Kyrie chant for priest wary of "high church" sounding pieces?

boatofcar

Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I'm the music minister at one of the larger Catholic parishes in western West Virginia. I've been in my position for going on 4 years come February. I have a degree in music ed, am a middle school band director, and I grew up in this parish, even though I moved out of state for a dozen years or so before returning shortly before I was hired. My biggest fault is that I don't play piano-only guitar. So to rectify that, I'm happy to say that I've managed to recruit pianists for each of our three masses (up from one when I was hired). So that's a step in the right direction, although we have some guitarists that still strum along that I would eventually like to phase out if possible. We don't have an organ in our church; just a Kurzweil.

I've been trying to slowly change the music culture at our parish. Our current pastor is (in my opinion) a pretty great guy. But he's opposed to music that sounds too "high-church." He's a big fan of David Haas and the ilk. So that's what we sing. I've slowly been incorporating more traditional hymns into mass (mostly Anglican hymns like Ralph Vaughn Williams' pieces) and it's been met with approval. Yesterday, he asked me for my opinion on whether we should chant the Kyrie, to which of course I said yes. I think this could be the beginning of allowing more chant into our masses, so I don't want to mess this up. Does anyone have any suggestions of a good Kyrie that is chanted and respectful, but couldn't be construed as too "high church"? Has anyone else managed a transition like this before? Any help is much appreciated.

melofluent

Sorry, couldn't get pdf to publish.

chonak

Some of the "Simplex" Kyries on the CMAA site, in English, may be within his comfort zone:
http://musicasacra.com/music/english-chant-ordinary/

If singing the original language is OK with him, you can find them in the Graduale Simplex book, pp. 21-37: http://media.musicasacra.com/books/graduale_simplex.pdf

It would be OK to use the chant melody that appears in the Roman Missal, but I wouldn't want a priest to stick to that. The chants in the Missal were put there because they're easy, not because they are better in some sense or have any special status. Some of them (Holy; Lamb of God) are drawn from the chants used at funerals, so they are too austere for constant use.

StimsonInRehab

Missa Jubilate Deo.

ClergetKubisz

*OPINION/EDITORIAL BEGINS HERE*

Yuck. I've had that experience before, as well. I've heard the whole "I don't want high church," statement too many times. Again, just my own thought, but I think we're missing something without it, and any priest who insists on avoiding the "high church" mentality is seriously short-changing the parish in terms of liturgy. It is also extremely limiting and frustrating to work for such priests, as they make it impossible to realize the ideals of true Sacred Music.

*OPINION/EDITORIAL ENDS HERE*

Masses XVII and XVIII aren't too complex. The Kyrie from Mass I is simple and beautiful as well. I second Stimson from above.

a_f_hawkins

Would this be any use? Note that the accompaniment is suggested to be sung a capella, or played on a keyboard (quietly), or omitted. Previous three posts are better if you can persuade him.

eft94530

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1FB9DEwfaY

irishtenor

There's a simple Kyrie by Richard Proulx in Worship IV, under the "Service Music" section.

Another to consider would be the Kyrie from Proulx's Missa Simplex from WLP. It's in a major key, and doesn't sound too "chant-y," so it might pass muster with someone who is open to chant, but doesn't want it to sound too "high church."

M. Jackson Osborn

I shall second what Clerget said, with the reservation that it's not at all mere 'OPINION...'. What people like this, whether they are in or out of holy orders, can't seem to assimilate is that whatever it is that they call 'high church' is precisely what The Church considers normative. It's not 'high' at all. It's not add ons, adiaphora, extras, etc. - it is normative. The Church (as given voice by the real Vatican II and countless pontiffs) views 'high church' as normative - and wishes for what is 'normative' to be 'normal'. Why is it that those in possession of holy orders seem to think that they have authority to contradict the Church's desires and commands? They don't!!!!!!!!!!!!! What they have authority to do is to sing the mass, promote, foster, and cultivate chant and sacred music - their authority is to do this and see that it is done. Authority to decide whether to do it or not to do it is non-existent, possessed by no one of any rank.

StimsonInRehab

If you were really cheeky, you might reply with "better 'spiritually high church' than 'chemically high church.'"

Ben

wary of "high church"

Cf: anything but the Mass.

boatofcar

Thank you all for your replies, serious and otherwise! :)

Irishtenor, thank you for your suggestion. Last advent for the first time we did Proulx's Missa Emmanuel, and it went over well.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Boatofcar,

I've said elsewhere in these pages that you should build with an idea that the elevator may break at any point, so you want to build only that which could be your last step.

As to "high church", I find Ben (as usual) has the right perspective: Mass is supposed to be sung, all the way through. Don't start with congregational Kyrie and other Ordinary parts. Start with the dialogues between priest and people.

One other thought: avoid like the plague falling into the trap of "Call and Response". Have a precentor appointed, whose task is to sing without amplification the introductory parts of some chants (such as the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei, or even the Sanctus.). When the congregation can hear itself sing, it will be more willing to sing. When its work is needful, it will be present. When (on the other hand) its purpose is to make the amplified cantor look good and the priest's personality to be on display, it will refrain.

Andrew_Malton

.. Except for authentic responsorial psalmody, for which "call and response" is not a bad modern name. The psalmist sings one verse at a time, and the assembly sings the fixed response.

Without amplification, preferably.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Andrew,

Granted that authentic responsorial psalmody is permitted in the revised rite, I would still encourage the OP to not go down that route, since it sounds as if the parish already lives there.

BruceL

Neat! How great that you're here. I grew up in WV (as did my brother, also a professional musician in a Catholic Church), was brought in by Fr. Dean Borgmeyer, and was at IC in Clarksburg for a while. Good luck. I miss home, but know it can be a struggle! Hang in there!

boatofcar

Hey Bruce! I'm at Ascension in Hurricane. I've not met Fr. Borgmeyer but have heard many folks speak well of him.

PaxMelodious

Without amplification, preferably.

Can they use electric lighting in the church? Or should it all be candle-lit?

Chris Garton-Zavesky

PaxMelodious,

I don't know if you intend this as a serious question or an attempt to demonstrate the silliness of the idea of a lack of amplification.

Assuming that you mean it seriously, the answer should be sought in what the Church tells us in other aspects of our lives: candles are to be beeswax, not paraffin; children are to be created in the natural way within the context of the naturally procreative act; the human voice sings, but recorded music is deprecated; the pipe organ is to have pride of place among instruments -- even if other instruments may be used 'if they can be made suitable to the worship of God'.

Can a married couple adopt a child? Yes. Can a married couple licitly (morally) create a child by IVF or surrogate motherhood? No.

canadash

Great advice and great work. What I was going to add was NOT to do the Latin chants at Advent/Lent, but rather during Ordinary Time/Christmas/Easter. If you only chant in Lent/Advent people associate chanting with penance and that is the opposite of what (I assume) you want. Also, move slowly. God bless!

Ben

If you only chant in Lent/Advent people associate chanting with penance and that is the opposite of what (I assume) you want.

I've said this for years, and heartily agree.

M. Jackson Osborn

Hear! Hear!
(What canadash said.)

Make it a point (insist on it!) to sing something Gregorian (choose your language) at the Easter Vigil, on Easter Day, throughout Eastertide, Christmastide, and every solemnity. It doesn't have to be Jubilate Deo to be joyous. There is no end to moderately difficult chant that is quite the opposite of penitential. Fr Columba has lots of chant (including a version of Jubilate Deo) in English (too, there is always Palmer-Burgess or Bruce Ford's fine adaptations) for those who might find it seemly in their situations. For Easter, if one can't sing Gregorian for the gospel's alleluya responsory, then sing the Alleluia Pascha nostrum during communions or as part of the offertory music. This is ecstatic. If your schola or choir aren't up to the task there is nothing wrong with assigning it to a confident soloist (or a cantor... this, of course, is actually what real cantors are for, isn't it!).

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Count me as agreeing with Jackson and Canadash and Ben.

If we only sing chant and Latin on sorrowful or penitential occasions, people form the opinion that that's the only time it's appropriate. Only having heard joyous chants and mournful chant, simple and ornate chant, will people begin to understand that it is the music for all seasons of the Church's worship.

MatthewRoth

It will get it out of their heads that minor is sad when they hear Mass XI on green Sundays and the Haec dies on Easter.

BruceL

FOLKS

There are some places where they will ONLY allow it during the Penitential seasons.

Do you let it die out...or do it when you can? I pick the latter.

Hurricane, eh? My HS girlfriend was from there! Big place now with all the growth in Teays Valley. There was an excellent Capuchin in that neck of the woods for a while (name escapes me) who offered the TLM. Good people.

Fr. Dean is a mess (I mean that in the best, most endearing way possible) and is a model of the priesthood. If you're in Huntington sometime, look him up!

CharlesW

Can they use electric lighting in the church? Or should it all be candle-lit?

One would wonder about that among some of the extremists who single out amplification as one of the great evils of our time. I think they should find better things to do. Amplification depends on the building more than anything else. I have been in buildings that are so acoustically dead, there has to be amplification for anything to be heard. Maybe it is the musician in me, but I seem to hear annoying amounts of noise in those sound systems others around me don't seem to hear. I am fortunate to be in a live building. All the microphones installed by my predecessor have been turned off for years. I don't need them.

Assuming that you mean it seriously, the answer should be sought in what the Church tells us in other aspects of our lives:

That works with morals and rubrics but doesn't apply to everything. I don't find that the church has told anyone squat about microphones.

MatthewRoth

Bruce, I know that, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Also, I know Fr. Joseph Tuscan, OFM Cap. offered the TLM in WV before moving. I don’t know if his brethren offer it as well.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Charles,

The reason I attempted to answer the question the way I did is that Jesus didn't talk about every 21st century invention when He walked the earth 2000 years ago. He doesn't tell us how to vote when the first African-American cis-gendered autonomous unit is presented for consideration, and He doesn't tell us that Solemnes' method is to be preferred over that of Dr. Mahrt, and He doesn't tell us.... lots of other stuff. On the other hand, ........

BruceL

MR: Fr. Tuscan was who I was trying to think of. He said the TLM at a friend's church in York PA years before that, where I met him.

Also, I'm just giving the pastoral reality on the ground. Trust me, using Latin during OT is an offense that would lead to dismissal for many people. I was in one of the more (musically) traditional parishes in a major archdiocese, and this was made very clear to me. My situation was most certainly not exceptional.

CharlesW

Chris,

He didn't tell us to vote for Trump? Is outrage!!!

Jesus also didn't talk about whatever strangeness His church could possibly devise. LOL. Listen to Mahrt, he knows whereof he speaks.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Bruce,

It is a sad commentary that doing what the Church requests us to do is grounds for dismissal. I once interviewed in a parish where, before my meeting with a group of parishioners, the pastor told me that if I wanted the position I would do well not to mention either Pope John Paul II or (then) Cardinal Ratzinger. I mentioned both, happily and proudly, and was not offered the job.

ClergetKubisz

Is it possible that relegating chant to penitential seasons such as Advent and Lent is a method of killing it off?

CharlesW

Is it possible that relegating chant to penitential seasons such as Advent and Lent is a method of killing it off?

Good question. The only difference for us is that we go from English chant to Latin chant during those times. It is essentially the same melodies, so not so much of a change. Elsewhere, it might be an extreme change to chant during Lent and Advent.

Ben

Good question. The only difference for us is that we go from English chant to Latin chant during those times. It is essentially the same melodies, so not so much of a change. Elsewhere, it might be an extreme change to chant during Lent and Advent.

Even then, it has the same effect with Latin...

M. Jackson Osborn

One might observe that those who insist on chant only during penitential seasons believe it to be fundamentally sad, morose, etc., and..... that they think of it as a penance. (What does it say about a person who, if informed that there is joyful chant, isn't interested in hearing it - or letting anyone else hear it?)

The corollary? 'Forty Days and Forty Nights' and such are penitential. Therefore all hymns are penitential and may only be sung during penitential seasons. Oh??? There are joyful hymns??? Well, that doesn't count and it doesn't matter: we don't want to hear them. (Brilliant!)

StimsonInRehab

None of these people have ever heard Adoro Te Devote.

MatthewRoth

Sure, Bruce. But, we have to find our way out somehow.

I would agree it is seen as penitential (why, I have no idea), and perhaps this move is to limit it so that people want it to go away.

BruceL

I mean, doing Mass XVIII too often WOULD be penitential!

Steve Collins

I would only point out that, with the new translation of the Mass in 2011, the ICEL Chant Mass (based on various Gregorian Ordinary parts) was put in all Catholic worship aid publications as the first option. That the USCCB insisted on that seems like it would be a good starting point, with ecclesiastical argument to back it up.

ronkrisman

the ICEL Chant Mass (based on various Gregorian Ordinary parts) was put in all Catholic worship aid publications as the first option. That the USCCB insisted on that...

Steve, with all due respect, I'm fairly certain that neither the entire USCCB nor its liturgy secretariat "insisted on" the inclusion of the ICEL chants in Catholic worship aids. But I'm certainly open to correction if you or someone else can cite the relevant statement from either of those bodies.

My recollection is that GIA made an editorial decision to include the ICEL chants in the hymnals it has published since 2010. Some of the editors were not entirely happy with the way some of the Latin chants were adapted by ICEL. But they "went with the program."

As to the notion of "first option," I would never dream of singing a "The Lord be with you" or a "Lift up your hearts" different from the present ICEL versions, but the ICEL English adaptations of Gloria XV, Sanctus XVIII, Agnus Dei XVIII, the memorial acclamations, etc., enjoy no "first option" status, even if they are included in a musical version of the Order of Mass in worship aids.

M. Jackson Osborn

...would never dream of singing...

I would!!!
And that dream would be the ancient Latin tone for sursum corda that has been adapted into English in the Anglican and Ordinariate Use worlds. Forsooth, I always wonder why priests (and people, too!) don't show some sign of embarrassment or displeasure at that simpleton tone that has become standard in the English Novus Ordo. It sounds so, nay, is so... cluelessy WRONG!

As for the ICEL chant version of the ordinary - well, Fr Columba has his own adaptation, which is, in many respects, superior and more 'singable' (whatever that means)... though I do think that the credo in the Roman missal is more singable than his - it's also somewhat closer to the Anglican version of credo I (The Sarum Creed) that I've sung all my life.

As to whether it was the bishops or GIA's editors who are responsible for putting this in the Roman Missal, hoorah for whoever it was. At least they did one thing right - namely, it is chant, and its there glaring them in the face saying 'don't speak! SING!'.

...some of the editors were not...happy...with...chants...adapted by ICEL...

This is interesting, and I would like to hear more about what, why, and wherefore. I have my own disgruntlements about the lack of grace in these adaptations, and Fr Columba would add to them an hundredfold. Can you state details? It is of note that Fr Columba's scholarship was deliberately excluded from participation in this work.

ronkrisman

MJO, good point about my statement that "I would never dream of singing..." Yes, I too would have preferred some changes in the 2010 ICEL chants, so I will concede that I could dream of singing something else! But those chants are what they are, and I would not myself introduce something different to a congregation (although priests do that all the time owing to the fact that they never learned how to sing those chants correctly).

An example of an ICEL chant that I consider a poor adaptation is the beginning of Sanctus XVIII: Ho-LEE-HEE, Ho-LEE-HEE. The 1974/1985 Sacramentary has a better treatment of those two words, IMHO.

Regarding Fr. Columba's being "deliberately excluded," I will not engage in what appears to be a version of a Benedictine "food fight."

MatthewRoth

Fr. Krisman, not only do priests sing the missal chants incorrectly, the missal tweaked them so that they are not in parallel to the Latin tones, which are perfectly usable in English… I think that the collect tones and prophecy tones are especially poor in comparision.

M. Jackson Osborn

...perfectly usable in English...

Indeed they are, and some people (need I say who?) have known that for a very long time. Apparently, there are, amongst Catholics who exercise responsibility (with little knowledge) about such things, those functionaries who feel it their bounden duty to alter, tinker with, meddle, and generally pawn off absurdly botched versions of historic chants - just for the satisfaction of having inserted their own little ill-taught solutions into official use. Of course, if they see that the Anglicans long ago solved these matters with grace it is, for them, all the more de rigeuer that a different, inferior if need be, solution be found.

ronkrisman

Matthew and MJO, you've hit upon a central issue in the "Englishing" of Gregorian chants. And there has not been any unanimity on the best way to accomplish this task since the first Verna Canto propers appeared in the mid-1960's.

Take one small issue, the Englishing of the first six notes of Sanctus XVIII, to which I referred above. In the 1974/1985 Sacramentary we find the work of the late Chrysogonus Waddell: he has 4 held notes TI LA TI LA for the "Ho-ly, Ho-ly." In the 2010 RM, there is a strict copying of the Latin neums: Ho(TI)- ly(TI_LA), Ho(TI)- ly(TI_LA). And in Fr. Columba Kelly's Kyriale: Ho(TI_DO)- ly(LA), Ho(TI_DO)- ly(LA).

It is absurd to accuse either Fr. Columba or Fr. Chrysogonus of desiring to "alter, tinker with, meddle, and generally pawn off absurdly botched versions of historic chants - just for the satisfaction of having inserted their own ill-taught solutions into official use," because they were convinced that a strict copying of the Latin neums, TI TI_LA, TI TI_LA (as we find in the 2010 RM), sounds awkward in English.

MatthewRoth

The collect tones needed no adaptation or re–arranging. They just need to be pointed correctly.

M. Jackson Osborn

Fr Krisman -
You are correct. I would never accuse Fr Columba of being a tinkerer, etc. I am an admirer and disciple of his. However, one might point out that the English ho-lee-ee sounds not a bit worse than the Latin sanc-too-oos. As is always the case, these things may be sung gracefully if one desires, or ungracefully if one is trying to manufacture an excuse to be a (would-be) genius where none is needed. One might also observe that the Good Friday trisagion doesn't exactly 'fit' the Latin, but the historic chant is, nonetheless, left intact and one sings it as gracefully as he wishes, informed by the degree of musical intuition with which he is endowed.

MarkThompson

An example of an ICEL chant that I consider a poor adaptation is the beginning of Sanctus XVIII: Ho-LEE-HEE, Ho-LEE-HEE.

But is it any worse or more awkward than the original, which sounds like you're singing "sanctuus"?

MatthewRoth

Also, I sing it “Ho–lee–ee,” for what it is worth.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Wouldn't Ho -oh- ly make more sense?

M. Jackson Osborn

Wouldn't...

No, it wouldn't.
As in the Latin, the thing is to put the accent on the first syllable and sing both pitches of the second one successively lighter. Musical intuition and artistry is all it takes. And, singing it gracefully in English is not a whit inherently more problematic than doing so in Latin. (Of course, one wishes to sing a musically tempered '-ly', a rather covered tone closer to 'ih' than to 'eeee' - just as one avoids the comical and incorrect '-oooos' of the Latin.)

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