I should point out that I have used Kathy's metrical Introits, and highly recommend them to those who want to introduce the Propers. I personally prefer them to Tietze's, because they are all in Long Meter which allows them to be sung to many well-known melodies, and can be a great way of introducing chant, since there are many great Office hymns which are LM.

Badly performed beautiful music is still beautiful music.

Nope. Nothing badly performed is beautiful, by anyone's sense of beauty.

The Hootenanny Mass (if I understand correctly) is intentionally focused on the worshippers, and not on God.

Why? Latin lyrics from the propers can easily enough be set to folk-tunes. And the Mass is a celebration (ie party) where relive the death and resurrection.

i hear all your documented reasons... i used to subscribe to them all... for decades... however... like Charles has often pointed out... it's like moving chairs around...

Am I not doing enough to promote excellent hymnody for a liturgy which I believe is faulty? I struggle even as I do.

UPDATE

The NO is the face of a faulty body. Having a ‘face fix’ on the NO (good and appropriate hymns for example) does nothing to fix the body which is running in the wrong direction altogether. To illustrate the point, WHO decides if Sarah Hart or Thomas Aquinas is the opening hymn for the liturgy?

At the risk of sounding argumentative (which ship has, most likely, already sailed and sunk)...

I'm arguing that we stop letting our ideals about proper texts shame us into fearing to do the good we would be able to do if we actively engaged hymnody.

I think that I am on the same page as you, i.e., don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and that the hymnody used needs to be truly liturgical and of the highest quality. And I believe this in both the Mass and the Office. One of the first things that I did when I took my current position as Director of Music a million years ago was weed the hymn repertoire of the parish: I also had to fight to use truly liturgically appropriate hymnody, rather than everybody likes or knows XYZ so we should do it, even if it doesn't have anything at all to do with the proceedings.

Unfortunately, engaging with hymnody is the last thing that some people want to do. There is no discernment in programming hymns. One of the things that I love to do (within reason, of course) is find connexions between part of a reading, a proper, or an oration, or even of an entire feast, in a hymn that no one would expect to be used at that time. E.g., on Corpus Christi one would expect the hymn after Communion to be one of the standard Eucharistic hymns, like "Jesus, my Lord, my God, my all"; not this year: this time I programmed "Of the Father's heart begotten". But I think that this kind of engagement is lacking in most places. E.g. on "Good Shepherd Sunday", at a Mass celebrated by the Bishop, the official diocesan TV Mass (which is now, and always has been completely dreadful), the musicians chose "Hail, Holy Queen, enthroned above" as the Entrance Chant. Reading GIRM 48, I can't figure out why such a hymn would be appropriate for this part of the Mass on this particular Sunday.

I think that part of the problem with our use of hymnody is that all of the devotions and para-liturgies have gone away contrary to the desires of the Council, and so we feel that we need to wedge as many things into the Mass as possible. I agree with Dean Eric Milner-White when he said that the Church needs more imaginative worship, and so he created the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, while NB keeping the official Prayer Book Liturgies (Matins, Evensong, Eucharist) untouched. We need to do the same: Keep the Mass the Mass, the Office the Office, following the directives of the GIRM, GILtH and other legislation, using, to the best of our abilities, the options that our resources can handle, be they Gregorian Propers, seasonal chants, or good hymns, wisely and in an authentically liturgical way, while at the same time reviving or devising devotional services, which is where many hymns were originally intended to be used in the first place.

E.g. on "Good Shepherd Sunday", at a Mass celebrated by the Bishop, the official diocesan TV Mass (which is now, and always has been completely dreadful), the musicians chose "Hail, Holy Queen, enthroned above" as the Entrance Chant. Reading GIRM 48, I can't figure out why such a hymn would be appropriate for this part of the Mass on this particular Sunday.

Ah, but you have to think like "they" do. Good Shepherd Sunday, the 4th Sunday of Easter, was May 8, 2022, which was also Mothers' Day. Elementary, my dear Watson!

Again, this to me begs the question... who decides what music is appropriate or not for the liturgy?

Salieri

Thank you for trying to answer my question. It just seems that the 'ostrich with the head in the ground mentality' is the basis for continuing to think that the NO will at some point stop it's incessant bending and arrive at 'rigidity'.

While we sing a Marian hymn as appropriate on her feasts, during the novena to the Assumption, or during the months devoted to Marian devotions (like in May or October), we always sing the Marian antiphon (with verse and collect) before singing anything else, except at Masses for the dead or on other weird occasions like the Paschal vigil… and I get it, we're a mostly-trad parish (one English Mass/week). Nevertheless, all sorts of normie parishes enjoy the Salve, and they can be convinced to like the three other antiphons.

Re: Salieri's point: learning what GIA stands for was a blackpill for me.

VOX CLARA ECCE INTONAT; CHRISTE, REDEMPTOR OMNIUM; CHRISTE, QUI LUX EST DIES; RADIX IESSE IAM FLORUIT; CHORUS NOVAE IERUSALEM; LUCIS CREATOR OPTIMAE; TU TRINITATIS UNITAS. Then there are the several tunes for O SALUTARIS in the "Cantus Selecti", and the seasonal tunes for the hymns of the little hours (NUNC SANCTE, etc.) in the "Liber Usualis".

"There is a nearby parish where one of their services is affectionately referred to by a friend of mine as the "Hootenanny Mass." The music is dreadful."

Regarding the original post, in case someone doesn't know, the term "hootenanny Mass" was first used back in the 1960s:

Typical and perhaps most interesting of the innovations engineered through the Music Advisory Board by Father McManus, Father Diekmann and Father Weakland was the “hootenanny Mass.” The scenario began in April 1965, when Father Diekmann delivered an address entitled “Liturgical Renewal and the Student Mass” at the convention of the National Catholic Educational Association in New York. In his speech, he called for the use of the “hootenanny Mass” as a means of worship for high school students. This was the kickoff of a determined campaign on the part of the Liturgical Conference to establish the use of profane music in the liturgy celebrated in the United States. Universa Laus had already begun a similar effort in Europe.19 In September 1965, the Catholic press began to carry reports of the use of hootenanny music by those in charge of college and high school student worship.

https://northlandcatholic.blogspot.com/2009/08/rise-of-hootenanny-mass.html

Badly performed beautiful music is still beautiful music.

Exhibit A:
https://youtu.be/8PVal8Fy7CM

Maybe if he lifted his soft palate a bit more...

Sponsa,

Isn't that Exhibit A and Exhibit B, given that he sings twice. Or is it also exhibits C and D (for the accompaniment so in keeping with his singing that it's ...[rant truncated]

Why so much bad music at the NO mass?

Maybe it's because the chants in "Jubilate Deo" have not been used as intended in the NO mass.

https://archive.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/13/08/12/10-44-03_0.pdf

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/letter-to-bishops-on-the-minimum-repertoire-of-plain-chant-2204

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilate_Deo

"After the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, Pope Paul VI presented a 1974 document as a "minimum repertoire of Gregorian chant",[1] which the faithful should learn to sing."

https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Resources/Music/Jubilate/Voluntati.pdf

"Pope Paul VI has expressed often, and even recently, the wish that the faithful of all countries be
able to sing at least a few Gregorian chants in Latin (for example, the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei"

That did not happen everywhere, that's for sure.

http://www.blahedo.org/jd/

http://www.blahedo.org/jd/jd-booklet.pdf

http://gregorian-chant-hymns.com/publications/booklet-latin-mass-hymnal.pdf

https://adoremus.org/2007/12/quotjubilate-deo-latin-chantsquot/

https://isidore.co/misc/Res pro Deo/Greg Chant/jubilateb.pdf

Sorry to revive an old thread, but I appreciate all the previous posts.

Let’s see… 1974 all the way to today (2023)… that’s about 50 years and the situation is getting WORSE NOT BETTER… WHEN do we stop kidding ourselves about the utter failure??

David,

I'm not sure you do agree with them, but I'll let them speak for themselves. More importantly, I'm not sure that your understanding and the facts coincide.

Consider:

If you wanted to invigorate the faith of Catholics, would you insist that nearly everything they had known, and their parents had known, and so on, was false, or at least out of date, and would you, sensitive to the feelings of the modern world, have changed so much, practically overnight?

If you had wanted to spread the knowledge and love of the faith, so that more people accepted the truth and welcomed Truth, and more people who called themselves Christians would unite under the banner of Christ the king... would you have watered down or obfuscated, or ambiguitized every statement of faith?

To show the faithful how much you valued them, would you have told them that they needed to downgrade priests, take over the role of the priest to the maximum extent possible, and damage the beautiful churches (which represented to them, in their own parishes, the participation of their parents and grandparents in handing on the faith)?

On the other hand, if you wished to weaken the faith of Catholics would you insist that nearly everything they had known, and their parents had known, and so on, was false, or at least out of date, and would you, sensitive to the feelings of the modern world, have changed so much, practically overnight?

If you had wanted to truncate/diminish the knowledge and love of the faith, so that fewer people accepted the truth and welcomed Truth, and fewer people who called themselves Christians would unite under the banner of Christ the king would you have watered down or obfuscated, or ambiguitized every statement of faith?

To show the faithful how little you valued them, except as useful idiots, would you have told them that they needed to downgrade priests, take over the role of the priest to the maximum extent possible, and damage the beautiful churches (which represented to them, in their own parishes, the participation of their parents and grandparents in handing on the faith)?

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/profile/1402/Chris Garton-Zavesky

Chris,

I certainly don't want to get into another discussion of Vatican II.

It's obvious that many if not most of the members of this forum are traditionalists that, shall we say, are not especially fond of Vatican II and its aftermath.

Although I have read both the actual Vatican II documents and many critical books and articles on the problems in the church afterwards, I'm not particularly an expert on the subject. Frankly, though, I have seen the awful results of people using the so-called "Spirit of Vatican II" to further their own own agenda.

One such agenda was making the music at church "relevant" and entertaining.

I would have been happy if things were the same as when I was a child - I was baptized, had my first communion and confirmation before the implementation of the NO mass.

Mostly I was offering a possible reason for bad music.

Blessings.

https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/profile/13305/SponsaChristi

" Badly performed music is badly performed music and contrary to what the Church demands."

As a trained professional musician, I totally agree.

It's even worse when it's BAD music badly performed.

[one ...] innovations engineered through the Music Advisory Board by Father McManus, Father Diekmann and Father Weakland was the “hootenanny Mass.” The scenario began in April 1965, when Father Diekmann delivered an address entitled “Liturgical Renewal and the Student Mass”

As that makes clear, the dates show that this has nothing directly to do with the NO. It was a quite separate strand of activity, and a musical counter attack was promptly mounted by Bugnini in the Graduale Simplex.

I certainly don't want to get into another discussion of Vatican II.

Ok. No need. What I describe could be said to begin after the Council.

It's obvious that many if not most of the members of this forum are traditionalists

This isn't true. There are some who identify as traditionalists, but I think you'll find that number isn't as large as you think it is.

that, shall we say, are not especially fond of Vatican II and its aftermath.

One need not be a traditionalist to be fond of something other than Vatican II and its aftermath.


It would be heartening to hear someone in authority begin to clean up the mess, rather than blaming those mean traditionalists for wanting something other than the mess.

“Diocesan celebrations should use the Jubilate Deo Mass ordinary setting or the Missa de Angelis and the ICEL Missal chants.”

Mark, just to be clear: you mean that the ordinary parts of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus) should be always sung to the (one and only) melody given in the current Missal?

Now I've never even seen an official vernacular version of Jubilate Deo nor Mass VIII de Angelis. Do such things exist?

And why only that Mass setting? Never Mass I Lux et Origo , not even on Easter Sunday?

What I missed : that “Diocesan” as used above means “diocese-wide”, organized for and with the participation of the faithful from across the Diocese. I read it as “in diocesan parishes” or “as celebrated by diocesan clergy” , as opposed to Order parishes and clergy.

That said: how would a Diocesan celebration use a Gregorian ordinary for celebration in English?

That said: how would a Diocesan celebration use a Gregorian ordinary for celebration in English?

Sacrosanctum Concilium para. 54

"Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."

It would seem that having a diocesan celebration where there would be people of multiple native languages would precisely the occasion when the faithful should "say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."

Read closely, Sacrosanctum Concilium seems to outline precisely how to use Latin and the vernacular together. The readings would be in the vernacular. The prayer of the faithful would be in the vernacular. Whether the Eucharistic Prayer would be in the vernacular would be up to the presider. The dialogues and ordinary could be in the vernacular. However, the people should be able to confidently say or sing together those parts of the mass in Latin. Where there is not a single local vernacular, having the people say or sing together in Latin may very well be the option which divides least.

Michael, I would counter that all cultural changes which move a parish toward a reverent NO, are re-adoptions of tradition. So if the old practices are the more Catholic practices, then why change the mass in the 60s at all?

Merely introducing vernacular translations did not necessitate a rewriting of all the liturgical books.

But trying to change the church’s theology would necessitate such a rewrite.

The Novus Ordo can be beautiful, transformative, and satisfying

Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith said almost the same thing some years ago. The unspoken part of the sentence is this: but it isn't, usually, because beauty isn't actively sought in the music, the text or the architecture.

It's shockingly easy to change the culture of music in a parish.

We will have to agree to disagree here. In my experience, it depends very much on the pastor and the hive-mind of the parish. I have had relative success introducing chant (English & Latin) as well as a heavy diet of latin motets at my parish, however a friend 30 mins away had three choir members leave after Triduum simply because she dared to have them sing Latin a few times during Holy Week. She (and her predecessor) has quite the minefield to traverse to do anything remotely "traditional".

As for Jubilate Deo and SC, I have quoted both of them numerous times in my "music minute" that I nestle into the worship aid every 2-3 weeks. A parishioner (whom I've never noticed having any proclivity to sing) told me just last week how much he appreciates these little lessons about sacred music, and how he has found it very interesting to learn what the church actually teaches. So I think that part of the issue is that people just don't know. In my experience, giving people the 'why' behind these decisions seems to help, at least nominally. (There are others who couldn't give two hoots about what SC and the GIRM actually say. They want what they want, and that's all there is to it. What can determine the success of these endeavors is what ratio of the open-minded vs. this latter type of parishioner, and just how vocal the latter become when they don't get their way.)

Regardless, I'm glad that there are pockets of success. Take the wins where we can get them.