Music for an American Wedding
  • Rebecca Bridget C-
    Posts: 79
    Dear Friends,

    Last year, I was asked for help preparing music for the wedding of a very sweet couple, who were unfortunately presented with quite a dilemma. Without getting into the details about their difficulty, or whether the compromise they settled on was the optimal response, here was their situation. They needed music that:

    1) Was entirely in English;
    2) Included no more than one instance of plainchant;
    3) Was composed, written, and arranged by Americans, to the fullest extent possible;
    4) Could be beautifully performed by a cantor and organist, or at most, a three-voice ensemble;
    and, finally,
    5) Was as completely in keeping with the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Church's ideals for sacred music, and the solemn worship of God in Mass as possible under the circumstances.

    Respectfully, I request that the appropriateness of these constraints not be debated here.

    I'd like to show you the music we put together, both to see how you think we managed, and in case any of these ideas might come in handy for others. We were reasonably pleased with the results, especially the Offertory. We used shape-note tunes in several places, in the spirit of the "American" constraint. (Yellow alert: Amateur musician decloaking. Nothing fancy here.)


    Recordings here. PDFs available if desired.
    ~~~~~~~

    Prelude:
    Adapted Gregorian melody, set to an Antiochian Orthodox wedding prayer, in English

    Processional:
    For the Beauty of the Earth, to DIX

    Psalm 34:
    Original refrain, verses to psalm tones harmonized by Theodore Marier

    Alleluia:
    Acclamation by Norah Duncan, verse to psalm tone

    Offertory:
    The Servant Song, to BEACH SPRING, harmony adapted from an OCP copyrighted version

    Sanctus:
    Choral setting by Theodore Marier, adapted for SAB adult voices.

    Memorial Acclamation and Amen:
    To HYFRYDOL

    Agnus Dei:
    From Holy Cross Mass, David Isele

    Communion:
    (Let the arranging begin)
    Verses 1, 2, 5, and 6 "All Praise to Our Redeeming Lord" by Charles Wesley, with verses 5 and 6 from "Gift of Finest Wheat" by Omer Westendorf.
    Sung to RESIGNATION, with harmony adapted from the arrangement by Virgil Thomson
    (Sung here with very questionable intonation :-)


    Recessional:
    "Alleluia, Alleluia, Sing a New Song to the Lord", psalm 98 paraphrase by John Dunn, to the tune Bryn Myrddin by J. Morgan Nicholas.


    ~~~~

    We made sure everything worked SAB, SAA, SA, SB, or melody only, and accompanied or acapella. The concept recordings are acapella, because my experiments with mixing in organ midi files were.....suboptimal :-)
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,480
    Not a bad program, if somewhat odd.

    I'm very curious what caused these constraints. Are you able to comment?

    As for adequately accomplishing goals:

    If "completely in keeping with the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Church's ideals for sacred music, and the solemn worship of God in Mass as possible under the circumstances" was actually a goal, I wonder at the non-use of the Propers. Certainly, with the amount of arranging done already, the antiphon texts and psalm verses could have been set to American hymn tunes.

    From an "American as possible" standpoint: DIX is German, and the text "For the Beauty of the Earth" is British.
    HYFRYDOL is Welsh. Both are lovely, though.

    If American as possible were a goal, and Early American Protestant Hymnody was the assumed music to fit that goal, I would sing as much as possible unaccompanied. The shape-note tradition is unaccompanied. The Sacred Harp tradition is unaccompanied. Shaker music is unaccompanied.

    If I was trying to find a bridge between American roots music and the Roman Catholic tradition of chant, I would look at Shaker chant. (Check out the piece "Holy Angel" on the Boston Camerata's recording of Shaker chants and Spirituals.

    There are two hymn texts called "Servant Song." I assume you mean the one most often used at weddings: "Will you let me be your servant?"
    I find the text to be very nice in relationship to a wedding, but a bit... schmaltzy... for a Mass.


    Other than that text (and even with it, perhaps) it sounds like a very nice service, but I don't, overall, see how it accomplishes what you set out to do:
    -American as possible
    -Catholic as possible.

    I'm not even sure that the amount of work (searching, arranging) toward that goal is justified by the end result (as judged by those two criteria).

    I don't want to be critical- I'm sure it was lovely, and much (much) better than most weddings in this country, Catholic or otherwise; I'm just trying to evaluate based on what you said were the goals.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,215
    Was the wedding was perhaps held on July 4?

    The music is all lovely.

    One additional way to reach toward the ideals of Catholic sacred music would be to incorporate the proper texts for a nuptial Mass: (introit, gradual, alleluia, offertory, communion). (But perhaps you already took them into account in choosing the works performed at those points.)
  • Rebecca Bridget C-
    Posts: 79
    Oh yes, I forgot to explain why we weren't singing the proper texts!

    It boils down to this: half the family needed major convincing to even enter a Catholic church, and the other half of the family was so infuriated by that hesitance, they stopped behaving rationally. There was a blistering argument, all parties were equally offended, the bride and groom despaired. By the grace of our Lord, folks eventually came to their senses and were reconciled. But emotions were still high, and as a gesture of true contrition for having behaved so badly, the well-intentioned agreement was made: 1) all wedding guests would attend Mass, to bodily attest that Catholics are Christians and not pagans; 2) music would be sung that all parties found appropriate.

    No amount of money would have convinced me to get involved in that mess. But for little bro.....? Well, that was a different story :-)

    The propers would have been... what can I say, proper!!!! They were presented first. There will now be an ellipsis in this public version of the story. Fast forward a few hours. We were getting desperate, and folks were reconsidering the agreement, on both sides. All variety of hymnals were strewn about the table. The aforementioned list of constraints had been drafted. And I was tired enough to get wacky ideas like setting translated Antiochian Orthodox prayers to Gregorian melodies. (Wacky!)

    We reached the conclusion that God would be more glorified by a nice collection of alii canti apti than by the meltdown of an extended family. (Even if, had cooler head prevailed, the insanity of the situation would certainly have been recognized.) and we finally got somewhere.

    I honestly don't recall how we settled on the hymn texts we did. "For the Beauty" and "Sing a New Song" are both pure hymns of thanksgiving, which certainly beat Canon in D, another contender. The Servant Song (Adam, yes, the one you mentioned) is indeed sentimental, but was improved immensely by singing to Beach Spring, and given the Pride and Stubbornness and general Ugliness of the situation, to sing about humble service seemed very right. Reconstructing the decision on the communion hymn will take a team of dedicated psychologists. But actually, it ended up rather theologically rich, if you examine all the dimensions of communion that managed to work their way in. There's even a reference to the True Presence!

    I exploded laughing when I read that DIX is German and "For the Beauty" is British... with everything else going on, I realized I never even checked! My brain apparently concluded all by itself, with no input from me, that hymn was American because of it's appearance in the wedding scene of the movie Little Women! How funny. Thank goodness no one from the family thought to check on it :-) It was the first piece we agreed upon. I did know that HYFRYDOL is Welsh, but I figured that since I'd never heard the Memorial Acclamation set to that tune before, I'd count as the American arranger. That's how that slipped in there.

    I think you're absolutely right: the propers would have been -much- more Catholic, and much better. And the Shaker angle! I can't wait to have a listen to that cd. That could have been a perfect source of American melodies. Thank you for the reference.

    But no kidding? We all came away edified. It was a peaceful and happy event.

    We even have a few unexpected guests at Mass, sometimes, now on Sundays.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,480
    What a great story!

    It sounds like your stated goals were not your actual goals, and that you accomplished your actual goals with grace and dignity. Well done.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Well done, and what a story!

    I'm truly impressed by the creativity and sensitivity demonstrated in the attention to detail.

    You did Yeoman's work here, and not one compliment given in this thread is lacking in sincerity, nor do they come undeserved!

    Congratulations!
  • DougS
    Posts: 793
    If there were a place for it, the spiritual with the refrain, "Keep your hand on the plow, hold on," might have been appropriate for this particular couple!
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    I did a wedding once with the father of the bride refusing to even shake the hand of the officiant after the wedding.
    So sad
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