instrumental music for penance service?
  • fp
    Posts: 63
    Our (GIA) parish is looking for recordings of instrumental sacred music to block the noise and the conversations during penance service.....I know...not ideal...just trying.....would any of you have a great ressource to suggest? (I wish I could use that opportunity to introduce them to real sacred music. Any reasonable suggestion would be welcome!) Thanks in advance!
    FP
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,325
    Not instrumental, but consider a recording of Kevin Allen's Motecta Trium Vocum:

    http://www.ccwatershed.org/motecta/
  • Allan DAllan D
    Posts: 43
    At the parish where I currently work as an organist, they play a Gregorian chant CD during penance services. It's the only time Gregorian chant is ever heard in this church. I don't know what album it is, but I think it might be Christmas music. At a previous job, I would play soft music on the organ for an hour or so during penance services. I enjoyed doing that because it was an opportunity to use pieces that were too long for Mass. Sometimes the music director and I would alternate between piano and organ in order to ensure that there were no breaks in the sound.

    I think that any time you have confessions being heard out in the open, it's very important to have some kind of music playing to protect people's privacy. I don't have any objection to recorded music in this case, since it's serving a purely functional purpose, not a liturgical one.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    A group near here plays a cd they made of some of the colloquium recordings... :) It actually works quite well.
  • Marc Cerisier
    Posts: 536
    Historically, our parish used a cd during this time to cover noise (usually 10-12 confession stations scattered around the church). For the last couple of years we started using the organ--it's nice to be able to go through the Lenten and Advent repertoire since we don't do any instrumental music during those season's liturgies. The change has been VERY well received by clergy and parishioners.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,817
    If you can, have a musician play. There is an interaction between a live musician and the penitents that cannot happen through recorded music.
  • Ally
    Posts: 227
    I agree about having a musician play instead of a CD. It is very important to cover the sound, and if a musician is present, there is no reason not to play.
  • JahazaJahaza
    Posts: 470
    At the parish where I currently work as an organist, they play a Gregorian chant CD during penance services.

    Admittedly, there's a relatively small population of us with this problem, but I find it very distracting when chant CD's are played in a Church, as I start listening to the words... And then whomever is picking has to start paying attention to what the chant says, so people don't have e.g. "'Hodie Christus natus est,' what the heck?" moments during Advent or Lent.
  • fp
    Posts: 63
    Thanks to all of you for taking the time to answer my question! I will not be the one making the final decision but I have collected several recordings following your suggestions and I am sure we will have better music than ever, even if it's just to protect people's privacy.
    Live music in our case would be keybord (hotel-lobby style) or tambourine....if the chant is chosen I will edit the Alleluias but I doubt they'll catch any words anyway....! (Last Sunday for Communion we had:"We are ONE, we are STRONG, we are SAVED"......I really hope peole will still consider confessions!)
    Thanks again!
    FP
  • Ally
    Posts: 227
    Well, a chant CD would definitely be better than tambourine, so I guess I should qualify what type of musician I meant. And I would think a CD would be less distracting than THAT type of music.

    Hope it works out!
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,192
    If words, even in Latin/chant, might get in the way of people's meditation and if you must use CDs, why not use (mostly) quiet, sensitive instrumental music, for example:

    Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings (of course, Barber also arranged this as his "Agnus Dei")
    Bach: Arioso (famous, from Cantate BWV 156 "Ich stehe mit eimem Fusse im Grabe")
    Anton Bruckner: Slow movements from his earlier symphonies (before they got too loud in places)

    You get the idea. Other slow movements would work, too (Schubert, Haydn, etc.). And there is plenty of quiet recorded organ music which could be used.

    Others might have good suggestions to offer.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Vaughan Williams' arrangement of Rhosymedre (part of his Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes) played on the organ would be another great one to put on there. It's one of my personal favorites.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • JacobFlahertyJacobFlaherty
    Posts: 331
    I have a small trouble with the playing of Gregorian chant and/or sacred polyphony in places where Penance services are the only time they hear it. I recently ran into this, as I played a recording for my choir during one of our rehearsals. The kids scratched their heads and said to me, "But isn't this Confession music?" Oh great...now they associate chant with penance, mourning, etc... That's why I went against this parish's tradition of doing the Latin Cantus Missae (the 'Funeral Mass or the new Roman Missal in Latin) during Advent and Lent. I don't want them to associate solemnity with the slow, mournful, penance-filled times, only to be liberated of them in Christmas and Easter by the moving 6/8 time of Haas, Haugen and friends.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    JIF,

    You're so right. At my other parish, they use the simple chant Mass for lent and advent. It's nice, but you're right that if not careful, you can send the exact opposite message that you are trying to send. I think much of the congregation at that parish "gets" chant, but like I said, you have to be very careful.
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