Dover Publications has a significant organ section in their music catalog, reprints of good editions that are now public domain, and combining high quality paper and binding with extremely modest pricing. Dover's editions of Sweelink and Pachelbel organ works are useful to all organists, whilst particularly suited to beginners as much of this is for manuals only.

Oh, I can't believe I'm taking the bait...

I don't believe there is any liturgical directive in force that prohibits music, or even texts (provided they are not contrary to Catholic theology or doctrine), composed by Protestants or for the Lutheran church (though I can think of some that explicitly welcome it). Please correct me if I am wrong! I agree that chorale hymns should not replace chant and polyphony, and that generic texts (no matter how "sacred") are not to replace the propers. But I can't see anything wrong with playing Bach's "Christ lag in Todesbanden," based on the chant , as a voluntary on Easter.

And plus too, I mean as an organist too who is just beggining, those composers are staples of rep.

With all respect, I would have to disagree with the idea of banning Bach from the Catholic organ loft. The proscription of the sacred organ music of the instrument's greatest composer simply because he was Lutheran indicative of anything but a catholic outlook.

Bach would have been a Catholic if us humans didn't mess things up! Imagine the Masses we would have had!

A musician of Lutheria came to write music.
Jesus said to him,
“Give me a hymn.”
His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.
The Lutheran composer said to him,
“How can you, a Catholic, ask me, a Lutheran musician, for a hymn?”
—For Catholics use nothing in common with Lutherans.—
Jesus answered and said to him,
“If you knew the gift of God
and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a hymn,'
you would have asked him
and he would have given you living music.”

For you, an organist looking for easy music, I'd jump in here and suggest:

The Organists' Manual: Technical Studies and Selected Compositions for the Organ (ISBN: 0393954617)

Available used from abe.com used, often for around $55.oo

Starting with very easy pieces for manuals, it then moves on to using pedals and finally ends up with works of Bach. Excellent music for Mass. It is a red book.

In addition you get a dictionary of organ stops, notes on organ deisgn and history but most of all, a lot of good music. Please write and let us know if you get and find it useful..

noel at sjnmusic.com

I don't think the Dupre chorales are intended for liturgical use, or msot of them at least. Not because of the tunes used, but because they were composed as exercises. They are often too short to be useful as a prelude or offertory. And while they are well worth the effort for developing organ technique, you don't get a whole lot of bang for your buck in the sense that you could play something much easier that would probably sound better to the listener. His Eight Short Preludes on Gregorian Themes are mostly easier with a bigger payoff, and have the bonus of being based on chant. The "Pange lingua," for instance can probably be read at sight one one manual (as written), but for the more advanced player it can also be played as a trio with three different flute stops, which produces a wonderful effect in the right acoustic.

Not to get too off-topic here, but I would crticize anyone for NOT playing Bach, or for not playing anything else. I would actually be interested to hear what you DO play. When I was at Sacre Coeur last month, all the organ music was based on the chant. I certainly didn't miss having a Bach fugue played at the end, and I don't think anyone here is scrutinizing your personal preference. The objection was to your statement, to my knowledge entirely unfounded, that Lutheran music isn't suitable for church and therefore OTHER people shouldn't play it.

incantu, I play Bach, but not in a Catholic Mass.

I never said that "people shouldn't play Lutheran music". I only said that I think that it's "too Lutheran" for a Catholic Mass, and that doing Protestant music is odd. Again, this is personal preference, and we're all entitled to voice our opinions.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I actually consider what the music was originally intended for.

For example: "Let There Be Peace on Earth" is a "hymn" in many Catholic hymnals. Was it originally intended as a Catholic hymn? No, it wasn't. A hymn is a song of praise. "Let There Be Peace on Earth" was intended to be "... about their wish for world peace and what they believed each person could do to create it". Is that a song of praise? No, it isn't.

Now it's way off topic.

"Maybe I'm the only one, but I actually consider what the music was originally intended for."

Jeffrey, the organ itself (in the form of the hydraulis) was originally intended to provide dinner music for lions dining upon Christians in the Roman arena. If anything, its use in the present-day baseball stadium is truer to its original intention than its use in the Church. Someone in the Church in the Middle Ages eventually had to decide that, despite its pagan origins, its sound added something valuable to the Liturgy.

I am not attacking your opinions. Nor does it seem that anyone here is trying to say that you are required to play Bach at Mass. Regard it as a sign of collegial respect that people here care about what you are saying. Where would you draw the line? How many centuries have to pass before music from a given source can be considered integral to the Sacred Liturgy?

Since this is clearly off-topic, maybe someone should post it as a separate topic - it would be very interesting to pursue.

Yeah, different topic.

On the other hand...

OCP has a three volume "Organ Anthology" that contains two volumes of chant-based music, modal interludes, and some hymn-based pieces. The third volume, however, is made up of "chorale preludes" based on G&P type music (I think "Eagles Wings" or "Be Not Afraid" might be in there...). I would personally (repeat, personally) object to these pieces being played at Mass on the basis that the music is in the style of popular song, and not based on a musical style that was essentially sacred; however, it would still be difficult to argue that this music is prohibited. I do wonder, though, why an organist capable of playing some of these pieces (and there are other similar collections out there) would not choose to play something, well, better.

and please don't get me wrong.

I play Bach, and I love all of his music that I have ever heard, but I don't need to play it at Mass.

Holy God is Grosser Got, but I was under the impression this hymn was composed in Austria in the 1700s, found in the Katholicshes Gesangbuch.

I could see someone objecting to "Es ist das heil" which is basically a statement of the Lutheran doctrine of Sola Fide. Or MAYBE (maybe) even "Schmucke Dich". But insofar as Luther got "Nun Komm, der Heiden Heiland" right, what's so bad about it? It seems to me that Catholic theology, as I understand it, is not a theology of exclusion but rather inclusion. That is to say, others get things right insofar as they copied them from us. If Nicholai got "Wie schoen Leuchet" right, or at least the 3 verses out of 7 in your hymnal, in what way is it not Catholic? Because the author was not Catholic? I reject that. I reject that as theologically unsound. On that basis we ought to be burning our Graduales because all they contain is psalm verses and those were written by a JEW! No, Catholicism, ISTM, is about using that which is true, no matter the source. "Not by human flesh or blood but the spirit of our God was the Word of God made Flesh, Mary's offspring pure and fresh". Were any truer words ever spoken, Catholic or otherwise? Jeff, the problem with your stance is that at SOME point you'd better bring your books to church with a doctrinal checklist for each and every composer. Make sure they are 100% correct on every Catholic doctrine (and never voted for a Democrat!) or else don't play them. All the sexually deviant composers alone would leave you without any organ music written before the advent of equal tuning! Otherwise you're just unfairly singling out the Lutherans (or Anglicans) for exclusion.

I thought I had recommended, but it must have been on another thread, Benoit's 50 (?) Elevations.
There is some lovely, easy (I should know, I am a lousy organist,) Frescobaldi, but I can't tell you the titles or the book in which it is contained just now as it's over in the loft and we're snowed in.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Jscola,

You're correct. Should have checked my information first. It just seems that there's a fair few Protestant/Lutheran tunes that have made their way into the Catholic repertoire. I'll not comment on texts.

Jeffrey Coggins,

Please, get ahold of yourself. I am not interested in entering into a conversation about "Martin Luther, Democrats, or sexual deviants," and I don't think that was the point Gavin was trying to make either.

You raised the issue of Bach's music and its appropriateness; any comments directed to that issue certainly are OT, and in that regard are fair game.

I was merely mentioning that much of the music, that is, the notes on the page, as adapted and composed by J.S. Bach are actually based on Gregorian melodies, as were many of the chorale tunes. Of course, this doesn't take into account the many wonderful non-cantus firmus-based works of Bach (toccatas, preludes, fugues, trio sonatas, ciaconne, etc.) which can and I believe should be presented to the culture-starved ears of the PIPs.

I agree with Gavin's albeit pointed remarks, and wonder, what makes the Elevations of Benoit any more appropriate than the music of Bach, but for the fact that they're based on the church modes, and Benoit used them during the Elevations after the Santus and Benedictus? If you're talking about "intentionality" of the composer, it's a slippery slope. What makes the tientos of Cabezon any more appropriate for that matter? To my knowledge, they aren't based on anything intrinsically authentically "Catholic" (appropos of your comment, above: "I love the music of Antonio de Cabezón. He composed authentic Catholic organ music which isn't difficult to play. Check out his tientos.") The tiento is nothing more than a Spanish version of the toccata and ricercare (or ciaconne), compositional forms popular in North Germany and Italy. Versets (French, Italian, Spanish) are very often based on secular song styles, and with limited exception bear little or no association with the chants they were meant to alternate with. So far as I can tell, absent a cantus firmus or words, a compositional form (fugue, toccata, ricercare, tiento, etc.,) can hardly be held to present any characteristic that would qualify it as "authentically" Catholic or any other denomination or theology for that matter.

I thought this discussion was about "beginner organ music".

I'll just keep my "off the cuff" remarks to myself.

Some people definitely take themselves way too seriously.

(A person on this thread had regrets about some of his comments and the direction they took the discussion, so I've taken an unusual step of deleting those comments at his request, as well as aspects of the thread that referred to them. To those who commented thoughtfully or otherwise, please accept my apology. This is a rare occurrence, as everyone knows. Sometimes this medium can take some getting used to and emotions can lead us to say things we regret. Again, my apologies to all.)