Gamba

Happy 340th Birthday J.S. Bach
Those lines being, for anyone who doesn’t know, the conclusion of the last verse of Martin Schalling’s stunning 1567 hymn “Herzlich lieb hab ich dich, O Herr.“ In Winkworth’s translation: 1 Lord, thee I love with all my heart; I pray thee, ne'…

Comment by Gamba April 2025 permalink
ICEL translation versus a new USCCB-approved translation of Easter Sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes
I have never once heard a congregation sing this. Only ever a schola or cantor. Certain Lutherans retain the custom of singing the Sequence together with the trope “Christ ist erstanden” (English here: https://www.lutheranchoralebook.com/texts/c…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
SA/SSA/SAA music for Good Friday
Gibbons, “Drop, drop, slow tears”, arr. Philip Ledger. It’s in OUP’s Anthems for Choirs 2 (the upper-voices book).

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
“It’s easy to mistake emotional manipulation for a movement of God, right?”
I wonder if the author of the BCM article has ever even been to a fully-sung Mass such as we promote, and what he would think. The American waters are so muddied by the dreadful low-church state of most parishes, which are plainly white in culture a…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
The Hymnal Industrial Complex
MS 56, 59: 56. Among the melodies to be composed for the people's texts, those which belong to the priest and ministers are particularly important, whether they sing them alone, or whether they sing them together with the people, or whether th…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
The Hymnal Industrial Complex
But the next point in Musicam Sacram: 51. Pastors of souls, having taken into consideration pastoral usefulness and the character of their own language, should see whether parts of the heritage of sacred music, written in previous centuries for Lat…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
The Hymnal Industrial Complex
To my best understanding, for most of the Sundays of Ordinary Time option 1 exists to allow the chants from the Graduale Romanum from before Vatican II to still be used despite the fact that they no longer match the rest of the liturgy. Contempor…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
“It’s easy to mistake emotional manipulation for a movement of God, right?”
This was a good read as a former evangelical. I really feel for the author – she seems to want the Real Thing and recognizes the emptiness of commercial worship music’s emotional manipulation, but she can’t really articulate an alternative. She do…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Advice needed: auditions and job applications
My question is: priests and search committees, since it's clear you're not looking for good experience and training, what are you looking for? If experience and training doesn't matter, what are you looking for in job candidates who …

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Easy Polyphony for Holy Thursday
Bruckner has a Holy Thursday Mass, WAB 9, which is exceedingly easy and atypically restrained; no divisi. It includes the gradual, offertory, Sanctus/Benedictus, and Agnus. https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/425803/pnba The gradual and …

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
The Hymnal Industrial Complex
Be careful what you wish for. The new German Gotteslob is not any better than Worship IV. The 1993 Canadian CBW was already stripped of gendered language and any hieratic English and the new one upcoming just swaps the remaining bits of tradition fo…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Congregational singing
@trentonjconn traditionally-German parish? Send them my way….

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Congregational singing
Not knowing your current practice, but assuming the “default” musical setup in many parishes with 4 hymns and a psalm at each Mass and no repeats through the year: there’s 52 Sundays, + Christmas and 1 liturgy of the Triduum someone might attend (le…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Have you played/sung for funeral of close family member??
My family are all evangelicals. I’ve been asked to play the piano for every funeral since I was 12. No parents or siblings yet, but [great-]grandparents and some more distant relatives. Playing for these (couple hymns and maybe a solo) requires very…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
“Highly Competitive”
Depends on the Catholics; depends on the Anglicans. It is unrewarding to play and sing 4 faves from Glory and Praise + Mass of Creation 8 times a weekend on a piano in a Catholic Church. It is likewise unrewarding to play/direct whatever happens…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Musing: Responses
The (English) Masses of Paul Jernberg are very much in this style of harmonized chant. Quite striking, but I fear one would be hard pressed to find a celebrant and congregation willing to learn a whole new set of tones for the dialogues etc. if they…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Congregations which have learned pieces incorrectly?
Can you share, more specifically, what you mean by “incorrectly”? Say in the simple Ave Regina caelorum, if the mistake is on the order of turning each quarter bar into a full stop and giant deep breath, I’d be inwardly sad but let it go. But if all…

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Higher Education Programs in Sacred Music
I would add – Notre Dame (MSM, DMA) – Yale Institute of Sacred Music (MM, DMA) – Westminster Choir College (BM, MM, now possible to do some online) The first two are fully-funded programs.

Comment by Gamba March 2025 permalink
Non-Christian Music Directors Now Approved for the Catholic Church
I am not the only ex-Protestant organist/choirmaster on this board who converted because of working in places where the duties of the job required me to learn the texts of the liturgy backwards and forwards, conduct the chant multiple times a week w…

Comment by Gamba February 2025 permalink
Best theoretical approach to teach priests to sing the NO Mass?
Thank you, all. David, I’d be glad for your notes. Another funny thing with this priest is that he’s not a seminarian; he was put directly into ministry in a parish where the “default” for all celebrants is to sing at least the Mystery of Faith and …

Comment by Gamba February 2025 permalink
Update: Leadership changes at CMAA
Axios!

Comment by Gamba January 2025 permalink
Worship Aid Design (multiple Masses in one)
It can be done “decently, and in good order”. Unfortunately the church whose worship aid I’d use as an example just had cantors on duty for the past two weekends and so the files currently on their site don’t have any variations. Let me try to demon…

Comment by Gamba January 2025 permalink
Solo soprano sacred repertoire
Can you tell us your current fach (or whichever you’re closest to, if presently uncategorized)? God bless you in your studies.

Comment by Gamba January 2025 permalink
William Mahrt
May he be rewarded for all he taught us and so many others.

Comment by Gamba January 2025 permalink
ELI5: New CCCB Hymnal
To be brief: it will be all the "contemporary" things that were in CBW3, maybe 30% of the "traditional" bastardized things that were in CBW3, and the rest taken from OCP's contemporary resources in the States. Avoid at all c…

Comment by Gamba October 2024 permalink
New Translations of Lectionary & Psalms
What is a disappointment to me is that the English-speaking countries continue to reinvent the wheel. We all have one translation of the Missal to use, so I see no reason the UK, India, Canada, and the US could not also share one lectionary. In our …

Comment by Gamba August 2024 permalink
Off-topic: Chattiness in church
Keeping the lights as low as possible for safe entry/exit, and raising them right at the bell/introit/hymn/welcome, whatever kicks things off, works wonderfully. Then the colours in the stained glass pop, the candles are actually visible, and it’…

Comment by Gamba July 2024 permalink
Would If Ye Love Me be appripriate for a bridal procession?
It might draw a chuckle from those unaware of the context of the text. If ye love me [the bride], keep my commandments [to take out the trash and come straight home after work]…..

Comment by Gamba July 2024 permalink
Various litanies in English?
Thank you!

Comment by Gamba May 2024 permalink
Phoenix vs. Rodgers Organs
PM me about Phoenix. I’m in a church with pipes and Phoenix.

Comment by Gamba May 2024 permalink

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Username: Gamba
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