Shape-note Mass ordinary?
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,186
    I thought I rightly remembered that there was an example posted or discussed of using shape-note music in some substantial way for the Mass: presumably the congregational parts of the ordinary, or perhaps some well-chosen hymns.

    I can't find it by searching, though. Am I just hallucinating? Does anyone else remember?

    (I am thinking of the Novus rite, of course. Arguably such adaptation is still as incongruous as electric guitars or gamelan at Mass, but I can't shake the impression that we discussed it.)
  • CGM
    Posts: 697
    The shape-note tradition didn't come out of the Catholic church, so I'd be very surprised if there were any settings of the Ordinary of the Mass to come from the shape-note repertory. There are countless shape-note hymns: check out this website for PDF's of several such hymnals, or click here for lots of individual hymns.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,186
    Oh, yes: it's inconceivable that there would be a traditional, organic, use of shape note music in the Mass. Gracious! No, what I meant, sorry, is that someone took shape-note music and adapted the vernacular ordinary to it, somehow.

    Remotely like a parody Mass but of course recent not Renaissance.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    I've never "gotten" the fondness of RC USA for plundering the shape-note repertoire, and it's a repertoire I'm very familiar with and have loved. I'm not even sure how much it's used in actual Southern Protestant church services, as opposed to being an activity in itself. The theology of the lyrics is pretty Protestant. Now, if I were to walk into Mass and hear a whole congregation belt out RUSSIA or STRATFIELD to some Latin hymn text, I might change my mind.
    Thanked by 1MatthewRoth
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    Adam Wood wrote a Mass in the style of Shaker music: is that perhaps the one you remember?

    https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/9688/adam-wood-mass-of-the-blessed-fire-agnus-dei-sanctus-kyrie-satb-vocal-arrs./p1
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    I understand the borrowing of the tunes; they tend to be sturdy and well structured for quick adoption by congregations. They were, after all, designed for unaccompanied congregational singing. Many now-beloved tunes in English-language hymnals came from purely secular sources, not even of worship origin as with shape-note tunes.

    And there are many texts that bear not the taint of Calvinism. Here's one of the oldest hymns of American origin - arguably truly indigenous to English-speaking Americans - penned during the American Revolution and and in continuous use since - by William Billings of Boston, whose music was among the examples that itinerant New England music masters took with them down along the coastal plain and mountain valleys of the Middle Atlantic and Southern regions to provide an important part of the foundation for what we now know as the shape-note tradition, which has found appeal across The Pond, as were, for lo, the winter is past, after all:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OFnfWtIa10

    And the shape-note notation for this from a mid-19th century hymnal:

    https://hymnary.org/hymn/SHMC1854/200b

    And a more "authentic" rendition from Irish shape-note conventioneers:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1xuj3enybY

    And from conventioneers in Bremen, Germany:

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

    As for the English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNskHLiCs9Y

    This tradition is among treasures of Americans' own genius and Catholics can join in cherishing it. That said, while an ordinary might borrow motifs from this tradition, the non-metrical nature of the large portions of the text of the ordinary would make it tough to adapt any metrical melody for them (as opposed to shorter portions of the ordinary).
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    With respect to my neighbors (I live in an area where the Churches of Christ are big) and to others, I have no desire to borrow from Protestants things that are utterly foreign to Catholicism. I don’t even have an unbreakable attachment to SATB hymnody in the vernacular.

    I also am more than a bit perturbed that, much like how people misrepresent apparent linguistic conservatism in New World varieties of French and even English, people misrepresent the tradition of shape-note singing. It is but one way to sing as people did over a century ago, and the Sacred Harp tradition in particular also not quite older than that — and that’s fine. It draws on all sorts of older elements, but there was some finessing along the way.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    Just for historical clarification for folks who might be interested:

    https://originalsacredharp.com/2014/11/12/american-tunes-in-west-gallery-sources/
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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