Don't know about this event specifically, but don't write off Bob Hurd. He wrote some really really awful stuff years ago, but he's written some very legitimate stuff too. He did a mass setting, published by OCP, that is based upon the UBI CARITAS chant.

"A is good."

"No it's not, because B is bad."


Really?

I'm guessing never because I think most composers are judged by their works. Just saying...

Depends. If you wanted to to invite Henry VIII to a conference dealing with the best ways to execute one's wife, then of course he'd be a good choice! I guess I can work with your logic.

Fr. Lang was incredible.

I am about to make a post, in case anyone wants to hear the Presentation I gave:

http://www.ccwatershed.org/resources/

Given at:

http://www.archatl.com/offices/odw/events/slms.htm

General Note, regarding the further propagation of sacred music:

I would suggest that I am representative of the kind of people who are the best "target" (in that regard) for the CMAA, the Chant Cafe, this forum, and the traditionalist movement generally. That is to say: I am a swing voter. I grew up with all the music that gets complained about (Bob Hurd has stayed at my house) and I still like it. On the other hand, over the last few years, my tastes and practices have evolved, largely because of this forum, the Cafe, and the CMAA.

All of that is preamble to this:

When I hear examples of amazingly beautiful music, it makes me want to program it. When I find resources for bringing sacred and beautiful music into my own work, I take advantage of them. When I read about the Church's musical ideals, when I learn more about our traditions, and when I get to experience truly sacred liturgy- it makes a huge impact on me and helps "win" me to "the cause."

However- when I hear disgruntled traditionalists rant about songs I grew up with, the only affect it has on me is to make me want to figure out the soonest opportunity to program them.


We now return you to your regularly scheduled grumbling.

BG, first of all, blessings upon your family in this time, and upon your return to the boards.
Now, the other shoe.
You're speaking out of your league here, and you must revisit your own words. You said you'd have misgivings (presumably about attending the conference) BECAUSE BOB HURD WAS INVITED AS A SPEAKER. You didn't mention his work, his lifelong career as a teacher of philosophy at DePaul and at St. Patrick's Seminary, the breadth of his compositional genres beyond that which disgusts you, or of which you remain greatly unaware. You simply dissed Bob Hurd without qualification. That is hardly exemplary of any basic Christian behavior, but particularly egregious because like him, hate him, like all his music, hate all his music, he is a worthy witnessing Catholic Christian who doesn't do what he does to prop up the litmus industrial complex. He's a "good man" with very good theolotgical and liturgical sensibilities. He and Dr. Mahrt would and likely have (had) congenial and concurrent discussions about things liturgical.
I'm sorry for the rant, but ALL of us need to stop lobbing our refuse from the bleachers, if we want to be invited back to the ball park.
And yeah, I'm biased, Hurd's slept at our houses in Oakland and in Visalia as well, when Adam was in diapers. He's the real deal, no poseur.

First of all, I would have loved to have heard Fr. Lang, Jeff and Adam speak. Second, one could very well have advanced degrees and teaching experience at various universities, but, that would not necessarily make him the best person to speak on a particular subject. It would almost be likened to having Archbishop Pietro Marini give a presentation on the reform of the reform.

I grew weary of having to listen to Bob Hurd's compositions week after week in my parish. Not a few of the things that I have had to listen to are more along the lines of the horizontal aspect and scant of the vertical. Furthermore, when OCP uses engaging and dynamic when it comes to promoting Hurd's work, it makes me question it. Charles, if Hurd does have liturgical sensibilities, I wish they would be a little more visible than what I have seen and heard in "Pan de Vida", "O Amor de Dios", "Ven al Banquete" and "Misa del Pueblo Imigrante", as well as "Mass of Glory."

Maybe I do not have the qualifications that you have or others in this panel possess, but, having had to endure Hurd's compositions for a very long time, it seemed rather odd to have him in the same venue as Fr. Lang, whom I deeply respect and admire and who has some very solid credentials to back up his positions.

I must commend the Archdiocese of Atlanta for having speakers like Jeff, Adam and Fr. Lang. Maybe Colloquium could consider bringing Fr. Lang to its next gathering.

Adam, maybe it's because I am tired and very discouraged. The musical situation in my parish is deteriorating rapidly and there is no real hope in sight. When one has to put up with Spirit and Song for two Masses and then a lot of Hurd, St. Louis Jesuits and the like, it is a lot to bear.

I grew up watching Sesame Street and the Electric Company. However, just because I grew up on the stuff, that does not necessarily mean that I still use my fingers and toes to count. I am sorry if I sound harsh, but, some of you do not understand how dismal the situation is down here. The fact that the Archdiocese of Atlanta even had this conference was a good thing. I wish that Texas could have something like that.

BG and CW, respectfully you are both missing the point. This event was decidedly not a referendum on "Who's a worthy composer....who's got a lick of sense....who's catalog of work is bigger and better than than the other guy's/gal's? I don't give a rip whether if it's Bob Hurd, some PIP from Hoboken, Helen Hull Hitchcock or Gabe Huck, it's a conference, not a rally. And, in politeness, I'd rather "endure" the works penned by Hurd than by Montani, and even C. Rossini and many of the saccharine hacks whose works persevered well into the post conciliar years, if only because of a reactionary nostaligia. BG, I'm not busting your chops on pedantic knowledge or book cred, I'm saying your perspective only is informed by what you experience in south TX. It's your call. Get out and take in the world, or learn how to cope with your own (Cinderella's) "Little corner."

Charles, I realize that this is a conference; however, if this is about Sacred Music, why should it have to feature more of the same? It's akin to having Peter Kolar and David Haufman. Why invite composers who only perpetuate the bad stuff?

Fine. Keep us posted on all that's happening in your corners. It's a big world, it's a big Church, it's a big heaven. Bob Hurd is NOT the same old, same old in my black book. But, hey, taste is in the mouth, revel in what you prefer.

Hurd may be a splendid fellow, as I suspect are many other composers. Is their work suitable for liturgy? That is the important question.

Easter Sunday: "I have seen the Lord" Bob Hurd. You know the tune and text? Dare you to lecture me, without resorting to GIRM beyond fourth option, how this isn't suitable for this and other Eastertide liturgies.
Easter Vigil: "Ps.42 As the deer longs" Bob Hurd. How is this not acceptable, if not after Ezekial or during baptisms? Do you know the setting, truly?
Similar content: "Come to me and drink" Bob Hurd. An allusion to both the Samaritan woman's encounter and Ps. 42. This isn't suitable how?
Ubi caritas: perhaps the finest "bridge" setting wedding both the obvious beauty of the Latin maxim, and a healthy Eucharistic exegesis in the verses. Have you prayed over these texts and the elegance of the musical setting?
"Gift of Love" from Hurd's first major LP, takes the nativity carol and connects it to Calvary, Epiphany to sacrifice? Not suitable enough to a medieval tune?
Hurd also had his version of "Gaudete" for 3 Advent. Miss that one too?

Look people, all I'm saying is if you've only looked at the Rotten Tomato's liturgical reviews, or the Cliff's Notes version of Who's Who in Sacro Pop, but you really don't know the extent of any composer's work, or you just associate a name with some really crappy local version of "Pan de Vida" that you endure every other Sunday, or you're an organist who thinks a carousel oom pah pah pipe organ on "Ven al banquete" is the extent of Hurd's invention and demeaning, then please continue to dwell in your ignorance if that keeps you comfortable.
We have been handed the largest repertoire, such as it all is, of any worshipping community in the history of homo sapiens. Before you start burning books, you might want to look at their contents.
Chuck, I would have thought you'd get this...

OK, Kathy, please move us elsewhere. What do you have in mind?

Good try, EAF, (and great Airplane levity! Much needed. Thinking of the singing nun doing R-E-S-P-E-C-T during the turbulence.)
No, I don't accept the premise that Sacropop is a quantifiable entity; I accept the premise that all "stand alone" works must be evaluated on its own merit. I would apply the same premise to Ockeghem or Gesualdo, much less Morales or Victoria.
Thanks to Doug Shadle helping me see how Nicolai Montani single-handedly ruined his fellow Philadelphian, Albert RoSewig's reputation as a valid Catholic composer via pushing through his black list (with a happy by-product of positioning the St. Gregory hymnal to be among the turn of the century mega hymnals (sound familiar), I have a jaundiced eye towards whole-sale denoument of someone's name via "guilt by association." Be sympathetic when whatevers being led is being led POORLY.
As a child of the sixties, and now in my sixties, having lived through enough anarchy and stupidity on gi-nourmous scales, I am not willingly drinking anyone's Kool Aid, thank you.
I choose not to invalidate the exchange of Christhood with whomever knocks at my door. I would choose to worship at a Missa Solemnis or Cantata 10/10 times. But that choice isn't mine as just a DM at a local church. So, I have to think pastorally. And I do so thoroughly without prejudice.

Tree. Fruit.

Wow, double droll thus twice helpful. "Elegant" also encompasses the aspect of "noble simplicity," a quality that I once thought was attractive to reasonable folk.
That's taking the argument to a wholly new level and place, huh? I should have known, my bad.
A proud moment in the CMAA analogs.

Helpful to know it's still on, sigh.
With that surplanting discourse, I choose to withdraw. Live well and prosper.
Roger, over and out.

That Ubi Caritas Est sounds like a perfect target for one of my famous pop-song/hymnody medleys. Okay. Not so famous, but at least a few people know that I do them. Right now there's a movie theme that's on the tip of my tongue that it reminds me, but I just can't place it...

Charles W, I don't think the St Louis Jesuits were a deterioration. Before them, we were literally singing Kumbaya, and Sunrise Sunset, and the Lilies of the Field Amen, and It's a Brand New Day. There was a low point, and it was before the St Louis Jesuits opened the doors to something that was at least scriptural. Hurd and Farrell moved things up a notch. Schiavone and Reza set the bar very high for the genre.

But it is an inferior genre. It in no way resembles chant. It is not art. And it is hugely about money.

What SLJ did was to mainstream the genre. Before their time, there was a choir Mass and a folk Mass. Now, in many parishes, there are effectively only folk Masses.

I just don't get what about that composition (which I kind of like) authorizes such nastiness, or a need for the composer (or his supporters) to be bound, gagged, and not allowed to speak.

I studied organ with a composer of sacred music who has had horrible things said about him on here because of his compositions. So he's not the greatest composer. He also had a significant influence on the quality of music, sacred and otherwise, in the Detroit region. He's a scholar of chant, an extremely orthodox Catholic with a large family, and one of the top choral conductors in Michigan. But, alas, he wrote a few things in the sacro-pop style (which he too struggles to avoid at his own church just as we all do), and so I guess everyone here would skip a lecture where he's presenting, too.

But you know what? People who would act in such an immature way do so to their own detriment. By all accounts, the SELMC advanced the cause of sacred music scholarship, even if people might have had to filter out some silliness here or there. You know who didn't help?

Those who stayed home because "the Bad Man was speaking."

So I've been so circumspect (not) on this thread so far that I thought I would just come right out and say what I think.

Sacred music is competing for market share, for airtime, for the time spent at Mass singing. Sacred music is losing. Sacred music has probably always lost. But in our time sacred music is uniquely disadvantaged, because there are financially interested structures of distribution that strongly favor sacred music's competition.

>> But in our time sacred music is uniquely disadvantaged

I disagree.

Perhaps compared to the Middle Ages or something, yes.
But compared to living memory...

Sacred Music tends to be free (as in beer AND as in speech), which is a HUGE plus for people of my generation (on both philosophical/cultural and practical grounds), easily available, and (compared to the past) easy to learn on one's own.

I don't have time to go on and on about it right now, but I think Sacred Music is stronger than ever. It may continue to be in the minority for a while, but doesn't mean it isn't gaining market share.

I suspect the reason I am not so familiar with Hurd, is that I don't buy from his publisher. BTW, I have no idea who that publisher is. Although my parish has a GIA hymnal, all of my anthems, motets, etc. that the parish pays for are ordered through J.W. Pepper. I use tons of free stuff from CPDL. Didn't notice any Hurd works on CPDL.