RitualSong vs. Heritage Missal (OCP)
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    I've been playing in church since I was 14 (now 26) and I'm a traditionalist when it comes to hymns and organ literature for masses. More then half of the hymns in the Heritage missal are just to far contemporary and OCP is just going downhill with their contemporary music, plus they don't sound good on organ!!! It just amazes me that OCP would take out a hymn like "Christ Is Made The Sure Foundation (Westminster Abbey hymn tune) and replace it with Alle, Alle, Alleluia or I Will Choose Christ.

    The congregation at the church were I'm positioned is an older based age range. I would never think of doing Blest Be The Lord or Lead Me Lord with them. Even Schutte's Sing A New Song is very tiring and the new stuff that is being published by OCP is too contemporary. Why are people stuck to contemporary 70's-80's based St. Louis Jesuits music?? That music is so old fashion sounding now. Why can't people just accept good traditional Catholic hymns.

    For example this weekend, I'm using Amazing Grace, Healer of Our Every Ill, You Are Mine and Let There Be Peace on Earth. I do have some contemporary-ish based hymns this weekend but they can be used on organ. The contemporary music that OCP is putting out is far to hard for the average congregation to sing and is way to syncopated!

    I prefer RitualSong over OCP any day of the week!! Yes, some of the GIA keyboard accompaniments are different and wacky but they are true traditional hymns and texts!

    I'm looking for other people's thoughts and opinions on this matter.

    Thanks!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,937
    I have RitualSong, but it has been discontinued by GIA. They have replaced it with Worship IV. I have been looking at it because of the new missal translations and our need to buy a new hymnal. RitualSong has a good collection of traditional hymns, which is all that I use from it anyway. I don't use the 70s stuff. I lived through that time period once, and don't want reminders of it. I reject OCP and all its works, pomps and empty promises. ;-)
  • Paul_OnnonhoaratonPaul_Onnonhoaraton
    Posts: 434
    You might appreciate this comparison of several Catholic hymnals that all contain traditional hymnody:


    The author (student at Steubenville) is probably close to your age.
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    I was lucky enough to get the ritualsong books from a church in another state (12 minutes from my church). I called the pastor at my church and said "I have the chance to get these books, I will drop one off to you and let you look through it and give me some ideas/thoughts". It was months later and the pastor of the church where the RS books were called me and said "I am going to throw them away"!! I called my pastor and he said "I think they are to big for the pews"!!!! But "you are music director if you want them, you have to get them and put them in the pews". Well I did and I got 300 RitualSong hymnals and when I called the pastor who gave me the hymnals to give a donation he said "I don't want anything you use them and I will be happy!" I never got a thank-you from my pastor at all and he has since been moved to a different parish in a couple towns over in our Diocese. Crazy!!!!!!
  • TCJ
    Posts: 970
    I used Ritual Song at one parish, and though it was better than some alternatives, I still disliked it. There are a number of hymns that have had alternate verses put in or the words changed to be politically correct and so on. And then there's the fact that it's a huge hymnal and I won't use about 75% of what's in there. I think GIA claimed it was 50% traditional and 50% contemporary, but their idea of traditional is to write new hymns and then use the same traditional hymn tune five or six times. If it's all you got to replace something like Gather, OCP, or the like, I guess it's a step up, but buying a new hymnal? SMH, VatII, or Adoremus would be a better buy.
    Thanked by 2Paul_Onnonhoaraton RedPop4
  • Adam Schwend
    Posts: 203
    Are you considering a new hymnal? Are those your only two options? If you must choose the lesser of those two evils, I would lean toward RitualSong....mainly because it is mildly less terrible and you can buy it once without having to throw it out every year.

    But, by all means, if you have the option of something else, check out the Vatican II Hymnal, the Saint Michael Hymnal, the Adoremus Hymnal. Those are the top three...Even Worship would be better than those two.
    Thanked by 1Paul_Onnonhoaraton
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    I'm not looking for a new hymnal. We currently paid yearly for the OCP Heritage Missal and the ritualsongs were given free to the parish, so we are going to keep both of them.

    You would prefer the new Worship IV over the RitualSong as well?? I looked at the new Worship and the new form of text with the hymns is horrible! It went from Tis Good Lord To Be Here to How Good Lord To Be Here, is that really necessary?!?! That's just crazy!!
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Richard Feliciano's Pentecost Sunday is "crazy."
    What you just described is "typical."
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Adam Schwend
    Posts: 203
    Don't get me wrong....I am not an apologist for Worship IV. I think it's terrible. But I think the other two are abysmal. So, having to choose between terrible and abysmal, I lean toward terrible.
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood RedPop4
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    Worship IV for example on Gather Us In has only 3 verses. Every other hymnal I've ever seen has all 4 verses of that hymn. So I think both the Worship and Gather new additions are just horrible and abysmal. I completely agree with you on that!!!
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    musicman-

    I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
    Are you looking for hymnal advice?
    Do you just need to vent about your bad hymnal options?
    Would you like to find out why no collection of strophic metered organ hymns is properly called "Traditional Catholic Music?"
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    (Also, I imagine a lot of people here would suggest that the omission of 1 out of 4 verses of "Gather Us In" is a precisely measurable 25% improvement of that song.)
    Thanked by 7Ben Adam Schwend Richard Mix Allan D Gavin benedictgal RedPop4
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    haha very true Adam!!!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    If it's v. 4 that is omitted, that's a 66.67% improvement!
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Is that the light years verse?
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    tt's the 4 verse. Not in the dark of building confining.......
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    They probably had to take it out because all the people who like that song worship in ugly, confining buildings that make you wish you could be light years away from there...
    Thanked by 1RedPop4
  • musicman923
    Posts: 239
    Touche!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,937
    As I have said before:

    Gather us in, the old and the flaky,
    Gather us in, the hippies of yore.
    Gather us in, the senile and kinky,
    We were the young in 1964.

    Hate that song. Hate it. May the eternal flames consume it!!!
    Thanked by 1RedPop4
  • francis
    Posts: 10,677
    charlesW

    That title has arrived on my docket for this weekend. Have you seen the accompaniment in the new Gather hymnal? The last time I played it (perhaps early 2000's) seems to me it had an SATB arrangement. Also, other arrangements of hymns in Gather have lost the typical SATB arrangements. Everything seems to be going toward 'keyboard' in that league. Anyone else notice this?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,937
    I only played from Gather when I worked at a school before I retired early June. They had the actual accompaniment books, and they were 4-part. Once in a while, the accompaniment for a hymn would be so arpeggiated, I would have to bring a copy from RitualSong that I could play on organ. It doesn't get played in my parish because I refuse to program it.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • Bobby Bolin
    Posts: 417
    Yes, leaving out vs. 4 of Gather Us In is a huge improvement. Even as someone who does not mind the song, I feel that verse had no place in any hymnal; contemporary, traditional, whatever...
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    Any thoughts on "Christ Be Our Light" by Bernadette Farrell? I think it was published around 1992 or so. I started playing keyboard and then organ for mass in about 1994, so this hymn was a staple piece for many years. Not a great hymn in my opinion, but not a bad one either.

    I don't know which hymnal it would be in for the American Publication, but it was in "Gather Australia" which I believe is our version of the "Gather" Hymnal.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    It was always a favorite of mine growing up. Now I find it somewhat uninspiring.

    I think a big part of what hymns we all hate is performance style. I'm willing to bet that a lot of people who hate "Christ be our light" only ever heard it with four amplified guitarist-cantors, "STRUM strumma-strumma STRUM strumma-strumma..." I grew up always hearing that on organ, and just assumed it was an "organ song" like "Now thank we all" (which I did hate, because the first time I heard it was my fourth grade teacher singing it, which she did not do well!)

    Context seems to be a lot for that stuff.
    Thanked by 2Adam Wood RedPop4
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Christ Be Our Light could have been a lot worse.
    Imagine if it had been written earlier in the era...
    "We are the light, shining in darkness...."

  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    My problem has to do with the melody, the low minor, suddenly brightening into major, and then soaring on the refrain. It's a kind of tonepainting that I feel plays too much on very superficial emotional effects.
    Thanked by 1Ben
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    Kathy, your description reminds me that I've read dozens of nineteenth-century reviews of music by Franz Liszt and Anton Rubinstein that say more or less the same thing! I guess certain musical gestures will never shake off the air of superficiality!
  • Musicteacher56
    Posts: 621
    If it's verses 1, 2 3 AND 4, it's a 100% improvement!
  • Musicteacher56
    Posts: 621
    I worked "I Heard the Voice of Jesus" on the organ tonight. It's a compromise for me with the people.....give them some of what they want, but put a twist on it. They can't complain, then, that I'm not doing "their" music. So, same goes with "Christ Be Our Light". Just a thought and something that's worked for me (as I cringe at the thought of Breaking Bread!!!)
    Thanked by 1RedPop4
  • TCJ
    Posts: 970
    Where I work, I found an arrangement of "I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say" that I've never seen before. Actually, should I say a whole different tune instead of an arrangement? I've not used it, but I was rather surprised to find this hymnal didn't have the usual. I have NEVER heard it done with a different accompaniment.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    DougS,

    I don't mind emotional manipulation in music per se. With sacred music, I think the bar of subtlety should be set much higher.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    Musicman, rather than restrict yourself to OCP and GIA, why not simply try the Vatican II Hymnal? Instead of more of the same with "Breaking Bread", you will be getting a hymnal with solid, traditional Catholic music. I also believe that the organ accomopaniment is free of charge if you purchase the hymnals for your parish.
    Thanked by 1SanAntonioCath
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