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sewnsew
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| First Name: | Kim | | Gender: | Female | | Faith History: | cradle Anglican, Episcopal /Catholic-04/07/07 |
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Posted: Sun Jul 15th, 2007 12:50 pm |
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| Yesterday before the Mass started I was leafing through the music book in the pew- not one piece ( on a casual look through) was much earlier than the 70's- Besides the great liturgical chants such as the Gregorain were the old classic hymns ever used in Catholic churches?
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun Jul 15th, 2007 01:38 pm |
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Not one piece… was much earlier than the 70's
Oh, you noticed that, too. It’s been in place for nearly 40 years now, kind of a boycott of the older music on the “popular” level. Basically, Catholics nowadays have no inkling of what went on before the “changeover.” (Chant? What’s that? But it’s all Latin anyway, right? Nobody understands it. So why bother?)
Yes, the older hymns were used, but not in the Mass. What was sung during the Mass were the parts of the Mass — straight, without paraphrasing or percussion. Hymns (mostly in Latin) were sung at devotions such as Benediction and Holy Hour and in the Liturgy of the Hours.
Frankly, I find most of the “hymns” (one must use the word loosely, if at all) in the current song books and missalettes congregationally unsingable, not to mention doctrinally illiterate and self-centered. Is performance-geared jazz, rock and subjectivism all people know? I’m afraid so. But is a jazzy, upbeat Sanctus with throbbing bass, pounding percussion and special effects noodling on an electronic keyboard or guitar really appropriate? When and how do we pray?
David
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CajunRick
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Posted: Sun Jul 15th, 2007 01:58 pm |
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kimdyuma wrote: Besides the great liturgical chants such as the Gregorain were the old classic hymns ever used in Catholic churches?
I think it depends on what you're calling "classic hymns". I remember such classics as "O Lord I Am Not Worthy", "Holy God We Praise Thy Name", "Immaculate Mary", "Hail Holy Queen", etc. There were also Latin classics like "Panis Angelicus", "Dona Nobis Pacem", "O Sanctisima", etc.
We did not sing "Amazing Grace", "A Mighty Fortress", "How Great Thou Art".
The hymnal we use in our parish today includes every one of those, and I use them, too. I also use the good new stuff like "Abba, Father" and "Prayer of St. Francis", and even a few kumbaya-type songs like "Peace is Flowing Like a River". I like variety, as long as a song is liturgically appropriate for the readings of the day, the season of the year, or the part of the mass. I tend to pick a simple, repetitive song like "Peace is Flowing" or "Come Into My Heart, Lord" for use at a time when I think it is appropriate that one can sing gently without a hymnal, such as during meditation after communion.
I only play about once a month, on our music director's weekend off, but I've used every song I mentioned so far this year, except one: "A Mighty Fortress". It just hasn't been appropriate on the Sundays I've played.
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Rick Luquette
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Darlene
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Posted: Sun Jul 15th, 2007 08:27 pm |
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No matter how hard I try, I just can't imagine singing "A Mighty Fortress" in a Catholic Church. And it's always been at the top of my list as one of the best hymns ever written. But seriously, singing a hymn written by the Reformer who began the greatest schism from the Catholic Church? That's almost as odd as Reformed Calvinists praying the Rosary.
Darlene
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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Tina in Ashburn
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Posted: Tue Jul 17th, 2007 06:26 pm |
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Dear Darlene, I agree with you wholeheartedly.
Sing it in a bar! Sing it in the car! Sing it with your friends while under the stars! Just don't make me sing that at a Catholic Mass.
I can't find any quotes anywhere in official Catholic documents that instructs us to sing more non-Catholic music at Mass. However there are many recommendations for chant and sacred polyphony.
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Tina
Arlington Diocese
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Tina in Ashburn
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Posted: Tue Jul 17th, 2007 07:31 pm |
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Back to Kim's question about music before 1970
I have here in my lap "The Pius X Hymnal" from 1953. It bears both a NIHIL OBSTAT and an IMPRIMATUR. Containing Latin and English, there are chants and hymns.
"Tollite Jugum Meum" Mode VI.
"Oremus Pro Pontifice" -for the Pope, the book falls open here - must've been a goodie.
"Vere Languores Nostros" Text from Isaias, tune by Antonio Lotti
"Within Thy Sacred Heart" Corner, 1631
"Dear Heart of Jesus" John Sigenberger +1924
"I Hail Thee Kingly Heart Most HIgh" ascribed to Bl Herman Joseph; Leipsig, 1537
"Dear Angel, Ever at My Side" Fr Faber +1863; Strassburg, 1573
Hymns in English to honor St Pius X, St Joseph, St Patrick, A Virgin Martyr, Apostles, Martyrs, St Anthony, St Francis of Assisi, St Madeleine Sophie, St Maria Goretti, The Holy Innocents, etc
Tons for Mary, a whole chapter, chants, polyphony, and english hymns.
And countless ones for Jesus/God/Holy Spirit/Trinity
Holy God We Praise Thy Name
Jesus My Lord My God My All
Countless chants, in various modes, Ambrosian and otherwise.
"O Bone Jesu" Palestrina [you may actually have heard this one? very beautiful, hard to do]
Mass parts
Its a book of almost 500 pages.
Okay so that is just a sampling of what is missing in the hymnal you have.
Also here's something that totally fascinates me and is really illustrative of the former attitudes. Here is a link http://www.musicasacra.com/pdf/whitelist1947.pdf to a 1947 document that describes what you could or couldn't sing. This used to be referred to as the "whitelist" and the "blacklist". Just peruse it and see how different the attitudes used to be for liturgical music. My hymnal above is on the "whitelist", the St Basil Hymnal, a once-common one, is on the blacklist, maybe it has one bad hymn or something because it is very similar to the St Pius X. Operatic-style or drippy emotional music is black-listed. So are pianos and rhythmic instruments like timpani. Geez what would they have thought of the tambourine?
Not every statement in this document has been superseded by more recent declarations. But for some reason, these rules generally are now ignored.
What d'y'all think of that?
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Tina
Arlington Diocese
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BodRod
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Posted: Tue Jul 17th, 2007 08:00 pm |
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Darlene wrote: No matter how hard I try, I just can't imagine singing "A Mighty Fortress" in a Catholic Church.
So then, you would not go to a brain surgeon if he or she was not Catholic? Martin L. was a monk as in Catholic. So he went astray. He still had gifts and talents. And besides all that ..... I arranged a version of "A Mighty Fortress" that has a walking bass (read pedal board) that can wake up any dozer and rattle the windows at the same time. It would make a great last verse except the worshipers quit singing and just listen. And, ..... if I can ever figure out Sibelius I'll do the notation on it. 
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Annie
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Posted: Wed Jul 18th, 2007 12:43 pm |
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Tina in Ashburn wrote: What d'y'all think of that?
Sad how far we've sunk.
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Annie
Ora et labora
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heardclarke
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Posted: Wed Aug 8th, 2007 02:07 pm |
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Hello everyone,
I feel your pain....
If anyone is interested, Pope Benedict has written a great book about music and worship callled "A New Song For the Lord."
It is very beautiful and (of course) challenging.
Here's a sample:
"One recognizes right liturgy by the fact that it liberates us from ordinary, everyday activity and returns to us once more the depths and the heights, silence and song. One recognizes right liturgy in that it has a cosmic, not just a group, character. It sings with the angels. It is silent with the expectant depths of the universe. And that is how it redeems the earth."
(page 160 of the Crossroad edition of 1996)
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Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.
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Tina in Ashburn
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Posted: Tue Aug 28th, 2007 10:53 am |
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I've been holding back a response to Criff's remark to Darlene on singing Luther in a Catholic Church.
The remark of going to a Catholic brain surgeon seemed to be beside the point. It would make more sense to say "you would not go to a brain surgeon if he or she was not a SURGEON". Using that logical construct, you would not go to a person that hates the Church to write music for a Mass he hates.
Darlene is right to want worthy Catholic music at Mass.
To quote the Catholic author Warren Carroll "One essential fact about that struggle must always be remembered. Wherever and whenever Protestants were in power, they always abolished the Mass, outlawing it. The Protestants who presented themselves as defenders of religious liberty, never permitted religious liberty to Catholics. Luther began this when he stopped the saying of the Mass in Wittenberg... He condemned the Mass, with his usual violence of language, as 'blasphemy, madness, and a lie' which was 'worse than unchastity, murder, and robbery.'"
So I ask, how does it give glory to God to employ music at Mass written by anyone who HATED the Mass? Why would I want to adore God with anything written by anyone who formally left the Church and started his own Church? The question becomes what is important here - my own musical interests or God's?
Choosing music for Mass must go beyond nice-sounding text, melody or self-indulgent self-expression or simply what we are used to.
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Tina
Arlington Diocese
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Darlene
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Posted: Thu Aug 30th, 2007 08:25 pm |
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Excellent post, Tina.
Darlene
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The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. II Corinthians 13:14
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BodRod
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Posted: Thu Aug 30th, 2007 09:36 pm |
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| Such comments remind me of a book Patrick Madrid wrote entitled, "More Catholic Than the Pope".
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Tina in Ashburn
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Posted: Thu Aug 30th, 2007 10:57 pm |
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Criff, please stick to the issue under discussion without counter-productive personal attacks.
thanks a bunch.
t
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Tina
Arlington Diocese
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Tina in Ashburn
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Posted: Thu Aug 30th, 2007 11:09 pm |
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THANKS Darlene. Its a tough subject which winds up a lot of emotion and indignation.
Reading the writings of the Church on music, nowhere can I find any encouragement to sing the hymns of Luther. I do find many directives to sing Mass parts, sacred polyphony and chant created by other authors though.
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Tina
Arlington Diocese
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CajunRick
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Posted: Fri Aug 31st, 2007 01:16 am |
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Please avoid all comments that judge the intentions of other posters; leave the moderating to the moderators; and at all times treat one another with respect.
As long as we stay within the confines of Church law and doctrine, and the current instructions from the Vatican and our bishops, we are each entitled to our own opinion.
Some prefer chant and polyphonic choirs. Not every parish these days has the luxury of having a professional organist and choir director, or even a volunteer who can assume these duties.
And there was a time when even Gregorian chant was "new". Just because something is old does not make it good; just because something is new does not make it bad. The inverse is also true.
So I repeat. Please avoid all comments that judge the intentions of other posters; leave the moderating to the moderators; and at all times treat one another with respect.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
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BodRod
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Posted: Fri Aug 31st, 2007 03:26 am |
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I think I can empathize with the situation in which Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) found himself. He was ordained in 1507, earned a Doctorate in Theology in 1512, nailed his ideas to the church door in 1517 and was excommunicated in 1521. Whether he was right or wrong can be seen as irrelevant in terms of what he must have been going through at the emotional level. He had left the religion in which he was raised and what he believed in all his life up to that point.
I have "been there, done that". I felt like I was dying inside when I left the religion in which I was raised. That fact that they had lied to me about doctrine, matters of faith and customs didn’t seem to matter. On the emotional level, I was being torn between my religious "habit" and what I was finding out to be the truth. My point is, it must have been pretty close to a living Hell for Martin Luther, being a priest, in feeling torn like that. Eight years after he was excommunicated, Luther composed the music and wrote lyrics to "A Mighty Fortress" as an expression of his undying allegiance to God. I think he was saying popes may come and popes may go, and there have been some despicable reprobates as popes, (They have not all been like John Paul the Great.) but he would keep his trust in God.
Last edited on Fri Aug 31st, 2007 03:29 am by BodRod
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Annie
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Posted: Fri Aug 31st, 2007 07:37 am |
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CajunRick wrote: Some prefer chant and polyphonic choirs. Not every parish these days has the luxury of having a professional organist and choir director, or even a volunteer who can assume these duties.
Chant and polyphony are two entirely different things. Chant is the music of prayer, and can be done by anybody who can speak. Polyphony requires musicianship, chant does not (unless you want to turn it into a performance). That's why chant is still written in square notes, it doesn't have the meter that "music" does. EVEN Annie can chant.
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Annie
Ora et labora
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