a pre-Easter surprise!
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    Last year in my parish, the adult choir and the children’s choir did the Easter sequence in Latin. It was one of many pieces that we sang in Latin for the Triduum; I later found out that many members of the choir resented being asked/made to sing so much Latin. (Being that I had only arrived in the parish a couple months earlier, it was hard for me to tell...)

    Anyway. This year I wanted to keep the amount of Latin in check, so I decided to have the choir sing the Easter sequence in English. (Wait, wait!) Then I started the kids on the sequence, and imagine my surprise to hear....
    How come we can’t do it in Latin??


    Similar sentiments have arisen from the adults.

    Maybe it’s because they’ve already learned it in Latin that they prefer it that way. Maybe it’s because the Latin language does flow better than its English translation for the Victimæ sequence.

    Maybe it’s the Spirit.

    Either way, absent loud cries of dissent when the choir votes on Thursday, Latin it will be this year. I personally am glad, but surprised to see how the others reacted.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Congrats, Felipe.

    "Brick by brick" as Fr. Z often says.

    I had a similar experience last year with my boys' and girls' schola. We were preparing to sing for a particular Sunday in Easter when Bob Hurd's not-so-bad-could-be-worse setting of "Ubi Caritas" came up. Earlier I had them learn the original Latin hymn, and they took to it quickly. When the Hurd arrangement came up, one of them said, "Awww. Why can't we just do the Latin one instead? This one's hard!"
    (!!!). From her lips to God's ears!
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    Hm - I wouldn’t have considered the Hurd to be harder than the chant. Hurd “Ubi” is one I use pretty frequently because it’s got a nice melody and has verses with the same rhythm each time through.
  • priorstf
    Posts: 460
    Felipe -

    You mention I later found out that many members of the choir resented being asked/made to sing so much Latin.

    How did you "find out"? One thing I've noticed in the choirs I work with is that when somebody is talking in a social setting, all of the heads are nodding in agreement. The impression is that all are of one mind. Bring in another speaker with an opposing viewpoint and all the heads will again be nodding in agreement. So bring it up for discussion. Make it clear that there will be Latin, and you would like their input as to how much.

    I've also gotten in the habit in our Schola of walking through verbatim translation of the Latin we sing. Inroduce the fascinating words like the Tantum Ergo's "cernui" to give an insight to the intensity of words that really don't reproduce well in English. Build on the fact that they are part of an elite group and they seem to enjoy it. I think your kids already recognize it!
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Felipe,

    I too use the Hurd "Ubi," for your reasons as well as the fact that the refrain is in Latin (a foot in the door, if you will).

    I also wouldn't have considered it "harder" than the Latin. I was just so amused that a youngster who had just learned the Latin words would favor the Latin over the English, while so many adults will complain of exactly the opposite.
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    You know I noticed that during Lent and Holy Week, folks do want Latin (well, not my former boss, but that's another story!). They sing right out the Tantum ergo and O salutaris like its the most normal thing. Ask them to sing Puer natus on Christmas and you get fingers wagged at you. How very odd.
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    If I may take a stab at the reasons for the phenomenon Michael describes:

    1) Popular culture promotes a great number of Christmas hymns, which can’t be said for Holy Week or Triduum. Using the prescribed chants for Christmas in an average parish would be pretty unpopular, I believe; culture has created the expectation (and we in the Church have acquiesced to this) that “Silent Night”, “O Come, All Ye Faithful”, and “Joy to the World” ought to be sung on Christmas, which leaves little room for the Roman Rite’s own “native” Christmas music – which is a shame, IMO.

    2) Many folks remember Tantum ergo and O salutaris because they are/were benediction hymns. (I had to teach DUGUET, though, last year when we sang it at my current parish; not enough folks were there who learned it as a kid.) These aren’t taught anymore, though, so I imagine things there could change in 20 years as fewer and fewer people remember singing these except on Holy Thursday.

    3) Christmas is associated with newness and a baby. Holy Week and Triduum are associated with something that happened a really long time ago to an adult.

    4) I think there is something to the idea that, given our being accustomed to large groups of instruments played together, any unaccompanied singing, esp. Gregorian chant (with its absence of accentuated pulses), by default naturally sounds non-celebratory. True, there are pieces like Viadana “Exsultate justi” that, though unaccompanied, are as joyful-sounding as anything, but even the Church documents establish the association between more instruments and greater festivity.

    I mean....how strange it must seem to many folks who hear the Victimæ sequence (mode 1 = D minor = darkest of keys for 19th-c theorists) on the most festive day of the Church year.....?
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