Chant Café

Many parishes are very interested in having a single sheet of music to put in the pews, so that congregations can sing the music of the forthcoming missal without having to dig through a book. My preference is for square notes but there have been many requests for modern-note editions.

I made several attempts at cutting and pasting the music from the ICEL website, but the result was less than stellar.

Now Aristotle Esguerra of CantemusDomino.net has come through with an absolutely beautiful edition. This includes Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Pater Noster, Sanctus, Agnus, plus the dialogues on the Memorial Acclamation.

Here it is: Missal Chants in Modern Notation. It can be printed on an 11×17 sheet and folded to put in pews.

It seems almost surreal to see a regular news report on something that I care about so intensely. This Canadian Broadcast Corp. on the conference by the Gregorian Institute of Canada is actually wonderful, surprising, and remarkable. There doesn’t seem to be an option to embed it but please go watch it online.

For a long while I was posting comparisons of the Collects from the current and forthcoming Missal. It was a rather time consuming task week to week, and I couldn’t keep it up, sadly. In any case, I think the point was clearly made: we getting a vast improvement in our essential liturgical materials starting this Advent. In all the weeks I posted the comparisons, I saw virtually no disputes about that essential point, here or anywhere. Is the forthcoming translation perfect? No, and there are times when I stumble over the syntax, which is sometimes peculiar. But the point is that it is much closer to an actual translation, and the style of the language is unmistakable sacral in character. These are gigantic changes that will profoundly affect the sense of the faith that we gain from what is happening in the sanctuary – changes that are much more profound than anything taking place within the people’s parts of the Mass that everyone is focusing on.

Fortunately, Fr. Z has kept it up, and this week he posts a very thoughtful and learned commentary on the Collect for the 19th Sunday.

CURRENT
Almighty and ever-living God,
you Spirit made us your children,
confident to call you Father.
Increase your Spirit within us
and bring us to our promised inheritance.

FORTHCOMING
Almighty ever-living God,
whom, taught by the Holy Spirit,
we dare to call our Father,
bring, we pray, to perfection in our hearts
the spirit of adoption as your sons and daughters,
that we may merit to enter into the inheritance
which you have promised.

Papal legislation concerning music has long distinguished religious music generally from sacred or liturgical music specifically. The vast majority of music now heard at Mass is not in fact liturgical music; it is religious music of a general sort, and that’s just not a good thing. Religious music is fine and even spectacular and indispensable for the culture of the faith. It is not however the basis of ritual.

I’m reminded of this distinction having been totally enraptured by this performance of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater – a piece that has an amazing power, a piece you could listen to 10,000 times and still find more within it, a piece that can become a lifetime favorite for generation after generation. See if you agree. And see if you also agree that a concert setting is the right place for it.

Embedding has been disabled for this but don’t let that stop you. This is glorious.