Pope Benedict XVI Schola

Next week I’ll participate in the fifth annual Sacred Music Workshop in Auburn, Ala. I attended with three friends two years ago—and this year will travel to Auburn with several other friends. Friday is devoted to Gregorian chant, Saturday to Renaissance polyphony.

I expect to come home even more fired up about starting the schola. Don’t quote me on this, but I’m leaning toward scheduling the first “information meeting” the weekend of Feb. 23-24. I plan to invite a handful of people I know are interested, to get a blurb in the calendar of the diocesan newspaper, and to fax bulletin inserts to local parishes.

We’re trying to pin down a rehearsal location now . . . and one has tentatively been offered.

Stay tuned!

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Now playing: Gloriae Dei Cantores - Alma redemptoris mater
via FoxyTunes

Musicam Sacram, Instruction on Music in the Liturgy, published March 5, 1967, by the Sacred Congregation of Rites. If you want to know what we’re supposed to be singing at Mass, this document provides the foundation. —————- Now playing: Corydon Singers, Matthew Best & Thomas Trotter - Missa Choralis, S. 10 : III. Credo via FoxyTunes

If you’ve heard (or sung) the contemporary hymn “Sing a New Church,” have you ever stopped to wonder precisely what “new” church the author meant? And why we need a new church, as we still have such a long way to go in order to fully realize the church Christ gave us? Father Paul Scalia’s article “Ritus Narcissus,” from the Adoremus Bulletin, addresses the topic and a lot more. He writes

[the hymn], a triumphalist paean to diversity by Delores Dufner, OSB, also fosters the Cult of Us: Let us bring the gifts that differ And, in splendid, varied ways, Sing a new Church into being, One in faith and love and praise

You’re not going to find the “Cult of Us” in music whose text is the propers of the Mass. And if I’m not mistaken, Sister Delores is the same person who recently opined in Pastoral Music magazine that musical settings of the psalms didn’t seem “relevant” to people today. If Scripture no longer seems relevant, the problem is with us, and the solution is not dumbing down the Mass but purifying our tastes and desires. —————- Now playing: Tallis Scholars - Miserere via FoxyTunes

A friend has created a live365 Internet radio station, Gregorian Chant Lives! At the moment all but one of the tracks are from commercial recordings. One track is a Communion chant (link to pdf download: Amen dico vobis) sung by Harmonia Vocal Quartet and recorded during Mass under somewhat imperfect conditions.

The goal is to shift to chant recordings submitted by U.S. scholas. So if you’re a member of such a group and have mp3s to share, please e-mail.

In the meantime, enjoy listening.

Most Catholics—including, perhaps, many directors of music, priests, deacons, and religious—seem to see the selection of music for the sacred liturgy as a private matter, determined by personal preferences and what are “our favorite songs.” Certainly the culture of American Catholicism fosters that impression. A recent issue of a diocesan newspaper included an article explaining the U.S. bishops’ new advisory document Sing to the Lord. The article correctly notes that STTL “places a special emphasis on the use of the organ and the singing of Gregorian chants in Catholic Liturgies.” It continues,

But the music directors at three [diocesan] parishes don’t see the document as signaling a return to traditional music and a phasing out of popular contemporary music. A balance of music styles is needed, the directors said, to give participants the music they find spiritually moving.

The diocesan newspaper in question is an especially good one, and I’m not slamming the editors or writers.

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