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Posted on by Adam Bartlett

English Chant Propers for Corpus Christi

Wishing you all a blessed Corpus Christi, here are some recordings and practice videos of some of the English chant propers found in Lumen Christi Simple Gradual.

These antiphons use the new translation of the Roman Missal as their basis, and are simple enough for the entire congregation to sing, while having enough musical interest and beauty to bear repetition over time, year after year.

Even if your parish will not be singing the proper antiphons of the Mass this year, you can prepare yourself by praying along with the chants that the Church places before us on this most solemn feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

The Lumen Christi Simple Gradual can be ordered here.
Posted on by Mr. C

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?

Posted on by Mr. C

Is P&W Music “More Than a Feeling?”

I mentioned over at the Musica Sacra Forum that between visiting two Masses as “Music Director” not leader on Trinity Sunday I had the inclination to walk across the boulevard to check out the 9am Service at the megachurch Assembly of God. I didn’t actually enter their sanctuary, but observed from cozy nooks with large flat screens and state of the art audio setups that ostensibly serve as cry rooms in the main “narthex.” I have to simply say that I was underwhelmed by the couple of songs that were stretched beyond their usefulness for P&W in my estimation, and then by the less than deft transition to the opening prayer by the pastor who serves as the church’s CFO. So I was relieved when a couple and their infant pulled up in their Escalade-like stroller and slinked out and back to the second Mass. I didn’t want to really fisk out what little I’d observed there, it wouldn’t be fair. But this morning my eye caught a headline link to an article at the eminent Catholic blog/magazine, First Things: “In Praise of Praise Music” by Stephen H. Webb, one of their contributing columnists. As First Things is primarily a subscription-based publication, I won’t reprint much of the article at all. However, Mr. Webb made four rather pointed concerns that compel me to respond. I was mildly surprised that his article was accepted by the editorship for its content alone, but hey, who am I to question authority? He does qualify the context of his premise by this quote:

A note to the trads no doubt already heading for the comments: I am not talking about liturgical music.

Let’s look at his concerns. I will try to be brief with my remarks.

So why do so many Christians have such a condescending attitude toward praise music?

Because, for the most part, within or without it’s context as a congealing agent in a worship serve, it barely qualifies as “music” in the first place. Even the maligned (on YouTube) Kanon in D has melodic expeditions that are purposeful attempts to demonstrate how many layers of clothing the otherwise naked emperor can bear to wear. Webb makes a comparison between the “authenticity” of Stairway to Heaven trumping “Here I am to worship” without realizing that the Zepplin staple is a cornucopia of harmonic fruits versus the praise tune’s “Heart and Soul” progression of chords, over and over. Pachelbel, where are you when you’re really needed? Kanon is for many an anesthetic itself even fully realized. “Here I am….” is an ever increasing morphine drip when what the soul needs is an adrenaline shot to the heart; John Travolta, where are you when we need you?

All I am saying is that praise music should have a significant place in every Christian’s heart—or at least in their iPods.

This declaration has a much legs as the equally ineffective plea of my teen hero John Lennon’s plea “All we are saying is give peace a chance.” No, no, no. Praise music, to continue the above analogy, at best should be a mild and occasional palliative to be used to alleviate stress and strain, maybe. But if my heart is aching for any reason, depending upon what my mind and my soul determine ought to be the direction my emotional needs should take, on one extreme I’d rather have Barber’s “Adagio” express empathy for my angst, or Prokoviev’s (how im-Modest of me! H/T to John O) Mussogrsky’s* “Great Gate of Kiev” filling my eardrums as a sympathetic relief. Heck, even if I’m at peace, great chant such as from Heilingenkreuz Abbey, is a much better accompaniment to my soul through my earphones than MW Smith’s “Breathe.”

The words are too simple, direct, and demanding, the emotions too transparent.
Mr. Webb almost acts as the prosecuting attorney against himself with the obvious realities of his own quote here. It’s the rhetorical equivalent of the joke about Texas justice: Judge:“Son, why’d you shoot that man dead?” “Well, yer honor, he needed killin’!” Judge: “Well alright then.”
But even though I’ll allow that not all P&W songs are created equal (Hillsongs’ composers have better vocabularies in their compositional stables, for example) the other emotional reality is that the songs are narcissistic underneath the masque of words that are Theo-centric at a primary level. The Praise Team with all the amplification is the ultimate “end” of this modality, but the folks in the theatre with raised, swaying arms and tortured/ecstatic (you make the call) visages are trying like all heck to enter into a “ME and JESUS” moment, not we and Jesus.
For those who say rock and praise can’t coexist, listen to Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.”
Please, Mr. Webb, tell us you were joking when you wrote that inanity. If you weren’t but want to have a rock anthem that actually bolsters your premise, try Boston’s great mid-70’s power hit, “More Than a Feeling.” There’s more genomic code in common with true P&W with Boston than the morose Mr. Cohen.

*Darn Russki’s, can’t keep ’em straight unless they’re Armenian! Oh, wait a minute, was the film scorer Dmitri Tiomkin or Dmitri Potemkin? Fuggedaboutit, I’m gonna go Khatchaturian, if I can find one.

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Joining in Fr. Walker’s Requiem Mass

From Littleton, Colorado, Rick Wheeler writes to graciously invite singers to participate in Fr. Walker’s sung high Requiem Mass on Monday, June 16th.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Littleton CO will be having a sung high Requiem mass (EF form) for Fr. Walker on Monday June 16th at 8:30am (call time 7:30 in the parish hall). I invite all singers that connect with the Chant Café to come and sing with us. 

Besides the Gregorian Requiem I’m planning the Victoria – Vere Languores Nostros as a communion or offertory hymn and either the Josquin – Ave Verum Corpus Christi or Victoria – O Vos Omnes as well.

Requiescat in pace. May Our Lord have mercy on his soul and may God heal Fr. Terra.

Rick Wheeler
Music Director
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church
5612 S. Hickory Street
Littleton, CO 80120

If you can join us, you’re most welcome.
http://www.olmcfssp.org/cms/

Posted on by Mary Ann Carr Wilson

How Can We Prepare?

Many of us have learned of Wednesday night’s attack on two FSSP priests serving in Phoenix, AZ.  Area police continue to hunt for a gunman who murdered Fr. Kenneth Walker, and critically injured Fr. Joseph Terra.  The crime has been reported as a burglary.  No motive has been determined.

Fr. Walker visited our parish in San Diego as a deacon, three years ago.  He struck me as a singularly gentle, innocent, and humble young man.  When I saw his picture in the news today, I had a hard time imagining the level of cowardice and malice needed to take his life.

When members of the Body of Christ are brutalized, it can be difficult to resist an overwhelming sense of sadness and helplessness.  As more details of his murder come to light, we may well discover Fr. Walker was martyred.  How can we honor his life?  How can we prepare a response in our own lives?

It is my honor to direct a few groups of incredibly dedicated and delightful people.  At a rehearsal tonight, after discussing Fr. Walker’s murder, I stood at the podium and saw a mix of faces filled with sadness, uncertainty, fear, and resolve.  I encouraged them to respond to this tragic attack by renewing their resolve to live a life for Jesus.  To choose now, and to prepare now.  May God give us the strength to remain faithful, to fight, to resist, to pray, to console, and to offer all to Him.

Our Sung Prayers Help Prepare Us
We who work in the field of sacred music as choir directors, organists, and singers possess a great treasure in the sung prayers of the Church.  To the extent that we give our talent and training to glorify God and to edify the faithful, we contribute to spreading joy, hope, and peace.  In our chants, we embrace a full range of human experience- joy, wonder, contrition, sorrow- and we trust that God will bring good out of evil.  

One thing I love about Gregorian chant is how it serves to unite believers across time and borders.  To develop a common chant repertoire that strengthens Christian bonds of charity is part of the genius of the sacred liturgy.  For the singers under my direction, I suggest an “emergency chant pack” of sorts that contains memorized, internalized pieces.  Some prayers we memorize together, and more are chosen by the individual.  These time-tested prayers are doctrinally rich, melodically beautiful, and can serve as sources of strength and consolation during the toughest of times.
What chants would be on your list?

Posted on by Mr. C

The Good Shepherd as the Agnus Dei

I mentioned in my first review of select pieces from Dr. Peter Kwasniewski’s SACRED CHORAL WORKS that I would review three pieces that though obviously deigned for choral performance, might be rendered with the soprano voice serving as the congregational melody if a worship aide were provided to all. The next piece in that vein is his “Agnus Dei III” found on page 24 in the volume. Without belaboring the theoretical harmonic progressions in as detailed a manner as the first review (Kyrie III) I’d like to simply restate that Peter possesses an uncanny, modest but powerful knack for creating ever so slight moments of pure bliss that makes analysis almost unseemly. And he does so with a larger intent in mind because his prepared and multi-suspended cadences are examples of sheer beauty and sometimes surprise. The structure of this setting is AAB. In “A” one of those transient moments (key signature, four flats) is though the work starts in F minor (Brief suggestion, have the tenor start on middle C on beat three) upon the second beat of m2 on “Dei” he resolves a suspended V chord with a dominant 7th in root position but sub-cadences to the relative major, Ab. It’s like the first bite of a really good Scottish shortbread, it unwinds rapidly and smoothly on the palate and then it’s gone! He has a couple of other passing moments, first in m4, beat 2 (pec-ca-ta) and beat 4 of m6 (mi se re re) that make life very much fun every Sunday for choristers, but the last three measures of section A, “nobis,” features a cascade of suspension/resolutions that seem to prepare for a cadential finality on the V of Fminor, his bass lands and holds on VI until beat four, and then reposes on major I, Ab in close position. Now we’re not talking cookie tasting, but wine tasting!

And the getting through the “hints” to the sublime finish is smooth and leaves you wanting another, thank you.

In the “B” section I’ll briefly mention that tracking tonality shifts and centers is counterproductive for this review. Peter expands the tessitura and employs chromatic voice leading in the bass and alto voices to beat the band. And that sets up an impetus for another three measure section (the first “Dona nobis pacem”) that uses counterpoint in the outer voices exquisitely. He then provides two possible coda like reiterations of “Dona…”, the first of which is more austere, and the second more consistent with the two previous three measure cadences. I could easily see this used in parishes where the fraction rite occupies more time because of congregation size, local custom or whatever. As modest a setting it is lengthwise, it is still longer than what congregations normally expect. But don’t let that keep your choir from offering it up. Finally, after you hear this piece, I hope you’ll get the connection between the famed catacomb fresco and the tenderness of this setting.

Posted on by Mary Jane Ballou

Upcoming at the CMAA XXIV Summer Colloquium – Choral Evensong

Choral Evensong at Christ Church Cathedral, Indianapolis

Our conference hotel, the Sheraton City Centre Indianapolis is across the street from the Episcopal Christ Church Cathedral.  The Cathedral and their staff are showing wonderful hospitality to our conference faculty and attendees:  use of their choir room and church for rehearsals, hosting our organ breakout series.  Their organist, the award-winning Simon Thomas Jacobs will present a recital on June 2nd.  And as a special treat, their choir is performing a Choral Evensong for us on Monday evening, the opening day of the Colloquium.

The Evensong Service is the crown jewel of the Anglican musical tradition.  The Book of Common Prayer combined the two canticles originally sung at Vespers and Compline, the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis, which are sung sequentially at Evensong.  Other music includes sung preces (short petitions), an anthem, psalmody with antiphons, as well as an organ prelude and postlude.

Christ Church Cathedral has a well-known choral program including a choir of men and boys, a choir of girls, and a Spanish language choir.  The principal choir has recorded and toured extensively, so hearing their music will be a delight.

The canticles on Monday, June 30th, were composed by Harold Friedell (1905-1958), best known as the director and organist and St. Bartholomew’s Church in New York City.  The  contemporary anthem “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” is by the British composer Kenneth Leighton (1929-1988). Here’s a performance of that work by the Leicestershire Chorale:

Choral Evensong is a great tradition among the cathedrals and large churches of England.  The BBC has broadcast these live for years and now the programs are archived on their website.  So you can find all varieties of music within the framework of this service.

And our thanks to Christ Church Cathedral for share their musical gifts with the CMAA Summer Colloquium.