Author: Kathleen Pluth

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

From the First Hymn on Paradise

I took my stand halfway
between awe and love;
a yearning for Paradise
invited me to explore it,
but awe at its majesty
restrained me from my search.
With wisdom, however,
I reconciled the two;
I revered what lay hidden
and meditated on what was revealed.
The aim of my search was to gain profit,
the aim of my silence was to find help.

St Ephrem the Syrian

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Hymn Tune Introit 19th OT

 Look to your covenant, O Lord, and forget not the life of your poor ones for ever. Arise, O God, and defend your cause, and forget not the cries of those who seek you.

Your covenant remember, Lord.
Recall the life of all your poor.
O God, defend your cause, arise!
Do not forget your people’s cries.

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Adoration at Communion?

I think of the mission of the CMAA as a kind of new progressivism, always moving forward in a positive way.
A danger for all progressivist movements is the development of a complex of memes or tropes or canards that must-be-accepted by individuals in order that they might be accepted by the group. So far, it seems to me, the CMAA has largely escaped the groupthink that can become a kind of mandatory entrance fee to a group, insisting that everyone check his or her brain at the door. In fact, everyone I talk to at CMAA thinks differently about everything. And everyone seems to feel free to think freely in a forward, creative motion. There is weirdly little common ground. I suppose beauty and music are commonly held ideals–but those are not closely defined, and certainly not mandated. In most things, we are all over the map. Try to state something outside of dogma as though it were dogmatic, and you will hear someone else beg to differ. And in my view, this is all as it should be.
In that spirit, I would like to ask some help in forming my own opinions about a question I think is crucial for a hymn writer, and topical, given the Gospel texts of this summer. Is it appropriate, do you think, to express adoration at Mass, at Communion?
I believe that one of the primary liturgical questions of our day has to do with what I call “directionality.” To whom is a prayer addressed? To whom, for example, was the Christ Has Died acclamation addressed? (No one.) But to Whom is the memorial acclamation in all other cases addressed? (Jesus Christ.) And a similar issue is at stake in many other issues, for example, ad orientem posture. 
At Communion, ought we be adoring the Blessed Sacrament, and if so, as Christ? Or through Christ (per ipsum) to the Triune? Do St. Thomas’ great hymns to the Blessed Sacrament address the Blessed Sacrament in adoration? Certainly there is adoration. But Whom, and how, do we adore?
Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

“Hymn of the Day,” 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

As I’ve mentioned here previously, when I began toying with the idea of writing hymns based on the Sunday Lectionary readings, I used the Psalm of the day as the framework. After all, the Psalm is a song. It lends itself to hymns, as we see in the Genevan Psalter, and in the work of Isaac Watts. 
For next Sunday’s hymn, I simply took my first two lines from the Psalm, and the rest unfolded quite naturally in other directions. I had a hymn tune in mind, St. Thomas (Williams), which to my ears sounds joyful, even effervescent, yet solemn enough for the subject matter, with its staid initial rising 4th. The text that I wrote to this tune is frankly confessional. It can be used with or without verses 2 and 3, which alone make it recognizable as lectionary-derived.
The text is below, and here and here are Colin Brumby’s thoughtful variations on a single setting.
O taste and you will see
the goodness of the Lord:
humanity, divinity,
the Body and the Blood.
God fed His wand’ring fold
with manna from the sky.
Much better This than bread of old:
we eat and never die.
Elijah once was fed
when he could walk no more.
An angel brought to him that bread–
the angels This adore.
To those who would be filled,
this food is life indeed.
To give it Life Himself was killed,
and we from death are freed.
O worthy is the Lamb,
our slain and risen Lord,
the Son of Mary, God and man:
our Eucharist adored.
Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Dichotomies

There are two kinds of Church music:

  • sacred
  • utility

or is it:

  • elevating
  • subsumable

or is it:

  • perduring
  • ephemeral

or is it:

  • Word-driven
  • meter-driven

or is it:

  •  vertical (theologically, i.e., meant to aspire towards God’s beauty)
  • horizontal (theologically, i.e., meant to reflect the anthropology of the assembly)

or is it:

  • horizontal (musically, i.e. based on melody)
  • vertical (musically, i.e. based on chordal progressions, i.e. written at the piano)
Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Conference at Birmingham Oratory: Sept. 21-22


21/09/2012 – JHNILM Conference September 21st /22nd 2012 at the Oratory, Birmingham

In September, the Blessed John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music celebrates its first birthday, and the second anniversary of the visit to the Oratory by Pope Benedict on the occasion of the beatification of Blessed Cardinal Newman, founder of the Oratory and Patron of the Institute.

To mark the occasion the JHNILM is holding a two day conference at the Oratory, on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd September.

Speakers include Mgr Andrew Wadsworth, currently the Executive Director of ICEL, who has had varied experience as a professional musician, schoolteacher and chaplain, and who will explore the way “Towards a new Culture of Liturgical Music”.

Mgr. Andrew Burnham, is also a distinguished musician, author and former Anglican Bishop of Ebbsfleet, will speak about the musical life and aims of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, of which he is a member.

The outstanding organist and choral conductor Joseph Cullen, former Organ Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, who has held posts in Leeds, Glasgow and Westminster Cathedrals and has directed the London Symphony Chorus and Huddersfield Choral Society for many years, is addressing the Conference on the subject of “Stripping the Cladding”, in which he examines the search for an authentic voice in today’s Roman Rite.

Ben Whitworth, assistant editor of the liturgical journal “Usus Antiquior” will talk on the “Use and abuse of Hymns”, exploring their true historical place in the Liturgy and ways in which they have sometimes come to be misused.

Jeremy de Satgé, founder of “The Music Makers”, singer, composer and choir conductor, will speak on “How to get Catholics to sing, or why we should sing the Mass”.

Jeremy White, the internationally renowned operatic soloist and a Cantor of the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge, founded by the acclaimed plainchant Scholar, Dr. Mary Berry, will speak about his own experience as a church musician.

There will also be classes in practical liturgical musicianship presented by the speakers. Joseph Cullen and Jeremy de Satgé will take classes of children and introduce them to liturgical music and the art of singing it. Joseph Cullen will give direction to those who wish to learn more about the art of liturgical organ playing, particularly the accompaniment of plainchant.

First Vespers of the 25th Sunday of the Year will be sung in Latin and English Chant and directed by Philip Duffy KSG, who was for thirty years Director of Music at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, and who now lectures in music at Liverpool Hope University.

The Conference ends with a performance of Catholic liturgical Music in the Oratory Church by the Sixteen under the direction of Harry Christophers CBE.

Attendance at the Conference and concert costs £65 and can be booked by telephone on 0121 454 0808, or by writing to JHNILM, c/o The Oratory, 141 Hagley Road, Birmingham B16 8UE, or online at admin@oratorymusic.org.uk. You can visit the Institute’s website at: www.oratorymusic.org.uk

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Down in Adoration Falling

Here we are once again, in the days of mini-retreat on the Eucharist at our Sunday liturgies. During Cycle B, the Year of Mark, the shortest Gospel, we hear for a few weeks from the Bread of Life Discourse from the Gospel of John.
It seems to me that this might be a good time to do what we can to revive the beautiful habit of Eucharistic devotion through our choice of postCommunion hymn, especially during these brief weeks. According to the GIRM:
88. When the distribution of Communion is over, if appropriate, the Priest and faithful pray quietly for some time. If desired, a Psalm or other canticle of praise or a hymn may also be sung by the whole congregation.
This option was so memorably employed at the Holy Father’s Mass at Westminster Cathedral a couple of years ago.

I thought I might offer a few hymns I’ve written with the highly accomplished Australian composer Colin Brumby, whose sacred work has been published in the States by CanticaNOVA Publications. The intent, like the above, is devotional, tender, yearning, and confident.

https://media.musicasacra.com/books/hymns/kp_jesus2.pdf
https://media.musicasacra.com/books/hymns/kp_he.pdf
https://media.musicasacra.com/books/hymns/kp_o.pdf