Texts and Music for Mass Ordinaries and Psalms
  • WillWilkin
    Posts: 36
    I am beginning to compose my own music and have long imagined someday composing settings of the mass ordinaries, and some psalms. Mostly for my own learning and private playing, but maybe someday if I got good enough at it I'd present it to our parish music director. I had been expecting the English mass ordinary texts would be found in the most recent edition of the Roman Missal used in my country (USA), and also I'm wondering what other sources for the Greek (Kyrie) and Latin texts, as well as English texts for the Psalms.

    So here are 4 questions:

    1) Would there be anything objectionable about mixing the Greek/Latin text as choral part with a soloist or other choral voices singing the same text in English? My thinking beyond the beauty is it might also make the old church language directly intelligible to the congregation.

    2) What would be the authoritative source(s) for mass ordinaries (Greek/Latin and English) and psalm (English) texts, suitable for liturgical use?

    3) The 2 instruments I play are violin and bass viol, so those are the voices I would most likely specify for any instrumental lines. What sources would I consult for guidance on what instrumentation would be permissible?

    4) If I ever felt I had something good enough to present to our parish music director and pastor, would their approval be enough to make it's use in our parish liturgy legal in the eyes of the church? In other words, exactly who approves the music that is or can be used in the liturgy at any specific parish (or, alternatively, at a retreat house, such as run by priests of the Passionist Order)?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,210
    1) yes: stick to one language. In fact, some of us here say stick to one language per liturgy (in other words, do a Latin-only liturgy, or use English, but don't mix and match). You are free to mix and match, but I would not do so in the same composition.
    2) the missal, the English lectionary for the US (to include the new Abbey Psalms and Canticles that should form part of a new lectionary)
    3) there's no such guidance other than taste and good judgement.
    4) no absolutely not, for better or worse. The rules just approved in June and valid gong forward are very confusing, but musical compositions of the ordinary (at least for the English or Spanish) are reviewed by the USCCB and must be made within specific parameters that pertain to the text; you work with your bishop to seek approval via another episcopal conference if you write a setting for a language with a translation approved but not directly for use in the US (French, for example). The conference doesn't make judgements about music directly (for better or worse) and allows things like Glorias with refrains that most of us here find unsuitable.

    It also gets complicated because ICEL (or another similar group for other languages) holds the copyright for texts like the English-language Roman Missal and similar books, so you have to work with them as well as the USCCB.
  • WillWilkin
    Posts: 36
    Thank you Matthew Roth! I will reference this discussion as my preliminary guidance as I develop my project. It will be only my private learning project at first, but I want experienced advice to start me as correctly as possible.
  • noefraval
    Posts: 8
    As far as simple access to the authoritatively correct texts, USCCB publishes those on their website, with some guidance, too.

    https://www.usccb.org/committees/divine-worship/policies/mass-settings-texts
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,237
    Looking at that link to the USCCB, are they trying to license the Latin also?
  • noefraval
    Posts: 8
    No. Vernacular-only for copyright licensing. Vernacular & Latin for approval / review of text accuracy.

    From the descriptive blurb at the top of the page, they claim to be asserting their GIRM-given mandate to review and approve musical settings of the Order of Mass texts for congregational use, and add that the Secretariat for Divine Worship would then, “if necessary”, forward the reviewed manuscripts to the relevant copyright holder (which would include English and Spanish), for which the Latin has none.
  • Xopheros
    Posts: 71
    Your first point of mixing Latin with other languages makes perfect sense, and I use it myself occasionally in order to make the music self-explanatory. Not every parish has the resources to provide worship aids (and some will find them distracting and won't look at them anyway). That way you can include Latin texts in a mass celebrated in a vernacular language without alienating the faithful (this was an issue raised by none less then Josef Ratzinger during Vaticanum II) and thus build an easy accessible bridge to the church's tradition.

    Beware however, that there are two different approaches:
    1. In his recording of Kevin Allen's "Motectae trium vocum", Matthew Curtis decided to use the Latin motets as antiphones and interspersed verses in English. This way, the full text specified in the propers is sung, but the texts are unrelated and the English verses won't help understand the antiphone. I would not prefer this approach.
    2. A different approach is to use the verse for presenting a translation of the antiphone. Make sure to use a public domain translation to avoid the troubles reported elsewhere in this forum. If the Latin text is from the old Vulgata, a literal translation is the Douay Rheims bible. That way the verse serves quasi as a subtitle of the antiphone.

    Here are three examples where I utilize this idea: Beati qui lugent (non liturgical text), This is the day the Lord has made (Haec dies), Viderunt omnes. The second example is particularly interesting because it demonstrates a way to sing Latin and English/German simultaneously without inflicting text incomprehensibility.
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