Any ideas about the music at Sen. Kennedy's funeral mass?
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    The Brahms
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Watching now) WOW what an amazing church! Such a shame it's in a bad location.


    I am curious, what constitutes a "bad location." I think where the "real people live" for a church, especially a beautiful orthodox laden one, is the best location, and also close to several colleges. Unmatched location. Close to where Malcom X grew up.

    A fitting funeral for a "prince" of the church. GAG.
  • Chrism
    Posts: 868
    CharlesW, every once in a while someone manages to ruin an already bad song. Thanks!
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Sweelinck, the postlude, I heard someplace...
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    Gavin

    I am going to politely disagree about the tempo for Holy God We Praise Thy Name. The organist (a very fine one) used the tempo commonly used at St Paul's in Cambridge (not as big as the Mission Church, but still large - seats about 1100-1200). I know from first-hand experience that it works well even in a reverberant space with proper registrations, mostly because it is such a well known belting hymn. Consider it a bumble-bee: something that on paper should work, but does when properly fitted together.

    I suspect that select members of the Tangelwood Festival Chorus became the choral choice because of the evident need of the press crews for a considerable portion of the organ loft: it was a situation of choosing people who could project in tune in a great volume.

    I was pleased that CSPAN's feed did not dwell on the communion line. A huge mistake avoided.


    It could have been better; it could have been far worse.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Mr. Z: I live in (not in a suburb of, in) a city that is always listed as one of the top 3 most dangerous cities in the country. So really, I'm relying on outsider reports. I had heard the church was sparsely attended due to the neighborhood (or other factors) and didn't have a very good music program. I simply wished to convey that I would love to see that church always as full as it was today.

    Liam: De tempibus non est disputandum. I work in an Episcopalian church now with the acoustics of a towel closet, and when I did "O Beautiful" for a concert, I took it at a much slower tempo. (I didn't hear Holy God, so I can't comment on that.) It depends on the tradition, sure, but I felt it somewhat rushed. Good to see you here, by the way.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Well,

    I could care less about street cred.. I just see the church closing these types of parishes far too easily.. Most Catholic churches have poor music, and it is not for lack of finances. Bad taste follows the nouveau riche everywhere they go. Let us attend to some of these parishes, not let them die, and gain converts new members, let us fund music there just for that purpose, as good music will help. I am sorry this church, however lovely and however situated geographically, demographically, was used in this disgusting way - i.e., backdrop to political talking points and horrific liturgical abuse. Nauseating.
  • G
    Posts: 1,397
    "De tempibus non est disputandum."

    Oh, if only!
    Don't suppose you can provide me with an authoritative citation for that, so I could tell someone else that it's a violation of the rubrics, or canon law, or something, for him to be trying to dictate them?

    Doesn't understand that 300+ people in a highly reverberant room, a full city block long might need a different tempo on something, than the one he learned with 7 buddies, in a seminary dorm room, strumming guitars.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • Maureen
    Posts: 675
    It's not really a bad location to get to, at least early on Sunday morning, if you take the T. If you ask me why I know this, it's because I went there on the T, several years back when visiting Boston. Didn't know anything about it, except that it was a Catholic church pretty close on the same T line that ran by where I was staying.
    It didn't seem all that bad a neighborhood in the short distance from the T station. I'm fairly sure I would have chosen another church if I had known. But it was very nice inside.
  • Chrism
    Posts: 868
    Mission Church, a web site by the late great "Gerard Serafin".
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    I didn't get a chance to see it myself, but our DM did. Mind you she is very broadminded, using music in the church ranging from Buxtahude to Haugen, with little rancor in either direction. Her commentary was simple: the funeral Mass was a textbook display of liturgical abuses! I'm going to have to watch for reruns.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    For those curious about the state of the Basilica parish:

    The latest statistics I could find on attendance at the Mission Church are from 2004; Sunday attendance (an average of several weeks of counts) was 975. The Church's capacity is 1,400. The parish offers five Masses each Saturday/Sunday, so the attendance at any particular Mass is probably fairly low.

    In the 1980s, when I used to work at one of the nearby colleges, students tended to go to churches and chapels closer to campus, designated for student ministry. At the time, the Mission Hill Housing Project between the Basilica and the colleges was considered a dangerous area. Here's a home movie from 1948 on YouTube showing how the projects looked in the postwar years.

    A description of the Mission Hill neighborhood is available on Wikipedia, and describes how the neighborhood declined in the 1960s and 1970s. In part of the destruction, urban planners flattened a large strip of residential and commercial buildings through the neighborhood in a plan -- later cancelled -- to build I-95 through the city. That drove jobs and residents out. But there's been quite a bit of improvement and gentrification since then.

    I tend to think of the Mission Church as the only really beautiful church in Boston. Perhaps the Basilica will benefit by adding some more affluent people to its congregation. Here's the parish's current website.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    Seems. like - for some here, as in more than 1 (and you WILL deny it)

    Bad neighbohood = black people

    Good neighborhood = white people (I did not say that! - you WILL say ) well, says I, what is gentrification ?


    You, know, the way whites reclaim otherwise good inner city property, property that was ," uughh, not so desirable, but now, we want it." is to raise taxes, or don't shelter older people especially, and gee, those poor black people just can't afford that big ol run down house any more, Aunt Tizzy, she be eighty, but she can't afford her taxes. She's gotta move. Seen it, don't like it, gentrification.

    Don't mean to sound accusatory, you maybe just have not thought it all through to its logical conclusion, but that is gentrification at it zenith.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Sure; those of us who are acquainted with Mission Hill know that upscale housing for affluent people is going to make it less affordable for the poor people who live there now. It's not a simple black/white story; there's a Latino population too, prominent in the parish. And Mission Hill has seen ethnic groups come and go for over 100 years.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    True, big city's generally are not soley black/white -- there are now typically larger and larger groups of immigrants from various places, especially Latinos, but as black neighborhoods are diffused, bought out, so is the black political power base eroded, especially in municipal politics. They ain't gotta chance.

    Anyway, I am just grinding a small axe, about how perception concerning these issues are arrived at and maintained. Catholics especially have been quite oblique sometimes about some of these concerns, though the church, to her credit, more often than not, has maintained a presence in these kinds of neighborhoods when others said bye bye. That is, until lately. Let's not refer to this as a "bad" location and say it is because of parking or something. Almost all of the great churches in Italy would thus qualify for that depiction. We undermine the churches mission by so doing, IMHO. So rethink that is all.

    Anyway, Bill Russell was there, said that Kennedy was a pretty good basketball player in his day, even tried out for the Celtics. He had just one major flaw in his game that he could never overcome- he could not go to his right.

    Sorry, had to throw that in. Bill said it, not me.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Mr. Z: I meant no commentary, racial or otherwise, on the neighborhood. My only point is that the church needs to be well-attended. I don't care if it's in the middle of a rich suburb with all bus lines in the city stopping in the narthex; it's unfortunate if a church of that beauty is underattended.

    At any rate, it seems I was misinformed. 975 people?? A protestant church is well off it has 97; 975 would mean they'd be opening up a second Starbucks inside. If they can't pull off a music program, that's a real shame.
  • Chrism
    Posts: 868
    BTW, I was looking at the online program and noticed the following stanza missing from America the Beautiful:

    O beautiful, for pilgrim feet
    Whose stern, impassioned stress
    A thoroughfare for freedom beat
    Across the wilderness!
    America! America! God mend thine ev'ry flaw;
    Confirm thy soul in self control, thy liberty in law!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    "CommentAuthorChrism CommentTime22 hours ago
    CharlesW, every once in a while someone manages to ruin an already bad song. Thanks!"

    You are welcome! another favorite is,

    I will strafe your house with F-16s
    Bomb it into smithereens.
    Make you to shine like the sun,
    And blow you into kingdom come.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    975 is not a lot of people for a Catholic parish around here. It's probably near the average, maybe a little below. My geographical parish (one of the ten biggest in the diocese) has nearly 2,600 attending Sunday Masses. The biggest parish has 3,300. Parishes with under 400-500 people are at risk of closure (unless they already were considered and have been spared).
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Wow! A mass with 500 in attendance is significant in this area. There are only 5 or so parishes in this city. This is a heavily Protestant area.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Well, those figures were for total attendance at all a parish's Sunday Masses. That parish with 3,300 people has six Masses. A small parish on a peninsula has three Masses, with a total attendance of 264.
  • Mr. Z
    Posts: 159
    If you, I am sure many have, have worked in the inner city of any major metropolitan area, or grew up there or went to school there, you probably see the bleakness there and some of the kids in the "hood" never go to the usual places that other kids do, never see the ocean, the forest, Disneyland, lakes, museums, music centers etc. So a church, especially a beautiful one, is one of the few nice things in some of those places, and should be seen as a reminder and as testimony of the faith and of the great possibilities of human potential fueled by that faith. IOW worth keeping open even in through dificulties, and if the Church got its act together a little bit better, and did the beautiful liturgies it is capable of, i would bet that those wonderful spaces would fill again, not matter who is in the neighborhood..
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Well, as a basilica, the church has a special legal obligation to observe the liturgy with great solemnity, including (if I remember right) the public celebration of the Office. Anybody know any basilicas that actually do that?
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