Category: Jeffrey Tucker

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Byron Consort Comes to the U.S.

The Byron Consort of the Harrow School is making a U.S. tour, and you should be sure to go.

This US tour which includes appearances both Washington D.C. and New York City. In Washington the choir will sing at St Matthew’s Cathedral, St Mary Mother of God, Christ Church Alexandria and at the Basilica of the National Shrine; in New York at the choir will sing at St Mary’s Times Square, Trinity Wall Street, the Basilica of Old St Patrick’s Cathedral and at the Cathedral of St John the Divine. Shortly after returning to England, the choir is scheduled to sing Choral Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

The Byron Consort is Harrow’s elite vocal ensemble and was founded in 2001 by Philip Evans (then Assistant Director of Music and now House Master of Moretons) who continues to direct the choir.It consists of between three and five Harrow boys and one adult on each voice part (Soprano, Alto, Tenor & Bass) – the choir sings a mixture of unaccompanied sacred and secular music, most of which comes from the Renaissance, Romantic and Modern periods. Many of the boys are ex-choristers from leading cathedral and collegiate choirs – there have recently been representatives from the choirs of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, Westminster Abbey, Canterbury, Chichester, Westminster and Winchester Cathedrals, St George’s Chapel, Windsor and Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, as well as a former member of the Vienna Boys’ Choir – most of the boys are Music Award Holders at Harrow School.

The schedule is as follows:

  • Saturday 2nd April at 17:30 – Mass at St Matthew’s RC Cathedral, 1725 Rhode Island Avenue NW
  • Sunday 3rd April at 09:00 – Mass at St Mary, Mother of God Church, 727 5th Street NW (Extraordinary form of the Roman Rite, celebrated by Msgr Andrew Wadsworth)
  • Sunday 3rd April at 16:30 Mass at Roman Catholic National Basilica, 400 Michigan Avenue NE
  • Monday 4th April at 18:00 Choral Evensong at Christ Church, 118 N Washington Street, Alexandria
  • Tuesday 5th April at 19:30 Concert at St Mary’s, Times Square, 145 W 46th Street
  • Wednesday 6th April at 13:00 Lunchtime Recital at Trinity Church, Wall Street & Broadway
  • Wednesday 6th April at 17:00 Choral Evensong at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, 1047 Amsterdam Avenue
  • Wednesday 6th April at 19:15 Old Harrovians Drinks Party & Recital at The Brook Club, 111 East 54th Street
  • Thursday 7th April at 14:00 Recital at The Churchill School, 301 E 29th Street
  • Friday 8th April at 12:30 Lunchtime Recital at the Basilica of St Patrick’s Old Cathedral, 263 Mulberry Street

Here are some audio samples

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Laetare Jerusalem!

I received several mystified emails: surely you made a mistake that this chant you call Laetare Jerusalem is suitable for the processional? My answer is: not only it is suitable; it where the day gets the name. It is normative because it is the first choice of the GIRM, which is consistent with Vatican II’s placement of Gregorian chant as primary, and, moreover, is the only introit to grow up alongside the existence of the day itself. So not only it is suitable and normative; anything else, and least of all some random hymn with an entirely different text, doesn’t quite do it.

I like this presentation because it is unadorned with accompaniment, and it happens to be beautifully sung as well.

Lent – Fourth Sunday: Introit from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Will there be any difference in the sound of Laetare?

Next weekend is Laetare Sunday. The striking difference should be that, for the first time in Lent, we hear instruments play as an application of the entrance text, “Rejoice Jerusalem!”

Sadly, for most parishes, there won’t be any difference in how next Sunday sounds and feels. Yes, instruments will be used but they have been used all the rest of Lent too. This certainly violates the spirit of tradition and legislation, but those who are seeking justification in law, they can find it in the General Instruction. The GIRM permits instruments to be used to “support the singing.”

To be sure, this is an exception, but it is an exception so broad that it nearly negates the rule itself in practice. One can imagine that the exception here came about for the same reason that accompanied singing came about in the first place. Some chant choirs have difficultly singing on pitch without some external assistance that keeps the pitch from falling. I don’t happen to think that this is a very good reason, since using such an outside crutch virtually guarantees that the singers will not improve and overcome the problem.

But because most parishes don’t sing chant and don’t sing propers at all, but rather replace them all with hymns, this rationale has largely lost its basis. The hymns are sung with accompaniment, whether it is Lent or Christmas or anytime. Accompanied hymns constitutes most of all the music we hear in Mass. Further, though there are many notable exceptions, instruments are mostly not used in a solo manner. The result is the banishment of anything striking about the difference between Lent and the rest of the year.

This is a terrible tragedy, but it is one that is more symptomatic of incompetence than disobedience. For years I’ve reflected on what is the key missing competency among Catholic musicians today. There are many: the inability to sing without pop-like inflections, the dependency on strict rhythmic metrics, the alarming loss of music-reading talent, the love of microphones and the concomitant inability to project the voice, but among them all I would list this one as number one: the believe that instruments are making us sing and hence without them, there can be nothing called music.

Lent is the perfect time to force the issue. Pastors should unplug all machines and make no exceptions. The singers need pitchpipes and they need to learn to find the music within themselves. There is no way to learn this except to go “cold turkey.” There is no gradualism here. The instruments must be shut down, period. Musicians will sweat it out with fear for a few weeks, but they will become better by the end.

Unless the singers can do this, they can never really find themselves in a position to do what the Church is asking. Once they can sing without assistance, a new world will open up to them. They will face vast options on singing the propers. They might even be able to sing the words “Laetare” at the entrance. Then when Easter season arrives, they might even find that they will continue the practice, which would be wonderful.

It is a myth that congregations sing better with instrumental backing. My own experience has been the complete opposite. Only once the instruments are unplugged the people and the schola can realize that there is wisdom in the writings of the Popes that the primary liturgical instrument is not man-made but given to us from God: our own voices.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Cappella Giulia

Fr. Pierre Paul, the force behind the new musical renaissance at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, has opened up a website completely dedicated to the musical life of the Vatican’s Basilica, with a focus on Gregorian chant and polyphony. Here we have a very beautiful thing: the Vatican setting a liturgical model for the Catholic Church around the world.

The site is Cappellagiulia.org.

It will post the liturgical schedule and a list of music sung (already you can see the chants from the Graduale here), and also here some great recordings, among which already:

Alma Redemptoris Mater Palestrina

Ave maris Stella – Perosi

Finita iam sunt proelia – Palestrina

Hym. Christe Redemptor omnium

Kyrie Octavi Toni – Lassus