Chant Café

Sung by our Chant Cafe co-blogger Fr. Christopher Smith!!

For Christ the King, Christus Vincit! You don’t need a papal procession to sing it. You can get the entire chant (6 pages) at the Parish Book of Chant online (pdf page 103ff)

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Here is a contemporary setting by James MacMillan

There is no question that ICEL and the USCCB, and the Vatican as well, hope that the new Missal translation will be a time of musical reform as well. The chant-like musical settings of the Mass in the Missal have been public for a very long time now (that this link is nearly impossible to find on the ICEL website is surely not deliberate).

These are the settings that many Bishops and Church officials hope will become the default settings for all American parishes, the ones used at daily Masses and most Sunday Masses as well. The goal here is to have something like a nationally shared Mass setting that isn’t the “Mass of Creation.”

The CMAA has made a complete set of videos of this music available for everyone.

At the same time, ICEL/VOX/USCCB are not somehow restricting the rights of publishers to produce and market alternative settings of the texts, and this is precisely what GIA, OCP, and WLP have done.

What must annoy these companies in the extreme right now is that, apparently, and from what I can gather, they are not yet permitted to commercially distribute their settings because the final Missal has not been approved. The delays go on and on and on.

As a result, the companies seem to be doing everything they can do to market the settings without actually distributing them. They provide PDF previews. They provided MP3 recordings. They have interviews with the composers. They write about the merits of this one or that one. They can do anything but actually sell and distribute their music.

Therefore, right now, they are all under some kind of restriction, and you get statements such as this from GIA:

All pre-orders will be given first priority and will be shipped to you as soon as they become available for delivery. You will not be billed until your order has been shipped. Check out the rich variety of new and revised settings available from GIA and order yours TODAY!

And there is this from WLP:

VIEW and LISTEN to all the new and revised WLP Mass settings with the new English translation of The Roman Missal. Request a FREE copy of WLP Presents: Musical Settings of the Mass by calling 1-800-566-6150. All content pending final approval.

If you try to actually buy the sheet music, you discover that it is unavailable or listed as out of stock.

And here is something similar at OCP:

The USCCB has set the First Sunday of Advent, November 27, 2011 as the official implementation date for the new Roman Missal. This means you can now order the resources you need to learn, teach and implement the changes in your parish! Click on the links below to hear sound samples, preview sheet music, order accompaniments and read exclusive composer interviews to engage your community!

Once again, you have no luck if you actually try to buy any.

The restrictions are all apparently in place.

And yet there must be aspects of these restrictions that I do not understand because OCP is offering free downloads of its music in so-called Assembly editions. Here is Dan Schutte’s Mass of Christ the Savior, Estela García-López’s Misa St. Cecilia, Christopher Walkers’s Celtic Mass, and so on.

If GIA and WLP are also providing such complete Assembly editions, I’ve not yet found them. Even more than that, OCP is taking this a step further with a complete book for congregations that includes many of its to-be-published settings for $2.99. When I add to the cart, the software says it is in stock, a fact confirmed by an email that I received this morning from OCP that says: “Due to overwhelming response, we’ve sold out of our initial inventory. With more arriving by November 19th, now’s your chance to reserve your copy!”

So apparently, OCP has been publishing and distributing alternate music for the New Missal for some time. OCP also published some of its music earlier this year in its Today’s Liturgy publication.

I’m not at all sure that I understand what publishers can and cannot do right now and I’m not privy to any of the communications between ICEL and these publishers. Maybe there is a reason for all of this. I just do not know. It also would not surprise me to learn that there is some degree of confusion out there or that OCP is pushing the envelope just a bit in its own enterprising interests – and here again, I’m not objecting to such an approach but only drawing attention to the range of responses out there to restrictions which seems rather vague and with uncertain deadlines and finish lines.

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