What would you call the most pressing need?

Charles in CenCA

JT has a lovely post over at the Cafe that pastiched over a millenia's worth of sacred music excerpts that is worth a listen if only as a sonic balm for "hot town, summer in the city!" blues. In addition, below that he provided quite an extensive list of all CMAA publications that can be purchased, read and passed onto future inheritors of our vocations in our parishes. Most of us who've frequented the two primary CMAA websites for a while are already heavily invested in shifting towards the "sacred, universal and beautiful" qualities that are lovingly dubbed the Mahrt paradigm. But these two Cafe posts aligned within me to form a question:
What do each of us consider the one region of either our liturgies, devotions or office that could most benefit by the applied attention of talented RC composers?
Do we need more versions of Propers, ordinaries, motets (from which text sources?), sacred song and hymns which are beyond reproach in all aspects, office service music, devotional settings (Divine Mercy eg.), what?
Let 'er rip!

Ben

I think we could certainly use more english music for the office.

Liam

The Ordinary:

a. Settings for unison singing a capella that the people can sing without accompanist (for example, at weekday or ritual Masses without organists available). Simple and festive versions. Needs to be memorable so that the celebrant only needs to attempt the incipits before the congregation takes over.

b. Settings of the Ordinary in which there are choral parts but in which the people also have a part (that is, not all-choral*). Again simple and festive versions (festive versions would make room for wind instrument descant(s)).

This is by far the most pressing need, and has been for decades. This, plus having the priest sing the presidential prayers and the priest and people sing the dialogues, is more fundmental than the propers/hymns debate. Working on these more important things will help shift the propers/hymns issue into better focus over time. Working on the propers without even more effort on the Ordo strikes me as putting the cart before the horse. But it's not surprising, because musicians tend to treat repetitive texts as boring and changing texts as Bright Shiny Objects (it's just a matter of flavor of the BSO).

* I don't mean that the people are necessarily singing all the time. Ted Marier, for example, had Langlais include people's parts for the Hosannas in the Sanctus/Benedictus for Langlais' Messe Solennelle, thereby fulfilling the development of thought in the postconciliar liturgy about the Sanctus/Benedictus being a sung eschatological sign of the entire Church (including the priest, people and choir, as well as the angels, et cet.) Similarly, in the Gloria, there may be passages reserved to the choir.

benedictgal

I think that the most pressing need is to have more settings of the Propers. Don't get me wrong. SEP is a major gift to the Church in the United States. Nonetheless, it would be a good thing if more settings were written.

It boggles my mind to see emails from OCP that offer to help me "create more engaging liturgies". Whatever happened to "creating liturgies that are more prayerful, sacred and embody what the Church has in mind about what Mass should look and sound like?"

Randolph Nichols

I second Ben's suggestion. With the Northeast heading toward the fate that befell France, not to mention our neighbors in Quebec, we need attractive, user-friendly vernacular antiphons and hymns that will enable laypeople to maintain community worship in the absence of priests. (Whether the locals will take to Morning or Evening prayer in lieu of the Eucharist is another matter.)

There are many things going for the LOH though. It is ecumenical by nature, there is never the issue of who should receive communion and who shouldn't, it demands the mind be focused in prayer, and it is a vehicle capable of bridging a lot of liturgical division.

Gavin

Always need more ordinary settings. I'd like to see some more interesting non-chant Latin congregational settings, myself.

DougS

The ecumenical dimension of the LOH is a great point, Randolph.

Randolph Nichols

deleted

ScottKChicago

Likewise, the Episcopal/Anglican/Anglican Use Daily Office is quite ecumenical. When the Pope visited Westminster Abbey, I had hoped the Abbey would invite him to join in the proper Choral Evensong of the day, with the psalms and lessons appointed. But I guess the historic occasion called for something hybrid. I just thought it was a fine ecumenical occasion, as was the choir's visit to Rome. As a visitor, I'd want to experience the liturgy that would be offered there if I were not there.

Anyway, I like the idea of alternating ecumenical gatherings to pray the psalms in the context of the host church's Divine Office.

M. Jackson Osborn

I agree that what is most needed are English ordinaries that are genuine examples of musical-textual art, but are yet learnable by the people with a little dedication and effort. Settings that are worthy to stand along side of Willan or some of the others in The Hymnal 1940. I don't know that such exists right now. It certainly doesn't in ANY of our Catholic hymnals that I know of. I would be glad if someone would prove me wrong.

One might also wish for new polyphonic or chordal settings of the propers (in English) that could be learned by a somewhat above average choir each week. They should not be lengthy, and could, for those who have a desire or need, be used in conjunction with hymnody and anthems. I haven't seen too many efforts at this which are of any real musical worth. Such sets of propers should include Introit; Gradual AND/OR (both should be provided to satisfy any need) Responsorial Psalm (Unison respond and SATB verses); Alleluya with SATB verse; Offertory with optional psalm tone verses; and Communion with optional psalm tone verses. Each of these (but for the unison Responds and Psalm Verses) should be of genuine musical interest whether they be polyphonic or chordal... or both. They could be a capella or have a distinct organ part. Offertories and Communions could, because of time available, even be fully in anthem style.

Having such choices for every Sunday and Solemnity would greatly improve our liturgical prospects and climate in this country.

ScottKChicago

Have a look at some of Bud Clark's settings of propers. It's all online in his "Codex Budensis." I particularly love his alternation of plainchant with fauxbourdon, and his accompaniments. All his work is based on decades of experience leading Catholic and Anglican choirs (he had Kathleen Battle as one of his sopranos before she hit the bigtime), and he asks to be paid $1 per page of any music that is actually used in church (free to peruse and study). Look at the Advent 1 introit marked Big Red, for instance:

Codex Budensis

Charles in CenCA

Jackson, just as a reference point regarding an ordinary of merit that can be acquired in reasonable time and fashion by the congregation, have you auditioned the Christopher Mueller Mass for the Third Edition, which was sung at SLC? If yes, would you consider it an exemplar?

Musicteacher56

In my opinion, the greatest thing we "need" is more catechesis to the people.....all the sacred music in the world is not going to do anybody any good if our people are not accepting or simply do not understand the changes. Those raised on OCP and the like just do not understand chants, etc. Forget the music for now and catechize the people first!

Charles in CenCA

Actually MT56, you've hit on something I feel very strongly about and have said so to our clerical staff in a formal way.
I think the word "catechesis" itself is problematic as it implies that all people in the church know what that means, and those that actually do probably associate it with some structure of formal education like RE, RCIA or other sorts of workshop/seminar series. And I'm sure that many of us have had and held such events/courses over our careers. But I also suspect that attendance at such events for us all has garnered only a small percentage of parishioner interest. When do we have all these people present in the same place at the same time?
However, the thing about ritual that everyone I know affirms is that, when done well and correctly, it speaks for itself. The people are drawn (perhaps unwittingly at first) in to rites that are executed with precision, honesty, humility and reverence/love.
Well this is the nexus of "lex orandi/lex credendi." The homily.
It astounds me that in over forty years I've rarely heard a homily where either the philosophy or practice of worship is consistently woven into homilies. But we insist on the mentioned axiom a lot lately among ourselves, but we don't insist that people comprehend how worship affects their witness the rest of the week, and their very identity as RCC's.
Everytime a priest chants his orations, a lector chants the lessons, the choir renders a text beautifully, the various other assistants (including ushers, acolytes et al) do their tasks with precision, honesty....etc., people are being "catechised."
But to bring this back to music needin' composin', we have also let into our normative rites a lot of musical accretions: A song for dismissing catechumens, a song for naming them at baptisms, a song for this blessing and that action. And, my favorite, a song for the Unity Candle lighting. Ahhhhh....... Feh!
Maybe, for you MT56, we could compose some sort of chant, catechized on YouTube, that would enable the congregation to en masse chant "Dear Father, we love you, but your homily ended five minutes ago. Thank you." (last two words descending minor third.)

E_A_Fulhorst

The most pressing need? Saints.

A bishop asked one of the priests of his diocese for recommendations on ways to increase vocations. The priest replied: The best way to attract men in this diocese to the priesthood, Your Excellency, would be your canonization.

nyuck nyuck nyuck ...

E_A_Fulhorst

... but seriously, folks, even granting the unwarranted limited interpretation of catechesis --- teach folks the faith --- this is still a vital hole to fill. Charles' point that catechize doesn't mean merely "preach at folks" is also true, but only so far as it goes.

Perhaps the best way to catechize is to evangelize. Get folks out there preaching the faith, spreading the Good News, and very soon they'll start learning the faith. Iron sharpens iron, yes?

E_A_Fulhorst

As far as the original question: Do we need more music composed?

Well, yes. What narrow flourishing we would have if liturgical renewal was set in stone at some arbitrary date familiar to us and fond to our memory. (Part of what's wrong with OCP, do-you-reject-all-its-works-and-all-its-pomps.)

SamuelDorlaque

There are some exceptional new settings of the ordinary out there. We just need to learn them. Also, I firmly believe that serious composers should either compose what they are commissioned to do or what their muse moves them to compose. This way i believe there is the best chance that the best will be offered up.

M. Jackson Osborn

Scott -
I looked at several examples from the Codex Budensis. Many thanks for advertising this! I think it is really good, though I'm somewhat put off by the eighth note chant notation: one cannot sing chant while looking at a row of quavers; even stemless noteheads would be something of an improvement. Otherwise, I'm very impressed! We need, though, complete sets of propers of such musical interest in English for English masses. Ditto ordinaries that don't sound like they passed muster for Woship IV or Gather.

Charles -
I'm trying to view the Mueller mass on the internet. Can you give some aid?

chonak

You can hear the Mueller Mass at the composer's site. Folks who attended the Colloquium have a printed score in their Colloquium music book, but the score does not appear in the book's on-line PDF file, presumably for copyright reasons.

ScottKChicago

Yes, I think Bud Clark stuck with stemmed notation because he's a whiz in Finale software and needed to produce a lot of material, and to do justice to stemless notation in Finale would have required a lot of fiddling and possibly an expensive Finale plug-in. Just think of it as similar notation to the modern-notation Liber. :) (I used to have two of those Libers but got $350+ for one on eBay and donated the other for our parish schola's use...they don't read four-line square notation, even though they should!).

irishtenor

$75 for that Mueller score?! Yikes!

Maybe, MAYBE if I could preview it online, but that's pretty steep for something I've never seen before. Does anyone know of a way to preview it?

CHGiffen

I'm not sure which vintage of Finale Bud Clark has, but it is not at all difficult to uniformly remove stems from notes. I've been doing it with Finale since 2005.

Here are a few examples from some of my editions (all at CPDL):

Anonymous: Praeter rerum serium

Palestrina: A solis ortus cardine

Sheppard: Salvator mundi Domine

Taverner: Missa Gloria tibi Trinitas - Gloria

Jahaza

Irish Tenor, there are recordings and some score excerpts here.

Charles in CenCA

IT: $75 for that Mueller score?! Yikes!
From website:All scores are available as PDF files. With each transaction the not-for-profit purchaser is granted an unlimited license to photocopy the score for rehearsal and performance.
One has to look at value to cost in perspective. First of all, interest in actually "doing" the Mueller even for one Mass at a parish likely presumes that parish has a choir of both sufficient numbers and artistic capability to credibly realize this setting Sunday after Sunday. I would think a choir of 16-20 (4/5 per part) of good singing readers would minimally suffice. But larger choirs of such capability would certainly thrive. Under either scenario, the $75 for unlimited reproduction is quite a bargain.
I just glanced over my shoulder to the nearest Mass setting and spied the Proulx re-do of Missa Simplex at $4.00 per octavo. Now, presuming we're all morally upstanding, purchasing 16 or 20 copies of that one Mass from WLP would amount to either $64 or $80. All we DM's have to do is decide: which of the these two Masses fits our needs, ALL our needs.
Other publishers I've mentioned elsewhere, such as CanticaNova and St. James Press (UK) have similar programs where the purchase of one copy grants unlimited reproduction of that same score. (The "honor system" isn't necessary! You're morally good to go.)
OTOH, you have a choir of men and boys somewhere along the lines of the Madeleine, lets say 16-20, and you want to add Kevin Allen's Missa Rex genitor to your mix. That would run you $288 to $360. The value to cost ratio still may be quite in line for this. It depends on your situation.
But then, you have at the other end of the cost-value spectrum settings such as Prof. Patrick O'Shea's "Mass of the Mediatrix" or Royce Nickel's "Mass of St. Therese of Liseaux," both of which the composers will grant written reproduction privileges gratis, if I'm not mistaken. These are of excellent quality. As are the settings I heard by Bros. Michael and Albert at SLC.
So, the Mueller, in retrospect and given the prominence of being the only contemporaeous Mass I've ever heard at a colloquium is a steal.

M. Jackson Osborn

I've listened to the Mueller mass and think it is quite nice. I wonder, though, if it isn't more successful with the choir version than with the congregational version. Too, I thought the organ accompaniment was rather colourless, but this is merely a performance matter. On the other hand, if congregations can (and DO!) sing the Amen to Willan's Gloria they can sing anything! Enough of these tiresome gainsayers who are always telling us what 'the people' can do... what they are REALLY telling us is that they themselves are incompetent to TEACH 'the people' much of anything.

Charles in CenCA

Jackson, I think you may have uncovered the Mother Lode: what combination of teaching ability and leadership best affirms a congregation's willingness and determination to acquire the will to corporately learn and enjoin the singing of a worthy setting of the Ordinary? It cannot be based soley upon the artistry of either the setting nor the performance model of the choir/organist.

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