Silent Night

Soon we'll be singing that old favorite "Silent Night", a hymn to remind us of that anticipation of awaiting our Savior's humble entrance into our world. Yet, we come to church and await Him in a manner bereft of silence.

We so need to recover what is meant by "active participation" (actuosa participatio). What is it? It didn't spring immaculate and virginally from Vatican II, but already had a long history in the liturgical renewal.

"In order that the faithful may more actively participate in the sacred liturgy, let them be once again made to sing Gregorian Chant as a congregation." Pius X, motu proprio Tra Le Solicitudini

How did Vatican II expect "active participation" to be brought about? "Therefore, pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it by means of the necessary instruction in all their pastoral work." Vatican Council II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 14

Surprise, surprise! The Fathers of Vatican II told the pastors that they should teach us Gregorian Chant so we could sing the mass as a congregation. I'm still waiting...


The quotes are from a wonderful article: The Mass of Vatican II | Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J.

Third Edition of the Roman Missal

Here's an interesting little video from the Corpus Christi Watershed folks. It addresses the form of the mass, particularly the replacement of the Introit with a hymn...

2011 GIRM 48. This chant is sung alternately by the choir and the people or similarly by a cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone. In the Dioceses of the United States of America, there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Missal or the antiphon with its Psalm from the Gradual Romanum, as set to music there or in another setting; (2) the antiphon and Psalm of the Graduate Simplex for the liturgical time; (3) a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including Psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year, similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

And of course, while we're at it, ccwatershed also has a new hymnal, the Vatican II Hymnal:

The Dominicans at St Albert Priory (and the Eastern Province) have chosen the New Edition of the St Michael Hymnal:

I'm pleased to see these fine efforts, but somehow I expect that I'll be subject to slight variations of the sameold-sameold instead of what the Church is asking for...

So I said...

I know. I said I don't spend a lot of time looking at Chant and Music sites, but sometimes they find me anyway! This one is worth passing along, it's the Liturgy of the Hours set to Gregorian Chant.

Cool find

I found this over at Dominican Liturgy blog in a post titled Dominican Prayers on the iPhone

Behold the golden dawn arise;
The paling night forsakes the skies:
Those shades that hid the world from view,
And us to dangerous error drew.

May this new day be calmly passed,
May we keep pure while it shall last:
Nor let our lips from truth depart,
Nor dark designs engage the heart.

So may the day speed on; the tongue
No falsehood know, the hands no wrong:
Our eyes from wanton gaze refrain,
o guilt our guarded bodies stain.

For God all-seeing from on high
Surveys us with a watchful eye:
Each day our every act he knows
From early dawn to evening’s close.

All laud to God the Father be;
All praise, eternal Son, to thee;
All glory, as is ever meet,
To God the Holy Paraclete. Amen.

Melody: Old 100th L.M.
Music: Louis Bourgeois, 1500-1561
Text: Sol ecce surgit igneus, eleventhth century Anglo Saxon
Translation: John M. Neale, 1818-1866

No, I don't have an iPhone, but I do love Old 100th!

I'll also confess that I spend almost no time on the music and liturgy blogs, I get too depressed. I used to, but it's like window shopping when you have no money; you want but you can't have, and the intense beauty drives one a bit nutters with desire because it has been banished and demonized in this part of the world, where it is preferred to sing(sic) music(sic) set to "I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weener" and suchlike. OK, some are nice campfire songs, but I don't see a campfire when I look at the candles on the altar...

Index of Forbidden Songs

Fr Eric Richtsteig has posted a series of delightful entries at his blog Orthometer. He's made a list of bad music which should be banned. Way to go!

Index of Forbidden Songs (Gather Part III)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Gather Part II)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Gather Part I)

and

Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part IX)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part VIII)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part VII)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part VI)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part V)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part IV)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part III)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part II)
Index of Forbidden Songs (Music Issue, Part I)

However, it would appear that the only banned music is Gregorian Chant, Latin hymns, and polyphony. Yeah, the crap is easier to sing, I will grant that. however a diet of peanut butter sandwiches, french fries, and coke tends to weigh one down with bloat. we've effectively banished beauty and truth, and distorted love, justice, and mercy. Is it any wonder that we fail to respect and obey God who is Beauty, Truth, Love, Justice, and Mercy?

Book bargain!

This is worth passing along:

Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, C.O., Consulter to the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff and Coordinator of the program for Master Architecture, Sacred Art and Liturgy at the Universita Europea di Roma/Ateneo Pontificio Regina Apostolorum, has praised Papal Legislation on Sacred Music: 95 A.D. to 1977 A.D. by Msgr. Robert F. Hayburn, Mus.D., saying that it "contains a wealth of important texts that are otherwise very hard to find and is an indispensable resource for anyone interested in sacred music and the liturgy. The present debate on Church music will no doubt benefit from this outstanding volume, which thanks to the publisher's efforts is again available in print."

Roman Catholic Books brought this classic back into print in 2005. Originally priced at $69.75, the book is now available for $34.87.

Msgr. Hayburn's book, first published over 30 years ago, definitively answers questions about the Church's traditional thinking and its rules on sacred music. At the time of its publication, reviewer Michael Callaghan said in Clergy Review: "To my knowledge no more complete documentation of papal legislation on sacred music exists."



Papal Legislation on Sacred Music: 95 A.D. to 1977 A.D.
Original price $69.75.

Save 50%
Now available for $34.87

To order this book go to http://www.booksforcatholics.com and search on "Papal Legislation on Sacred Music"

Faithful Cross (Krzyżu święty nade wszystko)

For Lent, a little Polish to English, with help of Maria and Mike Turner OPL...
click image for printable sheet music.

Just a theory

When I was young (OK, late ‘60s), it perplexed me that my grandparents and their generation, and even many of my parent's generation, had plastic flowers in their homes and extolled the virtues of the imitation over the real. At one time my soon to be mother-in-law explained the great effort that had once to be made to care for the rose bush to produce a bloom that could only be enjoyed for a day or so, but now it could be enjoyed all year, and year in and year out, with only dusting as the necessary labor. Not raised around rose gardens or a television, at the time I found the plastic roses far less interesting than the color television they rested on.

Last night, listening to a group of my seniors discussing their less than fond memories of the traditional mass, I recognized that perhaps the two are connected and stem from the same source; exhaustion with the labor that beauty requires? Perhaps that is why the old appeals to the young, because they are not exhausted with beauty never known, but with the banal imitations.

Perhaps that is also why, although I find it difficult and daunting to learn, I’m captivated with the Dies Irae which I hope to learn by Saturday for the funeral mass of the mother of one of our Dominican Laity.

Merry Christmas!

Chancel Choir, Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Christmas day.

Interlude...

Here's the music to "Most Pure and Lowly Virgin" which was the processional hymn sung at the Solemn Professions (click to enlarge for a printable size version).

The words are by Fr. W. Becket Soule, O.P., set to the music of "Thaxted", an early 20th century piece by Holst. There is also a SABT setting here, and the music can be heard here as well.

The Dominicans apparently use this regularly for Solemn Vows and Ordinations; it will be appropriate to use it for our professions as well.

Magnificat!

Pergolesi's Magnificat




Robert Parson's Magnificat,
Latin
English


Dyson - Magnificat in D



Brewer - Magnificat in D


Studio del Magnificat in canto gregoriano, Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis, Giovanni Vianini


Robert Parson's Ave Maria


Arcadelt Ave Maria



Dyson- Nunc Dimittis in D

sheet music needed

Looking for sheet music in modern notation for "Rorate Caeli Desuper"

if anyone knows of such on the internet that I can download, I'd appreciate it.

here's a nice rendering of the first two verses




I know, I know.... we've been practicing with square notation, but the modern notation is for the organist!

Robert Parsons - Magnificat & Ave Maria

From the Robert Parsons Project
Magnificat

Ave Maria

Just cuz...

Exaltation of the Holy Cross & the Holy Father on music

Whereas Sunday is the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, today (being the Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary) the new crucifix will be dedicated at Our Lady of the Valley in Caldwell at 7PM.

The Holy Father has kindly given a presentation today where he speaks of the role of music; I do believe that for today, Frs Flores and Ramirez are on the same page, with "Adoremus te christi", "Ave verum corpus", and "Lift high the cross" on the program. seems to me Ps. (21)22 is in there too.


Anyway, here's an extract of the Holy Father's presentation; hope you'll read the rest of it too.

"To seek God and to let oneself be found by Him"
In Paris, at the Collège des Bernardins, September 12, 2008, by Benedict XVI

For Benedict, the words of the Psalm: "coram angelis psallam Tibi, Domine" – in the presence of the angels, I will sing your praise (cf. 138:1) – are the decisive rule governing the prayer and chant of the monks. What this expresses is the awareness that in communal prayer one is singing in the presence of the entire heavenly court, and is thereby measured according to the very highest standards: that one is praying and singing in such a way as to harmonize with the music of the noble spirits who were considered the originators of the harmony of the cosmos, the music of the spheres. From this perspective one can understand the seriousness of a remark by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who used an expression from the Platonic tradition handed down by Augustine, to pass judgement on the poor singing of monks, which for him was evidently very far from being a mishap of only minor importance. He describes the confusion resulting from a poorly executed chant as a falling into the “zone of dissimilarity” – the regio dissimilitudinis. Augustine had borrowed this phrase from Platonic philosophy, in order to designate his condition prior to conversion (cf. Confessions, VII, 10.16): man, who is created in God’s likeness, falls in his godforsakenness into the “zone of dissimilarity” – into a remoteness from God, in which he no longer reflects him, and so has become dissimilar not only to God, but to himself, to what being human truly is. Bernard is certainly putting it strongly when he uses this phrase, which indicates man’s falling away from himself, to describe bad singing by monks. But it shows how seriously he viewed the matter. It shows that the culture of singing is also the culture of being, and that the monks have to pray and sing in a manner commensurate with the grandeur of the word handed down to them, with its claim on true beauty. This intrinsic requirement of speaking with God and singing of him with words he himself has given, is what gave rise to the great tradition of Western music. It was not a form of private “creativity”, in which the individual leaves a memorial to himself and makes self-representation his essential criterion. Rather it is about vigilantly recognizing with the “ears of the heart” the inner laws of the music of creation, the archetypes of music that the Creator built into his world and into men, and thus discovering music that is worthy of God, and at the same time truly worthy of man, music whose worthiness resounds in purity.

Speaking of Western Monasticism, the Holy Father also had this to say:

First and foremost, it must be frankly admitted straight away that it was not their intention to create a culture nor even to preserve a culture from the past. Their motivation was much more basic. Their goal was: "quaerere Deum". Amid the confusion of the times, in which nothing seemed permanent, they wanted to do the essential – to make an effort to find what was perennially valid and lasting, life itself. They were searching for God. They wanted to go from the inessential to the essential, to the only truly important and reliable thing there is. It is sometimes said that they were “eschatologically” oriented. But this is not to be understood in a temporal sense, as if they were looking ahead to the end of the world or to their own death, but in an existential sense: they were seeking the definitive behind the provisional. "Quaerere Deum": because they were Christians, this was not an expedition into a trackless wilderness, a search leading them into total darkness. God himself had provided signposts, indeed he had marked out a path which was theirs to find and to follow. This path was his word, which had been disclosed to men in the books of the sacred Scriptures. Thus, by inner necessity, the search for God demands a culture of the word or – as Jean Leclercq put it: eschatology and grammar are intimately connected with one another in Western monasticism (cf. "L’amour des lettres et le désir de Dieu"). The longing for God, the désir de Dieu, includes amour des lettres, love of the word, exploration of all its dimensions.
(italics & bold not in original)

hat tip to Sandro Magister at Chiesa Online

Tu es petrus

Click to play

From the Christus rex web site, sung by the Brazilian Benedictine monks.

Papal Vespers online

The New Liturgical Movement has posted many excellent items from the Papal Visit; click here for a wonderful video of the Papal Vespers at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, here are two pictures:





And here are a couple pictures from the mass at the ball-park:





notice in these pictures there is an altar cross on the altar.

The antidote to...

Adeste Fideles, Adeste Fideles, Adeste Fideles...


find some other pieces for me.



When I posted this I forgot to link the source of the image above; it's from Carolina Canonball's "The Crescat" blog, in particular, the "Ugliest vestment" contest.

Evening and Night Prayer at Sacred Heart tomorrow night

You are cordially invited to come to the chapel at Sacred Heart tomorrow from 8:00 to 9:00. Evening and Night Prayer will be sung/recited during the final hour of adoration. This is Evening Prayer I for All Saints' Day. Mark, Anita and I plan to be singing.

Pax et fides,
-- Mike Turner OPL

Is the real Vatican II starting to stand up?

here is an encouraging article by Sandro Magister.

A New Musical Season Opens at the Vatican – And Here's the Program

[at] Benedict XVI's visit to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, on the morning of Saturday, October 13.

To the professors and students of this institute – which is the liturgical-musical "conservatory" of the Holy See, the one that trains Church musicians from all over the world – the pope cited Vatican Council II, where it says that "as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy" (Sancrosanctum Concilium, 112).

He also confirmed that "three characteristics distinguish sacred liturgical music: sanctity, true art, and universality, meaning its ability to be used regardless of the nature or nationality of the assembly."

"Precisely in view of this, ecclesiastical authorities must devote themselves to guiding wisely the development of such a demanding genre of music, not by sealing off its repository[got that, Pirates of Vatican II?], but by seeking to insert into the heritage of the past the legitimate additions of the present, in order to arrive at a synthesis worthy of the high mission reserved to it in the divine service. I am certain that the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music, in harmonious agreement with the congregation for divine worship, will not fail to offer its contribution for an 'updating', adapted to our time, of the abundant and valuable traditions found in sacred music."

George Dyson's Magnificat in D

I found a free download recording of this lovely piece, enjoy:


we also sing Dyson's Nunc Dimitis which is also quite lovely (click channel guide and select Nunc Dimitis).