MusicaSacra Forum

amindthatsuits

I was wondering what people's thoughts on the Missal Chants are now that we have lived with them for nearly half a year in many parishes.

My own feeling, reluctantly, is that the criticism from "our side," the pro-Chant side, if you will, was apposite: the melodies were not composed for English words, and they don't really fit. The Sanctus and the Memorial Acclamation both sound to me quite dirge-like, which they don't in Latin. (I normally attend either Mass in English at the National Shrine or the Latin Novus Ordo at St. Matthew Cathedral.

That said, it is great that everyone is learning these ancient melodies, so when they are in any kind of multi=lingual setting (World Youth Day, e.g.), they will know them.

But is seems to me that there is composing to be done.

This does not have to happen: William Mahrt at the Colloquium some years ago introduced a setting of the English words to the Our Father based on the traditional Latin melody for the Pater Noster, which, as he points out, goes up where the standard, rather dismal American setting goes down. It worked quite well.

Jeffrey Quick

OK, we did the Gloria today, and frankly, it sucks. It's dull and repetitive, and most chant Glorias are not. And I'm not convinced that it's easier, because there are no "hooks". The rest of everything is OK, though when we sing swathes of the Requiem every Sunday, we shouldn't be surprised when it sounds like death. I'm tempted to wear my tinfoil hat to preserve me from the idea that the chants selected for the Missal were chosen to discredit the idea of chant.

Charles in CenCA

JQ
I broke my own dictum this weekend and did not do the ICEL Mass as prescribed. We're trying to edify the settings we've introduced, and at the schola Mass that is the Royce Nickel setting that was done at Colloquium along with some of your works. But I'm well on record about the Glory XV adaptation: it works at a number of levels very well. There are three or four "hooks" or motives, if you will, that serve convenience and rote learning if nothing else. If chanted simply, without accompaniment, it simply needs momentum in my estimation. When we use it at school Masses, the accompaniment I composed "nurtures" the student body chanting very well. At schola Masses, the same accompaniment, with the added SOPRANO ison, provides the motives sufficient adornment that compliments the few motives and narrow tessitura.
Despite my public quarrel with Fr. Ruff regarding non-musical issues, I cannot believe that his efforts to compile the ICEL revised setting of the ordinary had any sort of ulterior, stake-in-the-heart to chant, motive whatsoever. I believe his orders to revise the Jubilate Deo "Death Mass" messe came, like his subsequent dismissal (pun pardon), from above. Again, his own personal affection and association with chant is also well on record.
There are lots of things sung in RCC parishes/cathedrals that do, in fact, "suck." However, short of mentioning them by a "hit list" the best we ought to do is to encourage using what doesn't "suck" or otherwise edify the paradigm as Mahrt has outlined. Glory XV redux hardly is exemplary, but it is chant. I'd remember the parable of the man without a shoe in this instance.

M. Jackson Osborn

They are pretty pedestrian, aren't they. Insulting even to the pedestrians among us.
Will it ever end? Heirarchs and Publishers do not think much can be expected of Catholics, nor do they want anything out there that will prove them wrong, which they are! We had 3 or 4 hundred people singing the Willan mass at Walsingham this morning (gloria, too) and it was a glory to hear. Catholics could do this... but (methinks) nobody wants them to - in fact they want them not to. This is not music for the passive aura which they like to cultivate.

Charles in CenCA

Prof. Osborn,
I would like you to consider whether you're missing the larger picture within the concern. When was the last time the subscription pulp missal publishers were mandated to print any "chant" ordinary, responses and so forth as the default congregational setting? (With the exception of OCP's 2012-14 Unidos/United, how did they reach the decision that clientele was exempt?)
Yes, prima facie, ICEL can be regarded as pedestrian. But so can Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" when done, as it often is, by hacks rather than artists like k.d. lang.
Insulting, though? Hardly. One cannot assess that from one's own backyard, particularly if that backyard is Walsingham.
There is no "one stop shopping" in either the national or global RCC musical culture, even within the chant culture. And the PIP's are not inclined whatsoever to tolerate debates about one chant setting's merits/efficacy versus others. They simple want to pray and praise Jesus in a right and fit manner.
Chant has been qualified as many things: a worship language, a music set apart from the world and inspired for worship, a sacred treasury, etc.
As I said much earlier in another thread about Glory XV, the ICEL fails to be pedestrian if it serves as a gateway through which the faithful can enter more lush gardens.
Insulting? Only if one takes its imposition personally one might think.

Jeffrey Quick

OK, Charles, I was cranky last night, and yes, the Gloria is a step in the right direction, and maybe not as bad as all that. But it's also not everything it could be.

benedictgal

We implemented the chants last October and, quite frankly, they are superior to a lot of the stuff we used to sing. They are not that hard and, although I sometimes wish that the Gloria would have sounded a little more joyful, The faithful have positively responded to the chants both in my parish and in my dad's parish.

gregp

I'm going to be contrarian and say that I like Gloria XV. I use it as often as possible. Of course, we are singing for the EF High Mass, without any accompaniment. As Charles says, YMMV.

Jeffrey Tucker

Wow, I don't get all these complaints. They are way better than I expected them to be and I already had high expectations. I'm surprised how well they hold up. I've been thinking that they mask a certain genius: simple and obvious once stated.

Another thing that is great about them, in my view: they make you sort of restless to move on to more complex chant. Just this past week, I felt the real itch to move on with Latin again.

M. Jackson Osborn

Charles in CenCa -
I accept your gentle chiding. Sometimes I am needlessly (and self-defeatingly?) harsh when I do not wish to be. I apologise for this. The chants, though overly simple, are a far cry better as spiritual and liturgical expressions than the settings by any number of favoured Catholic composers that seem to be staples in our churches and cluttering our hymnals. That said, it is most puzzling why people are given chant that isn't the least degree challenging and more engaging. You refer to my 'back yard' as being Walsingham: so it is; my frame of reference is also years of singing all the Gregorian ordinaries set to English and sung heartily by entire Episcopalian congregations. Catholics CAN very well do this, too, if people would stop saying they can't and telling them they can't. Stop treating them as though they were incapable and start treating them as though they were, because they ARE. Still, I laud the step in the right direction.

Richard Mix

"Wow, I don't get all these complaints...another thing that is great... they make you sort of restless to move on to more complex chant."

Asked and answered. ;-)

amindthatsuits

Now, of course, I am talking about these chants in their English form, so EF doesn't apply, I think. (Is anyone doing the translation of the EF?) And please see my comments exactly along the lines that Jeffrey made: they make you want to do more. So I am not saying go back--please, no!

There are other options: the Shrine has been doing a plainsong Gloria that is quite old, it turns out, and works quite well with the congregation that they have to deal with, which may be the point.

I have gotten to know the BrightLights among the keyboard performance majors, who tend to hang out in the practice room across from Leo Nestor's office (not that I see Leo very often.) These kids are all extremely sharp musicians, and they feel that teh Great Upper Church kind of leaves you as an observer (for any Mass with less than 3000 people--the Vigil for Life is a transcendant experience.) So perhaps my responses are colored by that. But music in the Crypt sounds pretty "live," and that is where I normally go to Mass in English. And since I hear the melodies in English and Latin in fairly frequent rotation, I just feel they aren't quite THERE, if you know what I mean.

I don't hate all the pop settings that a lot of folks might. The "Celtic Alleluia" is quite satisfying to sing, although perhaps not for all seasons. (And thank the Lord we do it slowly, because done fast it is the most annoying jig.) But I think this is working out about right: many people now know these ancient melodies. I kind of want to call them not the Missal Chants, but the Communal Chants. They are roughly what you will hear at any large Latin Mass around the world.

And William F. Buckley liked to quote some line about, "The Church I love, she changes slowly." I did not want this new translation NOW, the way some of us did, because of the harm that the 1970 changes did. So I am surely not saying, "Go back." I am saying, "Now people understand that Chant is not scary. Let's introduce some more chant melodies written in English." I was going to make some pun about simple and proper, so it's not like the work isn't being done, and magnificently. I just kind of think these English chants are lacking somehow.

amindthatsuits

And I was working, working, working in the Fall, so I did not share this story. I went to the last Mass inthe Crypt for the old Sacramentary, and then worked four hours in my office and walked across the driveway to go to the first Mass with the new translation. The Director of Liturgy presided, and he told me afterwards that he had to slip into plainsong chant because it was just overwhelming to do that much new material all at once. He has his job for a reason, and it went off beautifully.

I walked in just as the bell rang (the perils of being so close), and Peter Latona began the new year fittingly. He held the most glorious bass note and slowly brought up all four organs until the old lady fairly shook. Thanksgiving weekend, wasn't it? The Upper Church was full of pilgrims. In fairly quick succession, everyone's head snaped around and looked up at his perch (although I am not sure many can see him at all.) I have never heard the Shrine so alive, except during the Vigil for Life. Then he launched into a wonderful improvisation on the processional hymn.

I told a friend of his, another organist, about it, and he just nodded his head and said, "he does that." It was glorious.

Wendi

Not to pick nits, but speaking as a person from the pew...

Many of us haven't heard chant of any sort in church for a very, very long time.

Inferior as the ICEL chants may be...they are the beginning of a reintroduction to chant for many parishes.

Which I personally can only regard as a step in the right direction.

Darcy

I'm in the schola at our parish. There is very little participation from the congregation on the chant Glory to God. I think it was never introduced properly... it was taught before Masses back in the fall, but since it was not sung in Advent, people forgot what they were taught. Also, our diocese-provided version had two notes misprinted, so it was not the same as what was in the missalette. Furthermore, at two of our three weekend Masses, in the past Latin ordinary chants have been used. People were starting to learn the Missa de Angelis Gloria, and they had been singing the Requiem Sanctus and Agnus for years. Now they were asked to sing them in English, and it is awkward to switch from a melody you know in Latin to singing the same melody with English words. (This was done so the people would have a chance to learn the new translation.) The solution to this low participation, I understand, is we will probably be switching to the Belmont Mass or the St. Francis Mass. With any luck we'll bring back the Latin for at least one of the Masses. I know the Belmont and I think it will be fine, but I don't remember the St. Francis Mass. Any thoughts?

Wendi

Whatever you do avoid the "Mass for a Servant Church" by Michael Guimont, unless you have a full trained choir and don't expect the congregation to sing the Gloria. It was a hot mess both to teach and to listen to.

Yes I live in the Lansing diocese. Which probably does a lot to explain why I consider the ICEL chants to be a vast improvement. :)

Charles in CenCA

Wendi, it was quite a revelation how many of the new, faux Oxford/Kings College settings over here had Glory's that were not only unsingable by congregations, but were examples of "sad craft" masqued to be "solemn, High Church." And I'm not even speaking of Kathy's modem of the Lloyd-Webber theatrical modus.
It always comes down to humility.

Ralph Bednarz

These chants are thrilling! I think I undertand the reason for every note. The text carries the melody well. The words sing themeselves. This GLORIA has the reatraint of holy humility before God's Majesty. I don't think the Gloria is not being put to the test, but we are.

Wendi

I sincerely hope that the composer envisioned the setting for use by choirs. It's not bad, just extremely difficult for a congregation to sing.

M. Jackson Osborn

I have seen ordinaries that were difficult to sing and/or not worth the effort to bring to a singable state. I have seen more that were quite singable that were met with a rudeness of epithets and the most irrational protestations that nobody could sing them (translate: I don't like it and your not going to teach it on my turf). The problem, as always, is with the professional expertise of choirmaster and teachers. Truly good music can be taught to any congregation that hasn't been treated like a basket case by any skilled and dedicated choirmasters and teachers who present the material in a positive light and have no truck with gainsayers; who literally know how to get people to sing anything they want them to and like it.

I know of a number of congregations that can sing the cum jubilo mass, in English, with great confidence. I also know several emminent chant scholars who proclaim (un-)authoritatively that such masses were not menat for the people and that they cannot sing them. This is a patent falsehood. We sang it at Walsingham all through Advent, and, as a matter of course, will be expanding our repertory of the Gregorian masses in English. I have heard 300 monks sing these masses. I have heard 300 strong Episcopalian congregations sing these masses. This is to testify that it can be done and is a Good Thing. Catholics do not have damaged vocal chords or music aptitudes pitifully lower that other groups. They are trained in very subtle ways not to get overly enthused or proficient in their musico-liturgical efforts

As for the mass settings in any of our current spate of hymnaries, whether big or small publishers, they are uniformly pedestrian. devoid of inspiration, lame with the most woefully transparent shallowness of form, and depending almost to a man on clever little rhythmic gimmicks which are both unspeakably boring and unbelievably hilarious. How does one sing them with a straight face? And THIS is what the Church thinks of its people.

Charles in CenCA

+1, Prof. Osborn, bravo.
We've been using a setting "premiered" at colloquium '11 by a local friend, Royce Nickel. It just bleeds "holy humility (thanks, Ralph)" and "Catholic" in its chant like motives, and modal harmonies in SATB. Because of our situation, we have not put its melody into a pamphlet ordo; so we have tabled chanting it in parts, and I employ a sort of "peoples'" chironomy for the congregation. I can hear vast improvement coming from them each Sunday, they're getting IT. It being "sacred, universal, beautiful."
Don't ask what's being sung for our episcopal installation today in our diocese, though.
Really, everyone, don't ask.

ElizabethS

Although I do know that harder chants than the ICEL ones can be sung by a congregation (the parish I grew up in used Missa de Angelis most of the time), all I have to say now is that they're a heck of a lot better than what most people in this country are getting - my parish is using Schutte's "Mass of Christ the Savior" for the most part, though I have permission from our pastor to use the ICEL chants when I cantor or play organ. So I'm not gonna complain about them. At least CHANT is being printed in the missals now and not the Celtic Mass (OCP's old standard missal Mass setting, I believe).

Mark M.

To me, Gloria XV stands in splendid contrast to the mistaken notion that the Gloria must necessarily be upbeat and joyful rather than solemn.

And it’s from the tenth century… it's one of the oldest in our repertoire. How cool is that? And the “Amen” at the end, with the fa and re scale degrees not heard previously… a dramatic effect, I think.

Gloria VIII is fine, but I can’t help but feel that it’s just going up and down the major scale.

Jeffrey Tucker

Yes, Mark, agree. Regardless of what anyone says about these chants, they are massively significant as part of the liturgical history of our times. They represent a wholehearted embrace of the chant tradition by the contemporary Church. They demonstrate that English is not an obstacle to chanted music. They are normative and universal in the new Missal. Forty years late, they are a sign of an emerging stability after so much upheaval for so long. I still can't believe that they got out of the committee to become reality!

No, they are not the end point. Obviously. They are there to get us on the right track. They have accomplished that seemingly impossible goal to some degree.

Annasher

Sadly, I have yet to hear any chant implemented in parishes around mid-Missouri. Still hearing the same old tripe.

amindthatsuits

Well, I was sick for a week,and look what I missed. In general, I think the fact that many Americans will now know the communal melodies is overwhelmingly a plus. So I agree with everything Jeffrey T. says, but land with emphasis on the "starting point." I came to the Church with a good grounding in Reformation history, and what I can say with confidence is that things have always been "bad." "Work out your salavation with fear and trembling." And so we have a year of people getting used to chant...and then we slog on. What a glorious burden, though!

Mike R

Haven't heard them yet. I would have used them if any parishes surrounding us were, but since everyone else is using OCP Masses (mostly Mass of the Resurrection), I just went with what my student music leaders and I thought would be the best chant-based setting accessible to us: the Proulx Gloria Simplex with the Psallite Mass for everything else. We will learn a new setting at the end of Lent.

Ralph Bednarz

Has anyone sung from the Meinrad Kyrialel? There are too many good things to say about these chant transcription of the traditional ordinaries. They will teach you how to chant in English with expression, becuase so many phonetic and rhetorical dynamics of English are perfectly painted into the melodies. It's time to post some updates for these settings. I have the new MASS I and X.
The first time I saw a score by Fr. Kelly was a real eye-openner. Everything from Mocquerreau to Cardine just fell into place.

BruceL

Has anyone sung from the Meinrad Kyrialel? There are too many good things to say about these chant transcription of the traditional ordinaries. They will teach you how to chant in English with expression, becuase so many phonetic and rhetorical dynamics of English are perfectly painted into the melodies. It's time to post some updates for these settings. I have the new MASS I and X.
The first time I saw a score by Fr. Kelly was a real eye-openner. Everything from Mocquerreau to Cardine just fell into place.

+1 to this. Even more so, I hope Fr. Columba re-does his propers, too. I think they are very well done and do a great job with the speech rhythm. Plus, since he is a semiology type, it is usually very easy to figure out what he wants with the interpretation.

matthewj

We've begun using the Mass in Honor of St. Benedict (listen here: http://www.litpress.org/Detail.aspx?ISBN=978081463434).

This is the "official" Mass setting for our Diocese.

Shockingly, support for it has been pretty high in my rather contemporary parish. However, I must say the polyphonic middle section of the Gloria dies when sung at a non-Choral Mass. I'm not sure what the answer is to it, but without a choir... it just.. dies.

incantu

I'm assuming you continue to accompany the a cappella section in the absence of a choir. How much do you change the registration? Do you continue to use pedal? Do you make any changes to your articulation? A good Gloria should be able to be sung in unison without accompaniment throughout.

matthewj

I'm not sure that Ordinary would work without accompaniment.

It's not a bad Gloria... but it sounds very empty without the polyphonic center. Kinda like biting into a chocolate-covered-cherry only to find it hollow.

incantu

I think edited my post, where I had originally written "but, this might not be a good Gloria."

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