The traditional music movement is having an impact!
I received my GIA promo flier today and was intrigued to see that their contemporary composers have finally broken down and written contemporary style settings of the propers. Introits only it seems. Some recording samples: https://www.giamusic.com/store/resource/enter-in-recording-cd868 Stylistically it’s everything one would expect, hippie flutes, tacky cultural appropriation, drums and bar chimes. But the compositional choices all seem to reference the flavor of the original chants.
But it’s the actual text of the mass. Way to influence things CMAA!
I spoke with Paul Tate about it back when I was blogging here more regularly. (This was 6, maybe 7 years ago). I have mixed feelings about the end product, but the intent was clearly very good. I don't think it has signaled much of a change in GIA's overall ethos, though.
Another (probably better) project is Christopher Tietze's Hymn Tune Introits. These were published by WLP, so now they are published by GIA. (Did that get talked about here?)
What I don't get it is why projects like this focus on Introits. It seems much more likely that you could get traction with Offertories (simple, pretty choral pieces) or Communions (Taize-like meditations to be sung before or after whatever hymn/song was going to get picked anyway).
But the traditional world still influenced it and GIA is still promoting it. So still good on those counts.
I understand the idea that communions or offertories would be an easier sell. But I like the idea of doing introits. So often the Gregorian Introit characterizes the whole feast (Laetare, Gaudete, Quasimodo, Requiem) and I think this loss is bigger than the communions, which were largely changed or reassigned in the new mass, or the offertories which don’t have the same weight in historical relevance. The introits survived into the Lutheran world for years - in Bach’s day the Sundays of the year were still named after the Latin Introit incipits, and in mid 20th century Lutheran hymnals these texts were still featured.
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