Author: Scelata

I know he has been mentioned before, if not here, then on the MusicaSacra fora, and if you’re anything like I, items that should be of interest don’t always register if they are not immediately useful for whatever pressing need one feels as a musician, but….

As it happens, having no duties, or responsibility, or work as a musician, m musical needs are rather limited right now.
It being that time of year, some Crusaders for Life sang Phillip Stopford’s heartbreakingly appropriate lullaby for the Holy Innocents at the state capitol building in Illinois.
And it being that time of year, (I don’t know about you, but my creche and tree have another week to go….) it remains appropriate. It was a joy to discover this composer, like receiving one last Christmass present, because…

One might imagine someone with such a title would have more respect for rigidity, realize that in some situations it’s kinda… necessary.

Missed this from early November, (hmm…. what is it that could have had me distracted? can’t remember,) by Father Dwight Longenecker, blogging at Patheos.
He is, because of his background, perhaps a little hymnocentric, but he makes some good points. (And he gets to the right place eventually, though not, perhaps, for the right reason.)

Since moving here ten years ago I’m still having some problems with music. Part of it is my problem. I spent fifteen years in the Anglican Church with the New English Hymnal–which is probably the finest hymnbook ever published in the English language. Musically and liturgically it was the best that traditional Anglicanism had to offer.
…My problem is that I am actually unfamiliar with most of the music in American Catholic Churches because I have lived abroad for so long.
However, what I do experience is not encouraging. Who on earth is writing these hymns, publishing these hymns and choosing to buy, prepare and perform these hymns? Doesn’t anybody know what a hymn is for?
Surely a hymn is first, and foremost part of our worship. That means the words are words that we use to address our praise, adoration and worship of God. So much of the stuff I come across isn’t that at all. Instead it is sentimental language in which God talks to us to reassure us, make us feel better and comfort or inspire us. So…”Be not afraid…for I am always with you…Come follow me.. etc” This may be a pleasant enough devotional song to remind us of God’s promises, and there may be times when it is appropriate to sing such songs, but Mass is not one of those times. We’re not really at Mass to sing God’s comforting words to ourselves. We’re there to worship Him….the Mass is meant to take us to the threshold of heaven; if it is meant to be a glimpse of glory and a participation in the worship of the spheres of heaven itself, why then the sentimental, sweet and comforting songs just won’t do. They wont’ do not because they are bad or untrue, but because they are not good and true enough. Worship that takes us to the threshold of glory needs to be, well…glorious….not all parishes can manage to have a grand organ, a paid organist and a fine choir. True, and that’s why the church recommends Gregorian Chant. 

On the eve of St Francis’ feast day, an interesting interview in the National Catholic Register with a professor of sacred music at Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. He touches on music at the University, and music in the Franciscan tradition. (I don’t think I knew that Jacopone da Todi was Franciscan.)

Franciscan University has a vibrant musical life. There are two university choirs: the Schola Cantorum Franciscana and University Chorale. A small army of volunteer students leads and participates in bands and choirs, which provide musical leadership for multiple daily and Sunday Masses in the chapel. We have at least two student-led a capella, groups in addition to a string quartet; and, of course, it’s never hard to find a student playing a guitar outside on a sunny day. There are many forms of music here, for various times and places. “Diverse and healthy” is how I would describe it.
For liturgical music specifically, there are few places I’m aware of that have a similar program. If you walk into Christ the King Chapel here, you’re likely to hear one of two different types of song — chant-polyphony and classic English hymnody or guitar-led “praise and worship,” music with compositions that are both more recent and more Catholic. What’s conspicuously lacking is music from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s, which is so common in American Catholic parishes.

 Not certain I get this – “praise and worship” music that is “more Catholic” than what? than the “chant-polyphony”? or than the stuff of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s that he mentions in the next sentence?

Anyone familiar with and care to comment on the musical praxis at Steubenville?