Given the involvement of the Lyndon LaRouche organization the Schiller Institute, I had low expectations for Sunday's Mozart Requiem Mass at Brooklyn's Cathedral... but it seems to have been worse than I imagined:
Um... wow. I mean, I know it is rare that there are an actual orchestra and such a big choir, but is there no choir loft? And Green vestments with the requiem? Make up your minds, mates! Is it a Requiem mass or a normal Sunday Mass?
It does seem to be an odd amalgamation. I do applaud the presenters for using the Mozart. So many would be using "Eagles Wings" for the same purpose.
That said . . . If it were Sunday mass, I suppose the Requiem aeternam could replace the entrance hymn as "another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year . . ." In ordinary time, they would have to sing a Gloria, so one by Mozart would not be the worst. The addition of the Sequence is odd. It is also curious as to why they combined the Agnus Dei and the Lux Aeterna. It would seem that they could have used the Agnus Dei in its proper place and the Lux Aeterna during or post-communion.
Another option would have been to celebrate a mass for the dead instead of Sunday mass at the particular mass.
I guess to the extent rubrics were broken it was at least in an "upward" direction instead of trying to dumb things down.
Certainly an odd duck: the Mozart Requiem, but on a Sunday, with green vestments and a Gloria; it was prefaced with a Bach prelude, and completed with an excerpt from Handel's Messiah. I assume the Mass was in the modern Roman Rite, so I'd congratulate the organizers on getting the pastoral permission to sing the old sequence in its historical place!
Since the organization behind the event promotes the cause of A=432 tuning, I wonder if the cathedral's organ was left out. Presumably the orchestra provided the accompaniment for Irving Berlin's "God Bless America".
To participate in the discussions on Catholic church music, sign in or register as a forum member, The forum is a project of the Church Music Association of America.