Yes, sorry, an oversight on my part. I just wanted to get the word out as quickly as possible.

Update

The vesper service scheduled for tonight at St Chapel is canceled. Professor Mahrt had a stroke and sad to say he is in ICU and expected to die in the next few hours. Friends and choir members are gathered at his bedside. Please pray for him

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Published just before 14h Pacific Time. [December 31, 2024]

This reminds me of the mother of my Chartres chapter chief; they prayed the rosary as she slowly left this world. She was conscious enough to pray “Pray for us sinners, now” before beginning again “Hail Mary…”. It took a while, but her children caught on before the end of the rosary.

Requiescat in pace.

May his memory be eternal.

May he be rewarded for all he taught us and so many others.

I thought this was lovely: https://cynthialhaven.substack.com/p/stanfords-william-mahrt-the-champion

May the angels sing him to paradise.

William Peter Mahrt (March 9, 1939–January 1, 2025)

With great sorrow, but with hope in the resurrection and confidence in God’s providence and mercy, we announce the passing of Dr. William P. Mahrt on January 1, 2025, the Octave Day of Christmas and Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Dr. Mahrt died peacefully, having received the sacraments of the Church and the apostolic pardon, and surrounded by faithful friends and students who sang and prayed the liturgical offices in which he had so many times directed them.

Born in 1939, Dr. Mahrt dedicated his life to the study and performance of the Catholic Church’s sacred music, leaving an indelible mark on the field of musicology, as well as on the hearts and souls of those who knew him. His insights into the characteristics of the various forms of Gregorian chant elucidated the nature of the chant as integral to the sacred liturgy, even explicating the nature of the sacred liturgy itself. His exposition of the nature of beauty and its embodiment in Catholic sacred music, liturgical gestures and symbols, and architecture has served as an important guide in the Church’s understanding of the purpose of artistic beauty in divine worship. His work with medieval and Renaissance polyphonic masters illuminated the performances and scholarship of many choirs and students.

Dr. Mahrt’s academic journey began at Gonzaga University, near his family’s wheat farm in rural eastern Washington (near Reardan), where he earned his B.A. in 1960. He went on to receive an M.A. from the University of Washington in 1963 with a thesis on the keyboard fugues of Schumann. Driven by an insatiable curiosity and a deep love for music, he continued his studies at Stanford University, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1969 with a dissertation entitled “The Missæ ad organum of Heinrich Isaac.” Throughout his illustrious career, Dr. Mahrt held prestigious teaching positions at Case Western Reserve University, the Eastman School of Music, and Stanford University, where he inspired countless students as an Associate Professor, teaching courses on medieval notation, the modes, medieval and Renaissance repertoire and analysis, and the music of Johannes Brahms.

William Mahrt served as the President of the Church Music Association of America starting in 2005 after first joining the board in 1977. Under his editorship of the CMAA’s journal (2006–present) Sacred Music, the oldest continuously-published music journal in the United States, the publication expanded in length and breadth to serve as an important locus for the study and praxis of the Church’s music. The editorials he wrote for the journal evince a profound understanding of both the sacred liturgy and its music and were remarkable both for their integration of scholarship and Catholic theology, as well as for the wide range of topics covered. As president of the CMAA, Dr. Mahrt played an important role in the discussions of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops which led up to the 2007 publication of guidelines on music in the liturgy, Sing to the Lord. At the initiative of his friend and the CMAA’s then-director of publications, Jeffrey Tucker, a collection of his essays, The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, was published in 2012.

Known for his expertise in Gregorian chant, medieval performance, and the works of composers such as Machaut, Dufay, Isaac, and Lassus, Dr. Mahrt’s scholarly contributions earned him numerous accolades, including the NEH’s Newberry Library Fellowship in 1976, the Albert Schweitzer Medal in 1991, and the Thomas Binkley Award in 2010. He served as President of the Northern California Chapter of the American Musicological and Chairman of the Bay Area chapter of the Latin Liturgy Association. He was a frequent presenter and attendee at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, the International Fota Conference, as well as the conferences of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, International Musicological Society (IMS), and the IMS’s study group Cantus Planus. In demand as a teacher, Dr. Mahrt was a regular faculty member and plenary speaker at the CMAA’s annual Sacred Music Colloquium, Cantores in Ecclesia’s annual Byrd Festival in Portland, Oregon, the Lumen Christi Institute of the University of Chicago, the Singers’ Retreat in San Anselmo, California, the Renaissance Polyphony Weekend in Dallas, Texas, the Sacred Music Institute of America, and the Catholic Institute of Sacred Music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park.

In addition to his scholarly achievements, Dr. Mahrt was a founding member of the St. Ann Choir in 1963 and served as its director for most years since 1964. Under his leadership, the ensemble developed an extensive repertory of medieval and Renaissance motets and masses, singing each Sunday and principal feast day a Missa cantata in Latin, with Gregorian propers, two motets, and a mixture of Gregorian and Renaissance ordinaries at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto, California. Dr. Mahrt played an organ prelude and postlude for every Mass in which the organ was permitted. The choir, in response to an initiative by Dr. Mahrt several decades ago, also sings Sunday vespers and compline, with vespers usually at the St. Ann Chapel, the choir’s original home in Palo Alto. The ensemble is one of the few in the world which has a continuous tradition of singing the Church’s treasury of sacred music, all the while implementing the reforms to the sacred liturgy called for by the Second Vatican Council’s Sacrosanctum concilium and the 1967 Instruction Musicam Sacram. Dr. Mahrt was a graceful and compelling proponent for the place of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony as the central music of the Roman rite, especially in the celebration of the modern Roman missal. He carefully collected and produced editions of important and interesting polyphonic works, teaching them to his choir with love and enthusiasm for the music in all its aspects. The choir continues singing from these editions, as well as the large choirbook-style score of the Gregorian chants from Annie Bank Editions, even inspiring the production by longtime choir member Susan Alstatt of beautiful illuminations of the choir’s patronal feast’s propers. The extensive library of the St. Ann Choir, complete with its elegantly accurate translations of many motet texts, was a core part of the early formation of the Choral Public Domain Library by one of Dr. Mahrt’s students at Stanford, Rafael Ornes. Many of Dr. Mahrt’s students from Stanford joined his ensemble to augment their experience of the music, in its proper liturgical context, about which they were writing dissertations and theses. Singers flocked from all backgrounds to sing with him in this unique ensemble, and they are the core of those who attended Dr. Mahrt’s bedside until his hour of death. The friendships formed in the choir by Dr. Mahrt served as an anchor in his life and the lives of so many others. His leadership of the St. Ann Choir and the Stanford Early Music Singers was a testament to his unwavering commitment to sacred music, the true and deep bond between the highest levels of scholarship and praxis, and a fervent love for his Catholic faith.

To celebrate his life and legacy, a conference entitled “The Musical Shape of the Liturgy: Celebrating the Life and Work of William P. Mahrt” was held in November of 2023, marking the 150th volume of Sacred Music and honoring the establishment of a new chair in sacred music at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park under the leadership of Dr. Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. Scholars, musicians, and friends from around the country gathered to fête Dr. Mahrt’s remarkable accomplishments and work.

There will be no livestream of his funeral available. We hope you can come in person.

Rest in peace, Dr. Mahrt

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