is this parish getting better music with me than it would without me?
Is my work here a good influence?
The change in climate really doomed the idea of the Mediterranean as a unifiable mare nostrum.
I have never fought for the singing of propers in OF masses because I do not think this is a fight I can win, so I plan hymns that are as traditional as possible, and which evoke the propers of the day as close as possible with their text.
Though I have written much in this thread on professionalism, I would just like to conclude for now with the thought that we cannot turn this word or this approach into a bad word, or a sullied approach. On the contrary, it is a necessary approach in order to advance the very tradition we hold dear. It does not yield immediate results, but I do believe, in the long run, it will yield long-term results.
But I think that this mindset corrodes the efforts we make to have good conversations with priests and others who have a different set of ideas regarding music and music traditions.
If it's all about "affect" rather than substance, we're already lost.
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