Josquin can work with two voices gradually melding to three:
Or he is can it with 24 voices
Josquin: Not as good as Byrd
Jeffrey Tucker continues his pro-Josquin propaganda, using the supposedly-neutral Chant Cafe website as a platform for his controversial position that Josquin can or should be any sane person’s “number one favorite composer of all time.”
I feel a responsibility to point out, though it pains me to say it, that he is quite wrong, and that Byrd is a far superior composer. This objective fact, which has nothing to do whatsoever with taste or opinion, would be clear to Mr. Tucker if he were not constantly polluting his ears with “pop, jazz, classical, dance, techno, you name it.” (Indeed, I shan’t be naming the rude and vulgar genres left out of this enumeration, as I consider that act of discretion to be the only praise-worthy aspect of Mr. Tucker’s ill advised post.)
Josquin: Forever Reminding Us What Greatness and Beauty Sound Like
I try my best to listen to a wide variety of music: pop, jazz, classical, dance, techno, you name it. But in the end, I must confess that there are only two forms that penetrate straight to my heart and soul, sometimes in ways that create a kind of discomfort. Those two forms are chant and polyphony.
Here is an example of what I mean. More and more, Josquin is becoming my number one favorite composer of all time.
We Pursue Chant Because…
Because of its inherent worth in the liturgy. Because we seek solemnity and genuine worship. Because it is robust and fragile, difficult and effortless at the same time. Because it consumes us. Because it is the right thing to do.
Waiting on my flight out of Dallas after a two-day workshop at Mater Dei Catholic Church, one of the first, if not the first, FSSP Communities in the US, and now a parish in its own right in Irving, TX. The crowd was eager and wonderful. Everyone sang and learned, and sang more. The crowd included curious beginners, members of the parish choir and schola, more children than you can imagine, and people who drove hours across the Lone Star State to be there. It was tiring, but glorious. I’d love to be present in the morning to hear the first evidence of the fruits of the workshop. And I’m wishing this wonderful parish all the musical best for the future.
I’ll be back home by midnight if all goes well. And back at my own parish in Auburn, AL before 7:00am for the first Mass of the day. Here’s the front and back of the program from which we’ll be singing tomorrow…ordinary form; only myself and another singer. But it will be wonderful to be home. The beat goes on.
More on the Baker Diocese Chant Workshop
Some more details are now available on the chant workshop in Oregon, August 15-17. Here you can find all you need to know to register and attend.
Our Hearts Beat Together When We Sing
This story (h/t praytell) is just so wonderful.
Lifting voices together in praise can be a transcendent experience, unifying a congregation in a way that is somehow both fervent and soothing. But is there actually a physical basis for those feelings?
To find this out, researchers of the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden studied the heart rates of high school choir members as they joined their voices. Their findings, published this week in Frontiers in Neuroscience, confirm that choir music has calming effects on the heart — especially when sung in unison.
A Swedish researcher explains how heart rates become synchronized when people sing together.
Credit: Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenberg
Using pulse monitors attached to the singers’ ears, the researchers measured the changes in the choir members’ heart rates as they navigated the intricate harmonies of a Swedish hymn. When the choir began to sing, their heart rates slowed down.
Stop arguing, and get to work
There is a useful purpose to all this blogging and foruming and commenting and document-reading, but convincing chant-skeptics is not it.
Here’s the thing about proving skeptics wrong: They don’t care. They won’t learn. They will stay skeptics. The ones who said the airplane would never fly ignored the success of the Wright Bros. and went on to become skeptical of something else. And when they got onto an airplane, they didn’t apologize to the engineers on their way in.
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2013/07/proving-the-skeptics-wrong.html
There’s wisdom here, yo.