Choir dress returned. It sounds picky to some, but externals matter... I think that what was programmed for D.C. was better on paper, but no one had choir dress so it was really taken down a notch. Anglicans would never dare sing the office without choir dress...we ought to dwell on that point. I have only seen pictures, so I cannot comment on the quality of the musicians, the ceremonial details, participation, and such.

There is NO need for a Cantor - period - especially when there is a fine and very capable choir. While watching the Vesper service, listening to it gave me a headache due to the cantor vs choir not being in sink. All good musicians should understand this from an ensemble sense.

And finally, I wish with all my heart, that those media covering church services (regardless of where its taking place - St. Patrick's or the Vatican), that the media would stop commentating audibly during the service and simply SHUT UP!!!

I want to listen as if I were there! So please, just be respectful and make your comments before or after. If the media has to comment during, do so via a running superscript at the bottom of the tv screen. Jesus should be the focus and not news commentators / celebrities.

I was also disturbed by the cantor. Having had the pleasure of playing two of the organs in the cathedral [I think that there is a third keyboard used for reed sounds which I haven't played], it is pretty obvious (to me, at least) that there is a delay of about 1/2 to a full second between the choir loft and the altar. The soloist who sang with the choir solved that issue by remaining in the loft. It also seemed to me that the cantor was not necessary when the choir sang the verses with him. The choir and the musicians sounded wonderful.

rjlynch, thank you for posting that. It interrupted a post I was writing about high and mighty people who...

"I want to listen as if I were there! So please, just be respectful and make your comments before or after. If the media has to comment during, do so via a running superscript at the bottom of the tv screen. Jesus should be the focus and not news commentators / celebrities."

That's what adoration and parish masses are for, sorry.

EWTN had significantly less commentary than usual during the service. Though the Cathedral was streaming it commentary free, so I mostly watched on their website.

The video from St Patrick's is at:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/74064018
(skip the first 55 min.)
It's free of commentary.

(and again, program PDF at: http://www.usccb.org/about/leadership/holy-see/francis/papal-visit-2015/upload/thursday-9-24-vespers-st-patrick.pdf )

CHGiffen, do you have an example of what is not Anglican chant?

I was watching vespers at St Patrick's Cathedral in New York and was very impressed with most of the music. It was delightful that the choir were actually wearing choir habit (women included - Anglicans got over that long ago!). My only complaint was a real lack of choral blend and rather top heavy sopranos in a choir that seemed engaged in the worst of choral sins, competitive singing. On the whole, though, it was commendable.... until it got to that, um, 'cantor' (?). What, pray, was he doing there? Why didn't he just be silent? It was so offensive that I quit watching and may have missed out on some other good things.

Um, clash indeed! - it's a little bit more than acoustical lag - it's rather a case of a clueless what-would-be 'cantor' in front of a microphone. I have no doubt that those present heard what we are hearing.

Wow. I couldn't make it more than about 20 seconds into the Pater Noster without stopping the video.

And here I was just reflecting on the notion that 'in song, many become one'. I endorse that idea, but they weren't even in the same zip code ('postcode' for the Brits ;-) )

We've already discussed, like a million times, how amplification that sounds just right inside a church can lose all its balance when the television sound engineers get involved. It is very difficult to know how things got quite so out of whack for the broadcast.

Another consideration: routine liturgies are easy to organize. Weekly Masses have a routine to them, and a standard staff, and often enough, one chief organizer. None of that is the case during a week like this, and I think everyone involved deserves plenty of slack simply for collaborating on such a scale, even before providing some moments of excellent and prayerful music.

Anyone who has ever tried to pull three or four choirs together on the parish level knows just a percentage of the degree of difficulty of this week's accomplishments.

hmmm - Its interesting that all those masses and services I watch from the Vatican, never seem to have a problem, even when they use a cantor! Isn't St Peter's Basilica bigger than St. Pat's? LOL And by the way, the Americans commentators at the Vatican talk too much as well on tv broadcast.

I hope I never come across as "HIGH AND MIGHTY." That's a judgment call left to GOD, right? At my age and experience with acoustics and electronics as well as a former professional choirmaster, organist, conductor, composer, orchestral and choral director, orchestral instrumentalist, vocal teacher and coach, celebrant and master of ceremonies, perhaps I am in a good position to make critical evaluations! Nevertheless, I am simply a child of GOD wanting to do my very best in praising, adoring and worshiping God through Christ Jesus and hoping others will want to do the same.

Last time I checked, Vespers were for GOD and not us, nor the media, nor entertainers nor personages, whether they be prelate or pauper.

This evening in Westminster abbey they will be singing Evensong,
http://www.westminster-abbey.org/music/choral-services

You can click through to see what they are singing tomorrow etc.

If the church of England is not to your taste, the Catholic Cathedral just up the road has this,
http://www.westminstercathedralchoir.com/latest-music-lists.php

I have just looked at the Website for St. Patrick's and I could see no reference to a Music list OR any reference that Vespers is sung even weekly.

It really is not fair to compare St. Patrick's to either of the above! If you are singing Evensong every day or Vespers several times a week, of course you are going to be better at organising a service.

MJO

I was going to write that St. Patrick's should have Vespers at least once a week, so they would not have this problem.

I was rather surprised that the Music section of St. Patrick's implied that they have a very poor attitude to Sacred Music. Are the rest of the Cathedrals in the U.S.A similar? What about your version of the church of England are they any better?

tomjay, they put a lot of effort and probably money into music at St. Patrick's, but at big events like this one (and at Christmas) the guest opera performers sing in their own dramatic manner, which I think is not well suited to the liturgy.

Pope? What pope? Vespers too? I must have been busy walking, reading, practicing organ, drinking wonderful oolong and having excellent dark chocolate. Popes and windbag cardinals come and they go. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Did I miss anything of importance for the salvation of souls and the eternal good of the Church? Probably not.

I have offended a few by saying this, but I don't believe a cantor has a place in any liturgy except Jewish.

I use a cantor at masses where the choir is not present. They are in the loft with me, not performing in the front.

I really hesitate to get into a Monday morning quarterbacking thing with "one-time" events like this, but listening to the Palestrina that @chonak posted, it's pretty obvious that they're close-mic'd because of the size of the gallery at St. Pat's. For sure, the tonal style is a little different than I'd go for, but they are of course singing for the congregation assembled downstairs, not for mics that are 5 feet away. Our room requires singing (almost uncomfortably) forward: from 5 feet away, it probably sounds like crap. Sounds pretty good 50 feet away.

The cantor thing is one of those weird American Catholic "just because" things. Otherwise great, sensible clergy will often proffer the fact that a cantor wasn't up front for a solution to a variety of musical ills, sort of like bleeding a patient back in the pre-real medicine days. It's crazy. As a convert, I just don't get it. I don't mind it that much when a choir is not present, but who knows.

The role of "cantor" in the American church is not at all correctly named. Cantors, including the gentleman at St. Patrick's last night, are functioning as song leaders. The term "cantor" has a long history and many historical definitions, but acting as song leader is not one of them. The "song leader" role of cantor is an unnecessary idea cooked up by the Spirit of Vatican II, predicated on a false idea of community. It creates the same personality cult problem that exists in modern times with the priest.
The genius of choral and congregation singing - the sort of singing characterizing the church throughout the ages, and the style that should be taken as the starting point for any church music - is that the ego disappears, and the Body of Christ is one in song.

That said, with the multitude of parochial masses requiring music these days, it is not possible to have a choir at all of them. Thus, having a single voice (cantor) standing in for the whole choir can be helpful. However, they should be located were the choir is normally located and should NEVER use a microphone. And two cantors singing together would be better than one.

Regarding operatic singing, St. Patrick's is a big place. Bel-canto technique is the best way to make enough sound to be heard in that large of a room, while maintaining an attractive and even sound throughout the entire range.
A recording of a large voice never accurately represent the actual sound of the voice in the room. The mic cannot capture all the overtones, and leaves us with an impression of the voice that is not at all true to the reality of the sound in a large space.

The Laudate Dominum was very well done. The performance was not presentational, the soloist was out of sight in the gallery. The solo voice vs the choir functioned musically much like solo vs ensemble stops on the organ (a solo must of course be louder than the ensemble to be heard over it). TV spoiled this a bit by the mic-ing and by a close-up of the soprano.

I’ll bite and say the Mozart is overdone...

http://www.chantcafe.com/2015/09/busy-busy-bs-from-beauty-to-bartolucci.html

It's not the BIG Apple for nuthin', ya know? And the Irish dominance in the Northeast has long proudly disdained an English aesthetic - it's not that they don't "get it", oh, they get it all right, and throw it right back at you. The last thing Irish Catholics wanted to do was to ape English liturgical practice, and the residue of that persists in American Catholic soil. Unlike, say, Boston, where theatre was long resisted or looked down upon, NYC actually has a strong history of theatrical subcultures, and those have had a certain purchase in the liturgical music culture, amplified by being the center of the music publishing industry for many generations. Start spreading the news...

It highlights a seriously deficient sacerdotal training. I get the impression, right or wrong, that some clerics believe the liturgy is just as much a religious *celebration* as it is a vehicle for self-aggrandisement, and it's almost certainly not their fault.

I really believe the problem lies not with them, but with the fact that they have never been taught much about the ars celebrandi.

Vespers with coped cantors, incense, and chant can be done. We do the simple form (no cantors) at the Colloquium, but at Sacra Liturgia in NYC and at the FOTA Conference in Ireland they have Pontifical Vespers (though regrettably, last year the serving was painful). The D.C. Oratory does Solemn Vespers weekly.

We've been doing weekly vespers across town from St. Patrick's at Holy Innocents with cantors (though not in copes), incense and chant (Liber Usualis) for about 4 years.

Yeah, what happened to choir dress for cardinals and bishops, that was just embarrassing!

St. John the Divine, just 4 miles away ....choral evensong every Sunday

Of what deity or deities do they implore help and assistance? ;o)

The cantor thing is one of those weird American Catholic "just because" things. Otherwise great, sensible clergy will often proffer the fact that a cantor wasn't up front for a solution to a variety of musical ills

There's also a lot of weirdness spread by Workshop-givers, symposium-facilitators and diocesan Offices of Palaver Worship and others who have studied in the South Bend area.
We had people quit the music ministry because the diocesan lay ministry czar objected to the curve of their arms as being "insufficently welcoming" when they "brought the People in." Not kidding.
Some of the music for various events this week stuck me initially as over the top, but taking into account the behavior and volume of those who were there to root for the home team pray, they may have been wise programming choices.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)