a very striking motet and probably the first time it has been publicly heard in 400 or so years.

It is absolutely new and present in the lives of many Catholics. Here is a beautiful report from a Solemn High Mass in Charlotte, NC, and a video to go with it.

Fr. Martin Fox offers a beautiful post about a  Mass that he celebrated just as an experiment. He stripped away all the hymn singing except for the recessional and instead had the choir chant the propers in English. He faced the altar for the Mass. He reports an interesting thing: ” I have to tell you, there is something tremendously powerful, for the priest, in offering Mass toward the Lord. For one, the architecture of the church makes so much more sense. As I offered the Sacrifice, I was aware of the beautiful sanctuary lamp over my head, I was gazing at the massive crucifix ahead of all of us, and above that, the Good Shepherd window in the apse. The light from the evening sun poured in through the windows, a dappled gold light.”

The event was a great success. People reported having a sense of awe and mystery that is much intensified with these small changes. Of course I was curious about the musical resources that were used, though I intuitively knew in advance. The answer: The Simple English Propers and the Psalm by Arlene Oost-Zinner. These two resources are the things that are making this sort of change happen – not just in small outposts but in regular parishes, the Masses that ordinary people attend every week.

It has slowly dawned on those of us who live and breath this world of liturgy and sacred music that are are many obstacles to realizing the goal of beautiful liturgy, but a main one, and the one that has too often been overlooked in the past, is that we need good musical resources, readily available, that can be used in any parish environment to make a compelling case. That is arguably the first step because, quite frankly, such resources really haven’t existed for a very long time. That is now changing, and the results are remarkable. We are singing the liturgy chanted in places where it otherwise would not have been. And we aren’t just talking about small parishes either; cathedrals are using these now, realizing that they make an important contribution. You can add all the tympani and string players you want but if the music you are using is not liturgical, the Mass won’t become more solemn or true to itself.

I’m not surprised (and no one should be) that the choice here was SEP, but I’m intrigued at the use of the Oost-Zinner Psalm. Of all the Psalms available today, it’s long been my own view that these are the ones that best combine beauty of music and language plus ease of use. It really is a matter of print and sing. They are perfect every time. I gather that many others have figured this out too. But the problem: they are not completed and they are not in print in a single volume.

Please consider giving to this Chip In campaign to bring these Simple English Psalms into print. With this resource, every parish can have what it needs to get going on the right path toward the best music that the Church has to offer.

Msgr. Philip Whitmore speaks about Assumption music at news.va. Excellent 6-minute talk about Palestrina, John Tavener, and more. Thanks Fr. Z.

The National Catholic Register has published a long, accurate, and inspiring article on the work of the St. Mary’s children’s choir at World Youth Day. Thank you to all benefactors who made this trip possible. It is getting just the right kind of attention! And congratulations, too, to director David Hughes and all the kids.

In some school districts in America, some lucky high-school students in language classes have gotten to go on trips abroad — French student to Paris; Spanish students to Madrid; Italian students to Rome.

Next week, a group of 25 students from the New York-Connecticut area will be practicing their newfound language at World Youth Day in Madrid. And according to those involved, the hundreds of thousands of young people they will encounter from around the world will have no problem understanding.

Spanish? No. Their language is music — the traditional music of the Church, sung in the Church’s mother tongue: Latin.

The Norwalk, Conn.-based St. Mary’s Student Schola is ready and eager to head to Madrid and share what they’ve learned and practiced: Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and parts of the Mass set to music by great composers such as William Byrd, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Josquin de Prez.

The group has already made such a name for themselves that they’ve been invited by Archbishop Braulio Rodriguez of Toledo, the primate of Spain, to sing at the Cathedral of St. Mary of Toledo.

From there, they will go to Avila to sing at Mass on the feast of the Assumption at the Monasterio de la Encarnación (Monastery of the Incarnation), where St. Teresa of Jesus entered the Carmelites. Then, in Madrid, they will sing for the solemn high Mass in the extraordinary form for WYD pilgrims.

Based at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Conn., this schola of youngsters sings Gregorian chant and Renaissance polyphony so beautifully that the Sisters of Life and the Knights of Columbus invited them to be the choir for the main English-speaking Masses at World Youth Day at the Palacio de Deportes. The giant Madrid arena holds upwards of 15,000 and is expected to be full for WYD. Some of the Sisters of Life, who are based in New York and run a retreat house in Stamford, Conn., will join them for some of the singing in Madrid.

For the schola’s founder-director David Hughes, the invitations to sing in Spain “confirm that this is a good work to be done in the service of the Lord and the Church.” Hughes is choirmaster for all seven choirs at St. Mary’s, which have adult-professional and adult-volunteer divisions.

Read the whole piece

I’ve just now be alerted to the existence of this 338-page treatise on all the stuff we care about: THE MUSICAL PRELUDE TO VATICAN II: PLAINCHANT, PARTICIPATION, AND PIUS X by Walter William Whitehouse. And here is the 145-page Volume II. Truly this looks comprehensive and very important.

Ave Maris Stella: I’ve heard before that this is among the oldest Marian hymns of the faith. Here is a chant/polyphony setting by Guillaume Dufay: