Singers leaving parish NO choir to join parish TLM choir
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 346
    My parish offers both forms of the mass. The NO choir has one director, and I direct the traditional liturgical functions. We are collegial, and we sometimes "lend" each other choir members to help out, and sometimes I come help personally or vice versa. The many weavings would be complicated to explain, but the point is we work together.

    Over the last year there has been a decided, though not monumental, trend of singers leaving the NO choir to join the TLM choir. I have never tried to recruit from that pool in any way, let me add - some people are just choosing to switch. Recently one of that choir's strongest singers informed me she might join the TLM choir, and while I would welcome her assistance, and everything is ultimately her choice, this one now has me slightly worried about optics and relationships. She would be the fourth such person and certainly the biggest hit to the other choir.

    Is this something I should just not worry about (it's people making choices), something I should speak to the other director or the priest about? How should I handle this?
  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 405
    A contributing factor could be the time of the mass and the rehearsal. Several years ago a survey indicated that TIME of day is the overriding factor in their decision as to which mass they attend. If this helps, I'm glad; but I'm not trying to incite a flaming war!
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,716
    To be honest my pastor has this problem with the servers even the youth. That’s the breaks basically.
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  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 202
    Is it maybe nothing to do with either of you, and maybe about them discovering they prefer that form of the Mass? Roborgel and Matthew both make good points, especially about preference for Mass times (and it's def a trend with servers, who are often dependent on what Mass their parents go to). If that's the case...
    That’s the breaks basically.


    That being said,...

    We have 4 weekend Masses at our NO parish, and each is differently "flavoured", musically. There are Masses I prefer over others because of the music. I am involved in two of them on the regular, and I know which one I would pick if I had to choose only one. Time of day is a factor, but the music has always been the bigger influence.

    Have you asked them why? Maybe it's rep. Maybe it's the ordo. Maybe they like how you run rehearsals better. And then probably have a chat with your counterpart.
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  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,716
    Yeah. and it could be all of it to the point where the other person’s improvements might not change their mind.

    I’m also very bad about feeling like I have to anticipate people being hurt and relationship problems, but my advice is to let it play out. Inquire, certainly, with this singer if she switches definitively but you might not need to bring it up, and who knows: people can be more gracious than we think.
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  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 866
    It could depend on the NO repertoire. Is it vertical, that is God centered with robust Eucharist hymns or very horizontal, anthropocentric, with weak or ambiguous Eucharistic realism?

    Many singers who are serious about sacred music reach a threshold where they crave text and music with stronger Eucharistic realism. If the repertoire gap between the two Masses is wide, that shift in musical diet is often the primary driver, rather than Mass timing or rehearsal styles.

    Regarding the pastor: I wouldn't drag Father into this unless an actual conflict arises. Involving clergy over routine volunteer movement often turns a non-issue into official 'drama.' A quick, warm, heads-up to your fellow director ('Hey, just letting you know [Singer] reached out to me—wanted to keep you in the loop so there's no weirdness') handles the optics, preserves your working relationship, and keeps Father out of the weeds.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,695
    I spent years in what might be called mixed-repertoire scholas that had different qualities, typically driven by the pastoral leadership. Mercifully, none of them were limited to what I called "Missalette Beige" (though today it might be "Missalette Greige"). Still, I certainly spent the first few years of one schola in the mid-90s chafing under a great fear that Latin texts would be too much for the congregation to bear (which I fear I managed to demonstrate was false by an ... experiment ... where leadership relented for once and we sang the chant Pange Lingua at the end of the Evening Mass of The Lord's Supper and the congregation took it up enthusiastically, to the shock of leadership, which eased up as a happy result - it helped that we had a beautiful mid-19th century acoustic for a cappella singing).

    There are too many places where leadership's taste dial is stuck on roughly 1992, minus D Haas and plus composers who were rushed into missalettes to fill the void left in the wake of his disappearance therefrom. The introduction of the revised Missal 15 years ago helped dislodge some (but not all) of the baleful stasis on contemporary settings of the Ordinary, and restrictions during the first year or so of the Pandemic did help somewhat to disrupt the great power of inertia in this regard.
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  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 202
    @Don9of11, you said exactly what I wanted to say but couldn't find the words. Thanks.
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  • probe
    Posts: 205
    Liam, may I ask - how much preparation and rehearsal did the congregation need to sing Pange Lingua?
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  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 866
    Thanks for the kind words, @Abbysmum!

    The reason this topic is so top-of-mind for me is that I’ve been examining it through my fifty years of choral service across two parishes—mostly at St. Mary's in Akron, Ohio—and through a local hymnological study of our parish inheritance: You can download the study in its entirety here. A Parish Inheritance

    Looking through the historical repertoire of a single parish over the decades really drives home what @Liam was talking about regarding the shift in musical diets. To be clear, I’m neither a champion of chant nor a proponent of the TLM—my passion is protecting the treasure of hymnody and exploring "catechesis through melody." Sacred hymns have a lineage in Christian worship that predates the formal codification of Gregorian chant, serving as a primary tool for teaching and instilling the faith.

    Tracing how the texts and hymn tunes changed over time shows a direct correlation between what a choir is fed musically and how their liturgical appetite evolves. When singers are exposed to strong Eucharistic realism, robust hymnody, and vertical, God-centered texts, their standards naturally shift—and once that threshold is crossed, it's very hard to go back to a lighter "diet."
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,695
    Probe

    None.

    This was about 30 years ago. It was an oratory (read: intentional community), not a territorial parish, so the community demographics skewed in a way that enough people in the pews had had familiarity with PL in their youth and the general disposition of congregants was to sing. And participation spread with repetition during the procession to the lower church. We repeated this in subsequent years without incident.

    Given that congregants in procession often don't bother singing, I had argued beforehand that, if we've accepted that reality in the past, what real harm could come of the proposed experiment....

    It's counterintuitive, but metrical hymns can get really off and scattershot over a long thin procession line (dampening the continuance of singing by the congregation), but while chant will drag, it doesn't feel as scattershot: start vigorously....
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