Chant Café

I dearly hope that I was invited to this blog in hopes that I would side with Jeffrey Tucker on the Josquin/Byrd controversy now raging.  Alas for JT, I’ll go with Byrd, though I’m really a Tallis kind of girl.

Setting that aside, please allow for a brief introduction – this once only, I promise.  I’m Mary Jane Ballou, a musician based in St. Augustine, Florida, a city whose founding began with a chanted Te Deum and a Mass in 1565.  My choral conducting experience ranges from Anglican to Russian Orthodox churches, as well as both the Byzantine and Latin Rites.  I also teach chant workshops and work with choir directors and pastors looking to upgrade their musical offerings.  My exemplars of sane and thorough teaching are Arlene Oost-Zinner and Scott Turkington.  And the late Fr. Lawrence Heiman, C.PP.S. who enabled me to overcome my fear of the ictus. 

Quite frankly, I just can’t get enough of sacred music and many find my “small c” catholic tastes confounding. Znammeny and Serbian chant, Sacred Harp and Anglican hymnody all appeal.  At the same time, I am keenly aware of what styles belong in the sanctuary and/or loft and what styles are meant for the plaza outside the church!

Right now, I direct a small women’s ensemble, resident at the Mission Nombre de Dios in St. Augustine, that ranges over 1,000 years of sacred music – from Gregorian chant to contemporary settings.  I am also a professional harpist and always looking for connections between strings and voices, remembering that the harp was a valued accompaniment to the sacred music of New Spain.

I’ve blogged for years, written for Sacred Music, and am delighted to “join the conversation,” as they like to say on National Public Radio.  

From Jeff Ostrowski of Corpus Christi Watershed:

We have a website where composers submit free settings of the Gospel Acclamation. So far, we’ve added about 2,000 scores. These items are high in demand. Individual scores have been downloaded as many as 800 times!

Would you be interesting in composing any? Here are the “terms” required:

1. Verses must be fully written out (notated) for each feast. [see the website if you don’t know what I mean.]

2. Organ accompaniment is required.

3. Submissions must be sent in PDF and a “congregational insert” is highly recommended.

4. You have to agree that once they are posted, they can remain forever. [Otherwise I would have pay somebody to take them down, and we don’t have funds for that.]

5. Once your Alleluia has been “accepted” you have to promise you will compose at least twenty (20) feasts [i.e. verses] — a total of twenty (20) scores — otherwise it’s not really good for the musicians who use the site. There are actually about 176 gospel acclamation texts for Sundays (all three liturgical years) — feel free to complete them all. That would be incredibly useful to Church musicians.

6. If we don’t feel your submission is right for our site, please don’t get hurt feelings. Just say, “Your loss, buddy” and move on. And don’t hate us.

7. The verse must be written in free rhythm (chant rhythm). The “Alleluia” can be chant OR metrical. Nice, simple, metrical “Alleluias” are useful and much appreciated. Do you know what I mean when I say a “circle of fifths” Alleluia? These are perfect! [And they can be descending fifths … or better yet, ascending fifths, like they did in the Renaissance!]

8. Submit your score using the “Contact us” on our website.

Despite JT’s olive branch in his previous post, he has spent most of today pummeling my preference for Byrd above all the other Renaissance composers. I cannot complain- I started the battle.

After spending almost the entire day listening to Josquin, I am forced to admit that, while I will always prefer Byrd, Josquin may be the superior composer.

Of course, that assumes he wrote the things I’ve been listening to. I understand there’s some confusion on this point.

I have decided, for the sake of peace and fraternal love, to stand down, and form a truce.

There’s no reason lovers of Byrd (and Tallis!) can’t join together with lovers of Josquin or even Victoria to sing God’s praises in all times and places, and to declare, in a one united voice, that all those guys are better than Palestrina.

From Wikipedia:

Josquin des Prez (or Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez; French: [ʒɔskɛ̃ depʁe]; c. 1450/1455 – 27 August 1521), often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance. He is also known as Josquin Desprez and Latinized as Josquinus Pratensis, alternatively Jodocus Pratensis.

…

his biography is shadowy, and we know next to nothing about his personality.

…

The lives of dozens of minor composers of the Renaissance are better documented than the life of Josquin.

Numerous pseudonyms, a “shadowy” biography. And which is it, Mr. Josquin, Frankish or Flemish?

William Byrd, on the other hand, lived a life completely without duplicity of any kind, remaining openly committed both to his faith and his national identity.