Any articles/essays?
  • ArsMusicaSacra
    Posts: 11
    Wondering how many here might write articles or essays on sacred music or related liturgical matters? Happy Sunday of Divine Mercy!
  • Chant_Supremacist
    Posts: 291
    Off the top of my head, @AngelaR publishes interesting stuff at Chant Academy, and @CharlesWeaver has a number of articles in different places. There are others, and I'm sure some users here have contributed to the CMAA journal. I'd like to write down some ruminations at some point, though I'm hardly a scholar, and I'm rarely satisfied with the way I articulate things especially in a longer form.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,247
    What are you thinking of? Catechetical pieces for the laity? Original research? What is your personal goal?

    I've got several scholarly things in Sacred Music, and a piece at 1 Peter 5 about weddings as a patronage opportunity for better sacred music. And a kitchen junk drawer of stuff on pre-V2 composers, called Catholic Romantic Music. If there's anything congregation-oriented, it generally ends up on our Schola's Facebook page.
  • CGM
    Posts: 801
    I had a period of about five months in 2012 during which I was permitted to write short weekly essays about the sacred music we were doing, published as the back page of each weekend's music booklet. This was my post about that year's Divine Mercy choral Mass:
    Our Mass begins with the proper of the Introit, in a simple setting with unadorned chant. The choir enters voice by voice to illuminate the alleluias which punctuate it.

    During the Easter season we replace the penitential rite and attendant Kyrie with a rite of sprinkling and the antiphon “Vidi aquam,” sung here in resplendent five-voice polyphony (featuring two tenors) from the Lambeth Choirbook, an early 16th-century compilation of music by English composers.

    The remainder of today’s polyphony was composed by the well-traveled Orlande de Lassus (1532-1594), chapel master to the Bavarian ducal court in Munich. The five-voice Gloria, featuring dueling soprano lines, is from a Mass based on a French chanson. The Offertory motet, also in five voices for double-soprano, echos part of today’s Gospel reading, with a wonderful cascade of alleluias midway through and again at the conclusion. And the four-voice Communion motet is a beautiful depiction of Christ’s words to Thomas: “Happy are those who have not seen but still believe.” May this be said of us all!

    The great Easter sequence, “Victimæ Paschali laudes,” sometimes considered the progenitor of opera because of its dramatic fusion of text and melody, may be sung throughout the Octave of Easter (that is, the eight days from Easter Sunday through the following Sunday). We present it in a contemporary setting which features men and women in alternatim. The jubilant Alleluia which follows is by German composer Melchior Vulpius (c.1570-1615). Please join us in singing!

    Additionally, please join us in the traditional Latin “mortem tuam” acclamation immediately after the consecration. And sing with us the Gregorian settings of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, from Missa “Lux et origo” (“light and origin”), the chant setting of the Ordinary of Mass which the Church specifies for use during the Easter season, selected from the Vatican Kyriale.

    At the close of Mass, and following the St. Michael prayer, we sing the seasonal Marian antiphon, which during these weeks of Easter is the Regina cæli, filled with alleluias. And we conclude our liturgy with a great resurrection hymn, “Christ the Lord is ris’n today.” May you continue to have a blessed and happy Easter!
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,976
    I always try to find a few words that fit in 4 lines:

    Apr. 5 Easter Sunday Callaway: Mary at the Tomb+
    Ann Callaway’s anthem, written this March and premiered at St. Luke’s in Walnut Creek earlier this morning, sets John 20:11-18, that is, the paragraph that follows today’s Gospel.

    Apr. 12 Quasimodo These things did Thomas count as real (DISTRESS)
    While on a Lenten retreat in New Hampshire’s White Mountains in 1983 Thomas Troeger wrote his hymn on John 20 “to help people sing their way past doubt and skepticism”. We sing it today to DISTRESS, a melody first printed in Southern Harmony (1835).

    Apr. 19 Emmaus Rheinberger: Bleib bei uns **
    Josef Gabriel Rheinberger (1839 – 1901) was born in Liechtenstein but spent his career in Munich. This, his most famous work, was written when he was 15 yeqrs old but revised and published in 1873. “Abide with us, Lord, for it is towards evening” (Luke 24:29)

    Apr. 26 I am the gate Dvořák: Hospodin jest můj pastýř +
    From 1892 to 1895 Antonin Dvořák taught in New York and, perhaps homesick, towards the end of his stay turned his attention to the 1613 Czech translation of the Psalms. Today we sing Psalm 23 from his [10] Biblical Songs.

    May 3 be not troubled Byrd: I will not leave you comfortless+ William Byrd (c.1540-1623) published this setting of John 14:18; 16:22 (the Magnificat antiphon for Pentecost) in part two of his Gradualia (two vols. 1605, 1607) comprising propers for major Feasts and Votive Masses.

    May 10 keep my commandments Tallis: If ye love me *
    Like his pupil William Byrd, Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) was a Catholic recusant whose music was prized by Elizabeth I. If ye love me, setting John 14:15-16, is his most famous anthem.

    May 17 Ascension Sunday Philips: Ascendit Deus+
    Peter Philips’ (1561-1628) was a choirboy at St Paul’s in London, later moving to Catholic Flanders. Today’s anthem (published in 1612) combines two Psalms: “God is gone up with a merry shout, and the Lord with the sound of the trumpet. (Ps. 47/XLVI) The Lord hath prepared his throne in heaven. (Ps. 103/CII)”

    May 24 Pentecost pax vobis Philips: Surgens Jesus*
    Peter Philips published this work in 1612: “The risen Jesus, our Lord, standing in the midst of his disciples, said: Peace be with you. Alleluia.  The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Alleluia.” (after Jn 20:19)

    May 31 Trinity God so loved Stainer: God so loved the world+
    Today’s anthem with text from John 3:16-17 is the centrepiece of The Crucifixion (1887), an oratorio by Sir John Stainer (1840-1901), then organist at St Paul’s Cathedral. Today he is especially remembered for the standard harmonizations of such hymns as "What Child Is This", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", "Good King Wenceslas" and "The First Nowell".

    June 7 Corpus Xi Verily Tallis: Verily, except ye eat
    Like his pupil William Byrd, Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585) was a Catholic recusant whose music was especially prized by Elizabeth I. The text of this anthem is from John 6:53-56.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Charles_Weaver
    Posts: 206
    I will take this opportunity to remind this lovely community that we are always looking for more submissions to Sacred Music!
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
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