And so this happened at choir rehearsal last night . . . . .
  • CindyCeciliaCindyCecilia
    Posts: 65
    one of the choir members asked me, "Wouldn't it be cool if we used this at Mass on Sunday?"
    My response was less than enthusiastic.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=Bd4iJkNCaZ8
  • Nicholas_Will
    Posts: 56
    Oh my...
  • WiesOrganista
    Posts: 128
    Move over Lady Gaga...
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Usually, I feel like the girl:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPEeNBu1M94
    Thanked by 6CindyCecilia canadash Ben WiesOrganista Ruth Lapeyre E_A_Fulhorst
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,200
    Go ahead and laugh but I heard this sung in a church in Atlanta regularly in the mid 90's. They actually sang this for the Pater Noster. Every Sunday.

    Wow, the 70's live again. Those "radical" sisters.
  • CindyCeciliaCindyCecilia
    Posts: 65
    Kevin, I was not laughing - more like deep, painful sighing.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    I have recollections of this too. I'm sure we sang this in church in the 70's. ACK!
    Adam - THANKS! :)
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,119
    That brings back memories. Good ones, actually, now that I think about it.

    Anyway, Sr Janet Mead is still an active nun in her mid-70s.
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    It's interesting that almost all the comments say something along the lines of, "I love this song! I never go to church/I'm an atheist/I'm not religious/etc. but I love this song!"

    In other words, this inspired most people about as much as listening to "Yummy, yummy, yummy, I got love in my tummy."
    Thanked by 1Chris Allen
  • teachermom24
    Posts: 327
    I remember this from the 70s as well, even though I was Lutheran. Now it reminds me of at least one of the OCP's Mass settings I've heard over the past 10 years of being Catholic.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,986
    I saw that movie and it was hilarious. The song, along with others, did a good job of demonstrating that Catholic spirituality was a mile wide and an inch deep. Take my word for it. The 70s are not worth re-living.
    Thanked by 1Wendi
  • Spriggo
    Posts: 122
    We sang this at a Presbyterian summer camp in the mid 70's. Along with "I am the Resurrection and the Life (clap clap clap clap)".
    Thanked by 1chonak
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    While still far from the ideals of Sacred Music championed here, the music I grew up with in the 1990s was so far from this weirdness that it took me a while to understand what people were really complaining about with post-concilliar music.

    I know it's frustrating for many people around here that we haven't "made it" yet, but I think there has been continual improvement in mainstream Catholic life, and that we'll see more and more improvement as people my age and younger (who tend more orthodox and traditional) make it clear that we are not interested in crappy music.
    Thanked by 4Gavin Ally jpal E_A_Fulhorst
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    I am so glad that I was born in the latter half of the 80's. I want to keep as far away from the 1970's as I can...
    Thanked by 1Ally
  • Musicteacher56
    Posts: 621
    I think we need to go back to this.......and hang up choir robes......how about gauzy dresses, headbands and flowers hung around our necks...........
  • rjgrigaitisrjgrigaitis
    Posts: 46
    When I was four years old, it was a toss-up between this song by Sr. Janet Mead and Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as my favorite piece of music. I only had the 45 of with this song on the A side and didn't listen to the B side because Lutherans didn't understand weird Catholic music like Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

    I have such fond memories of this song that I purchased the re-release CD a few years ago. The Lord's Prayer is the only song I can listen to. The others are so bad, I only play them as a joke for people and usually all we can take is 5 to 10 seconds of it. There is one track, that also happens to be a Mass part, that sounds like sound track music from the first season of Charlie's Angels (I'm talking about the original TV series from the '70s).

    If I'm not mistaken, it was Sr. Janet Mead's bishop that encouraged her in this music and had a special Mass in his diocese for it. To Sr. Mead's credit, she describes having a top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100 chart as a "horrible time" in her life that led her to question her faith, so she withdrew from public life.
  • Carl DCarl D
    Posts: 992
    I was also interested in the number of positive comments from atheists and agnostics. You never know how God will reach people!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Wow. The song is dreadful but more striking is the clothing and the style and approach. It's like the faith was barely hanging on by a thread.
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Just for future reference, any trick to embedding a youtube here?
  • E_A_FulhorstE_A_Fulhorst
    Posts: 381
    Just paste the YouTube link. It happens automatically.
  • don roy
    Posts: 306
    yunno whats amazing...it was during that time that i became catholic. i simply couldnt understand how the church could throw its great music in the trAsh in favor of this and therefore assumed it was an anomily...i was wrong.
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Thanks E_A_. you guys are in trouble now...



    I should point out that it seems to need the embed, and you need to check "Use old embed codes.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,223
    What a burlesque. I am sorry I looked at it.
    Thanked by 3Gavin Ben E_A_Fulhorst
  • TCJ
    Posts: 990
    Ugh. My poor ears.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,986
    Typical Bernstein. What were you expecting, a liturgical work?
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    I posted that in honor of my old music history prof who said, "Although there are examples of popular secular melodies being incorporated into the liturgical music at the time, there is no such thing as a secular Mass...except perhaps the Leonard Bernstein atrocity."
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I like to be in the Vatican,
    rhythms are free at the Vatican
    full mystery at the Vatican
    solemnity at the Vatican.
    Thanked by 7marajoy Jeffrey Quick chonak Chris Allen Kathy Ruth Lapeyre JDE
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Summorum's coming
    I don't know
    what it is
    but it is
    gonna be greeeaaat....
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,986
    My goodness! Poor Bernstein. I thought all the EF people had rhythm!
    Thanked by 1Ruth Lapeyre
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,200
    Wow, I really love the Bernstein Mass. It is very dated, but a microcosm of all the existential angst of the 60-70s. And of course, I love Sondheim.

    Kind of a time capsule in music.
    Thanked by 1E_A_Fulhorst
  • Chris AllenChris Allen
    Posts: 150
    @Adam: Now I'm going to have to set something to "Gee, Officer Krupke...." :-)
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    I'd start with "Gee Benedict Sixteen..."
  • Chris_McAvoyChris_McAvoy
    Posts: 389
    In the immortal words of Fr. Ronald Ringrose of St. Athanasius in Vienna, VA .

    "At least they didn't ask for a "HARD Rock mass"

    Padre Jony is the successor to Sr. Janet and her "soft rock mass" ...

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5VFC_TDkYM
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    Ah Charles, EF people do have rhythm but it tends to be driven by the text not the composer. I like ol' Bernstein's Mass too, but would never want it as part of the liturgy.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,986
    Bernstein was Jewish, so I question whether he had Catholic liturgical applications in mind.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    The Bernstein Gloria is brilliant. Has anyone ever done that with a Latin text? It's amazing. But I have a bias here. This whole Mass was the first Mass I ever heard. I was raised Baptist and knew nothing of the Mass text or the liturgical structure. Then as a little kid I bought this album. It introduced me to a new world. It was the earliest moment that I can remember being intrigued by Catholicism and liturgical music. I listen obsessively for years. Bernstein's intentions here were certainly not to convert people and entice them into the faith -- it's not even clear that he had any clear intentions beyond being mischievous. But that's how music works: you never know for sure how God will use it in his service.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Of course this was never intended to be a liturgical work -- it's a concert work. I'm not especially fond of it myself; if one has an appetite for sacrilege, there's always the P.D.Q. Bach Missa Hilarious.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6n7YbWV5TMI
  • Spriggo
    Posts: 122
    And then there's this. Brubeck actually converted to Catholicism.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhgKYx-ZMSE&feature=relmfu
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Is the Incipit supposed to sound like a parody?
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Can we PLEASE lift the rule on not insulting individual composers for this thread? I have so much I want to say about this video... but can't.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    "The code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules."

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bplEuBjppTw
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,986
    Gavin, do you mean Bernstein or Brubeck? The AGO meeting some time back, was attendance at someone's presentation of the Brubeck. I stayed home.
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Can we PLEASE lift the rule on not insulting individual composers for this thread? I have so much I want to say about this video... but can't.


    Wait? There's a rule? I can refrain from personal insults like, "Composer _______ is a doo-doo head", but it is a bit much to ask to refrain from "This composer's piece _________ is a steaming pile of canine excrement."
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,200
    MASS (formally, MASS: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players, and Dancers) is a musical theatre work composed by Leonard Bernstein with text by Bernstein and additional text and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz. Commissioned by Jacqueline Kennedy, it premiered on September 8, 1971, conducted by Maurice Peress. The performance was part of the opening of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
    Obviously, this work was never intended as a work for the Church.
  • john m
    Posts: 136
    Wow - what a blast from the past! In my case - St. Helen's in Saginaw, Michigan, about 1974 - I remember thinking at the age of ten that this Our Father sounded ridiculous and irreverent. It's always distressing when someone hears something that tickles them and their first thought is "We should do this at Mass!!" Why does the Mass so frequently and automatically occur to people as the natural venue for some bizarre or inappropriate musical experiment? My response to such requests is "Is this something you would sing standing at the foot of the Cross?"
    Thanked by 2chonak CindyCecilia
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Just for the record, I never suggested Bernstein intended his Mass to be used liturgically.
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 904
    I've often wondered the same thing, why at Mass? Could it be that at least for some people, God has been confined to an hour (or less) on Sunday. This results in attempting to make the Mass something it is not (a venue to practice public speaking, sing a solo, make jokes, perform magic tricks etc.). Why not sing devotional hymns and popular religious songs at home around the dinner table or even in the car whilst traveling to/from church? All such personal or family tradtions would be most apropriate and lead to a deeper appriciation of a truly universal and trancendant experience at Mass celebrated by the book as it were.
    Thanked by 4canadash Jenny CHGiffen [Deleted User]
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