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Posted on by Mr. C

The Classical Guitar as “voices”….Dirait on by LAGQ

Over at the Musica Sacra Forum, I alluded to the LA Guitar Quartet’s virtuosity. I’ve also shared there the encounter I had one summer workshop with Paul Salamunovich, where I gave him a CD containing the following version of his protege, Morton Lauridsen’s famous “Dirait on” from Rilke’s Flower Poems. Here is a YouTube performance that has the LAGQ version with some shadow imaging.

I would like to dedicate this post to our bishop, John Steinbock, who is ailing and hospitalized with stage three lung cancer and severe blood clotting. Ora pro nobis….

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

When can Catholic publishers distribute their new music?

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.

Posted on by Arlene Oost-Zinner

Advanced Chant With Dr. William Mahrt

There is still room in Dr. Mahrt’s advanced class at the Winter Chant Intensive coming up in January in New Orleans. This is a rare opportunity to study with Dr. Mahrt for an entire week. For those of you who are curious about just what will be covered, here’s a more detailed description of the course:

The advanced course will include substantial singing of chants, first the propers for Epiphany according to the Solesmes method, and then chants in a wide variety of genres. Interpretation of the chants will include the approach to overall rhythmic structure according to the Solesmes method, but also bringing other ways to comprehend the overall formal rhythm of the chants, including accentualism and semiology.

Lecture and discussion will include the following:

1) A brief history of Gregorian chant;
2) The role of memory in the formation and performance of chant and the subsequent development of notation;
3) Modes in their application to psalm tones, formulaic melodies, and free chants, and the application of melodic analysis to performance;
4) Gregorian hymnody;
5) The intimate relation of musical style and liturgical function;
6) The aesthetics of Gregorian chant: sacred, beautiful, and universal.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Problem of Gospel Acclamations

One aspect of the ordinary form texts I’ve never really figured out (not that I’ve spent hours trying to figure it out) concerns the text for the Gospel Acclamation. It seems that the texts are rather unstable. For some reason, the USCCB does not provide them on its website, though it provides the full Responsorial Psalm and readings. Also I see no parraellel between what is in the Missalette and what is provided for in the actual Alleluia text of the Graduale Romanum.

The contrast today struck me in particular.

Missallete: “Stand erect and raise your heads because your redemption is at hand.” (Lk 21:28)

Graduale: “Out of the depths have I cried to you, 0 Lord; Lord, hear my voice. (Psalm 129) 


Someone needs to put this problem on the agenda.