“Chant is slow and long” – This is a common problem that we face. The congregation, and sometimes even the choir, like to drag whenever they chant.....
“Chant is plain and flat, they all sound the same” – I think this misconception came up because of the overuse of a certain chant like Mass VIII and Mass XVIII....
Read more here:
http://www.ccwatershed.org/blog/2016/feb/11/3-common-misconceptions-about-chant/
Showing posts with label chant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chant. Show all posts
Friday, February 12, 2016
Saturday, September 26, 2015
Sanctificavit Moyses
Sanctificavit Moyses is one of the most beautiful offertory chants in the Gregorian repertoire, sung usually on the 18th Sunday after Pentecost. Just listen to the part "et immolans victimas" and let it lift your soul heavenwards.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Domine, non secundum peccata nostra
This is the hauntingly beautiful Tract from the Ash Wednesday liturgy
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Precatus est Moyses
In my opinion, this is the most beautiful Offertory chant of the entire liturgical year. The melisma at the 'Dominus' takes one's breath away.
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
How to read and sing Gregorian Chant
Corpus Christi Watershed is providing the following 12 online lessons for those who wish to have a first idea of how to read and sing plainchant:
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Steve Jobs on Gregorian Chant
Excerpt from this article:
In March 2011, after the iPad2 came out, Isaacson sat with Jobs as he scrolled through some of his favorite music. From page 413:
In March 2011, after the iPad2 came out, Isaacson sat with Jobs as he scrolled through some of his favorite music. From page 413:
"We went through the usual Dylan and Beatles favorites, then he became more reflective and tapped on a Gregorian chant, 'Spiritus Domini,' performed by Benedictine monks. For a minute or so he zoned out, almost in a trance. 'That's really beautiful,' he murmured."
Jobs goes on to discuss Bach, his favorite classical composer, and the differences in the two famous recordings of the Goldberg Variations made by Glenn Gould. I'm fascinated that Jobs seems to simply be sitting at the feet of this music, just taking it in. I was kind of surprised by this paragraph, because in other parts of the book Isaacson documents how Jobs owned a historic mansion that he wanted to tear down to build a modern house. He was resisted by preservationists, and by the time he won the court battle he had lost interest in the project, but he clearly didn't care about a beautiful historic house. So here is this guy with a revolutionary, possibly even iconoclastic, spirit who liked to call people bozos and products garbage who listens to a Gregorian chant and just says, "That's really beautiful."
Friday, April 02, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Liber Usualis for iPhone
The NLM highlighted the availability (for free!) the 1961 Liber Usualis for iPhone and iPod Touch owners.
Use coupon code TFRPLT4NFPT4. Here's a short description:
Liber Pro takes the 1961 Liber Usualis, a book of over 2,300 pages of Gregorian Chant for use throughout the liturgical year, and literally puts it at your fingertips on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Liber Pro adds to this tome a linked table of contents, user-defined bookmarks, vertical and horizontal paging and zooming, browser-like navigation, a dynamic liturgical calendar, and more.
Liber Pro is more than just an eBook. It is also the complete 1961 Roman Calendar, capable of calculating the moveable feasts throughout the year automatically. This means you can select a date; view the proper, common, and feria for that date; and jump instantly to the relevant pages in the Liber Usualis.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
A Great Homily on Chant
Homiliy for the Church Music Association of America, Gregorian Chant Workshop, Founders Chapel, University of San Diego
by Father Cávana Wallace
What is the common link between the days after the Epiphany which began with the arrival of the Magi bearing their gifts to the new-born messiah in Bethlehem, the later event of Christ’s healing of the leper we have read in today’s Gospel and the setting of this liturgy within the framework of a workshop on Church music? How can we possibly bring all three of these elements together? The opening lines of the early 19th century popular parish hymn might come to mind, “Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven; To His feet Thy tribute bring! Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, who like me his praise should sing?”
Today’s Gospel sets our blessed Lord in the context of his healing ministry, one which demonstrates his power as God as well as announcing the Kingdom of heaven, both of which point to his mission to restore order to creation, and to bring harmony out of chaos.
Where there is disorder in any relationship, be it with God, neighbor or within oneself, its effect resonates a disturbance in mind, body and soul. In this context sickness and disease are telltale signs that there is something out of sync in our world, out of tune, the reason we need a savior.
Contemplating this further, I imagine that the scene of the Gospel showing our Blessed Lord cleansing the leper and healing the sick, although dramatic and exciting, was nevertheless quite noisy. Within this context of his healing ministry, demons would often scream and shout at our Lord as they were being cast out of the physically vulnerable and the weak of mind. Frenzied, excitable crowds would no doubt be caught up in the waves of emotions generated by such events. Christ stands in the middle of a battlefield.
In the midst of all this noise, having brought healing to the leper, Our Lord asks for silence. But there is that human temptation to resist stillness, maybe the reason we are told in the Gospel today that Jesus would withdraw to deserted places to pray – away from the clatter and clamor of daily life and living, to sacred rendezvous places where the sound of heaven could be gently heard.
In the classical work of the Divine Comedy, which describes in poetic fashion, both the liturgy of heaven and of hell, the Florentine poet Dante draws this point out by comparing hell as a place of constant noise with heaven as a place of silence and music.
In the Inferno, the “soundscape” of Hell is characterized by disharmonic harshness and acoustic unpleasantness, screams and lamentations, waling and the grinding of teeth. This perverted type of music is so terrible that it is overpowering and Dante must ultimately cover his human ears, a far cry (literally) from the melodic harmonies which the poet describes resonating through the heavens.
We can only surmise what the music of heaven is like and the peace and the refreshment it must give. But on this side of the veil within the unfolding of the Church’s liturgy, Gregorian chant must come very close to the music of heaven. This is not a private opinion. The Church has seen it wise to attach particular indulgences to the singing of Gregorian chant. Why? It is because such sacred music can and does do something to the soul.
The setting for this week’s intensive workshop on this sacred form of music has been the University of San Diego. It was thought, at one time, that maybe it would become the Notre Dame of the West. However, I conclude with a poem by Charles Phillips, professor from 1924-1933 of the English Department of the one and only Notre Dame, renowned for giving generations of his students a love of Catholic faith, Catholic literature and Catholic culture. Simply titled “Music”, its words capture what I think we have tried to touch and gently press upon during this past week and in particular through the Church’s liturgy we are celebrating today.
Music
There is a hunger in my heart,
A longing in my soul, to hear
The voice of heaven, o’er the noise
Of earth that so assails mine ear:
For we are children of the skies,
Exiles and wanderers from home-
See how the stars like candles burn
In windows far from where we roam:
Like candles lit to show the way,
Dear kindly beacons, sure and bright!
But O the heavy journeying,
And O the silence of the night! –
The vasty silences that lie
Between the going and the goal!
Will not God reach a friendly hand
To lift and lead my tired soul?
Will not God speak a friendly word
Above the tumult and the din
Of earthly things – one little word
Above the voice of care and sin?
He speaks. He answers quick my prayer.
He opens heaven’s lattice wide;
He bids me bathe my brow in airs
Of heaven like a flowing tide!
He speaks; He gives unto my soul,
Unto my listening ear, its meed:
He breathes upon me with the breath
Of music – and my soul is freed
And I am lifted up and held
A little while, a child to see
The beauty of my Father’s House
Which shall no more be shut from me.
Source: http://printedaspreached.blogspot.com/2009/01/homiliy-for-church-music-association-of.html
by Father Cávana Wallace
What is the common link between the days after the Epiphany which began with the arrival of the Magi bearing their gifts to the new-born messiah in Bethlehem, the later event of Christ’s healing of the leper we have read in today’s Gospel and the setting of this liturgy within the framework of a workshop on Church music? How can we possibly bring all three of these elements together? The opening lines of the early 19th century popular parish hymn might come to mind, “Praise, my soul, the King of Heaven; To His feet Thy tribute bring! Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, who like me his praise should sing?”
Today’s Gospel sets our blessed Lord in the context of his healing ministry, one which demonstrates his power as God as well as announcing the Kingdom of heaven, both of which point to his mission to restore order to creation, and to bring harmony out of chaos.
Where there is disorder in any relationship, be it with God, neighbor or within oneself, its effect resonates a disturbance in mind, body and soul. In this context sickness and disease are telltale signs that there is something out of sync in our world, out of tune, the reason we need a savior.
Contemplating this further, I imagine that the scene of the Gospel showing our Blessed Lord cleansing the leper and healing the sick, although dramatic and exciting, was nevertheless quite noisy. Within this context of his healing ministry, demons would often scream and shout at our Lord as they were being cast out of the physically vulnerable and the weak of mind. Frenzied, excitable crowds would no doubt be caught up in the waves of emotions generated by such events. Christ stands in the middle of a battlefield.
In the midst of all this noise, having brought healing to the leper, Our Lord asks for silence. But there is that human temptation to resist stillness, maybe the reason we are told in the Gospel today that Jesus would withdraw to deserted places to pray – away from the clatter and clamor of daily life and living, to sacred rendezvous places where the sound of heaven could be gently heard.
In the classical work of the Divine Comedy, which describes in poetic fashion, both the liturgy of heaven and of hell, the Florentine poet Dante draws this point out by comparing hell as a place of constant noise with heaven as a place of silence and music.
In the Inferno, the “soundscape” of Hell is characterized by disharmonic harshness and acoustic unpleasantness, screams and lamentations, waling and the grinding of teeth. This perverted type of music is so terrible that it is overpowering and Dante must ultimately cover his human ears, a far cry (literally) from the melodic harmonies which the poet describes resonating through the heavens.
We can only surmise what the music of heaven is like and the peace and the refreshment it must give. But on this side of the veil within the unfolding of the Church’s liturgy, Gregorian chant must come very close to the music of heaven. This is not a private opinion. The Church has seen it wise to attach particular indulgences to the singing of Gregorian chant. Why? It is because such sacred music can and does do something to the soul.
The setting for this week’s intensive workshop on this sacred form of music has been the University of San Diego. It was thought, at one time, that maybe it would become the Notre Dame of the West. However, I conclude with a poem by Charles Phillips, professor from 1924-1933 of the English Department of the one and only Notre Dame, renowned for giving generations of his students a love of Catholic faith, Catholic literature and Catholic culture. Simply titled “Music”, its words capture what I think we have tried to touch and gently press upon during this past week and in particular through the Church’s liturgy we are celebrating today.
Music
There is a hunger in my heart,
A longing in my soul, to hear
The voice of heaven, o’er the noise
Of earth that so assails mine ear:
For we are children of the skies,
Exiles and wanderers from home-
See how the stars like candles burn
In windows far from where we roam:
Like candles lit to show the way,
Dear kindly beacons, sure and bright!
But O the heavy journeying,
And O the silence of the night! –
The vasty silences that lie
Between the going and the goal!
Will not God reach a friendly hand
To lift and lead my tired soul?
Will not God speak a friendly word
Above the tumult and the din
Of earthly things – one little word
Above the voice of care and sin?
He speaks. He answers quick my prayer.
He opens heaven’s lattice wide;
He bids me bathe my brow in airs
Of heaven like a flowing tide!
He speaks; He gives unto my soul,
Unto my listening ear, its meed:
He breathes upon me with the breath
Of music – and my soul is freed
And I am lifted up and held
A little while, a child to see
The beauty of my Father’s House
Which shall no more be shut from me.
Source: http://printedaspreached.blogspot.com/2009/01/homiliy-for-church-music-association-of.html
Friday, October 17, 2008
Nova Organi Harmonia
Maestro Jeff Ostrowski has graciously made available for free, the Nova Organi Harmonia Gregorian chant organ accompaniments here. Also listed are other accompaniment materials. This is definitely a treasure trove for church organists everywhere. This was made possible by Corpus Christi Watershed, the same non-profit Catholic institute for the arts that commissioned the Chabanel Psalms.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
The Cistercian Monks Of Stift Heiligenkreuz
Here's a great video of the Cistercian monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz in Austria whose monastery was graced by a visit of Pope Benedict XVI last year. Enjoy!
Gregorian chanting 'can reduce blood pressure and stress'
Stress levels could be reduced simply by participating in some Gregorian chanting, researchers claimed today. 
Dr Alan Watkins, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, revealed that teaching people to control their breathing and applying the musical structure of chanting can help their emotional state.
He said: "We have recently carried out research that demonstrates that the regular breathing and musical structure of chanting can have a significant and positive physiological impact."
The monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz sing Gregorian melodies on their new album - the chants are said to reduce stress levels
The research involved five monks having their heart rate and blood pressure measured throughout a 24-hour period.
Results showed their heart rate and blood pressure dipped to its lowest point in the day when they were chanting.
Dr Watkins pointed to previous studies that also demonstrated such practices have been shown to lower blood pressure, increase performance hormone levels as well as reduce anxiety and depression.
The lecturer also runs Cardiac Coherence Ltd, a company that helps executives perform under stressful conditions.
He said: "The control of the breathing, the feelings of wellbeing that communal singing bring, and the simplicity of the melodies, seem to have a powerful effect on reducing blood pressure and therefore stress."
"We have found that teaching individuals to control their breathing, generate more positive emotional states and connect better with those around them – all key aspects of Gregorian chanting – can significantly improve their mental state, reduce tension, and increase their efficiency in the workplace."
Record company Universal recently chose the monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz, Vienna to make an album after responding to a public interest in the genre.
The company also believes the Halo computer game series, available on PCs and Xbox consoles, sparked a resurgence in the music traditionally sung in male church choirs, as Gregorian chant-like melodies form the main soundtrack of the games.
Source: Daily Mail
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Liturgy, Seafood, and Thirty-One Flavors
By Kurt Poterack
Recently, a friend of mine came to Mass one Sunday at the collegiate chapel where I am themusic director. He normally goes to the parish church. Afterwards he commented, “My, you do a lot of Gregorian chant! Is that really necessary? Isn’t that too much!?” I felt like saying, “If you go to a seafood restaurant would you complain to the manager that there is too much fish on the menu?” I didn’t say this for three reasons: (1) it was one of those great comeback lines that one thinks of only hours later, (2) as a true friend I preferred an explanation to a comeback, and (3) while it makes sense to me and most of the readers of
this journal, it probably would have absolutely confused him. Instead I said, “I’m being obedient to Vatican II, article 116 of the Liturgy Constitution”—to which he replied, “Really, I don’t know too much about such things. I suppose I have a lot to learn.”
Now this person is not a liberal Catholic by any stretch of the imagination. He is quite orthodox in matters of doctrine, faith, and morals—and quite devout—but simply does not have much of a liturgical culture. My entrée with him was an argument from the Church’s magisterium. (We were interrupted, but I intend to continue the conversation at some point in the future.)
I know of a number of good Catholics like this. Someone similar said to me a while back, “High Mass, low Mass, charismatic Mass, Latin Mass, how can someone say that one Mass is better than another?” Again, I said, “Oh, but the church herself says that the sung High Mass is the more noble form of worship, Article 113 of Vatican II’s Liturgy Constitution.” I then proceeded to explain that, though a low Mass celebrated on the hood of a jeep by a military chaplain in time of war is objectively the same as a Pontifical High Mass celebrated in St. John Lateran, there is a reason why the church has many times practiced (and recommends) the latter, while the former is only practiced in emergency situations.
What I am finding, in this era of the New Liturgical Movement, is that the liturgical culture of most Catholics has been absolutely decimated—and I am talking about good practicing Catholics. What such Catholics have been left with is a kind of a neo-Thomistic focus on the validity of the consecration and then, lacking a liturgical culture, they fill the void with an American consumerist mentality—a kind of a Baskin-Robbins’ 31 flavors mentality. In other words, “I like Chocolate, he likes Vanilla, she likes Butter Scotch Rum, as long as we eat the same validly made ice cream, it doesn’t matter. There is no normative flavor.” It is totally a matter of subjective, individual choice.
One cannot appeal to such Catholics, at least initially, using aesthetic arguments or even cultural arguments—because there is no normative liturgical culture which they know. They do, however, respond to arguments from authority.
The thing is, though, that there is this objective liturgical cultus that has been the Roman Rite for centuries. Gregorian chant is the music that is normative, proper to the Roman Rite. It is the only music in the official liturgical books for this reason. The Church has continuously taught this throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Any other music is there by means of addition or substitution for the normative, official music—Gregorian chant.
This is not to deny that these valid “substitutions” can happen to varying degrees based upon pastoral prudence and even subjective choice. The problem is that these subjective choices have been allowed and practiced to such a great degree over the past forty years that the Roman Rite’s very own music has been almost totally erased in the actual experience of probably a majority of Catholics.
The Roman Rite as an actual historical cultus with its own traditions, customs and music has been considerably dimmed. At least before Vatican II Catholics knew “what the score was” even if many of them would go to a more stripped down low Mass because it was quicker.
If I could continue with my restaurant analogy, too many Roman Rite Catholics have been going to seafood restaurants that have been serving little to no fish. They need to learn that, whatever their subjective preferences, fish will be a big part of the menu.
Source: Winter 2007 Volume 134, Number 4 Sacred Music
this journal, it probably would have absolutely confused him. Instead I said, “I’m being obedient to Vatican II, article 116 of the Liturgy Constitution”—to which he replied, “Really, I don’t know too much about such things. I suppose I have a lot to learn.”Now this person is not a liberal Catholic by any stretch of the imagination. He is quite orthodox in matters of doctrine, faith, and morals—and quite devout—but simply does not have much of a liturgical culture. My entrée with him was an argument from the Church’s magisterium. (We were interrupted, but I intend to continue the conversation at some point in the future.)
I know of a number of good Catholics like this. Someone similar said to me a while back, “High Mass, low Mass, charismatic Mass, Latin Mass, how can someone say that one Mass is better than another?” Again, I said, “Oh, but the church herself says that the sung High Mass is the more noble form of worship, Article 113 of Vatican II’s Liturgy Constitution.” I then proceeded to explain that, though a low Mass celebrated on the hood of a jeep by a military chaplain in time of war is objectively the same as a Pontifical High Mass celebrated in St. John Lateran, there is a reason why the church has many times practiced (and recommends) the latter, while the former is only practiced in emergency situations.
What I am finding, in this era of the New Liturgical Movement, is that the liturgical culture of most Catholics has been absolutely decimated—and I am talking about good practicing Catholics. What such Catholics have been left with is a kind of a neo-Thomistic focus on the validity of the consecration and then, lacking a liturgical culture, they fill the void with an American consumerist mentality—a kind of a Baskin-Robbins’ 31 flavors mentality. In other words, “I like Chocolate, he likes Vanilla, she likes Butter Scotch Rum, as long as we eat the same validly made ice cream, it doesn’t matter. There is no normative flavor.” It is totally a matter of subjective, individual choice.
One cannot appeal to such Catholics, at least initially, using aesthetic arguments or even cultural arguments—because there is no normative liturgical culture which they know. They do, however, respond to arguments from authority.
The thing is, though, that there is this objective liturgical cultus that has been the Roman Rite for centuries. Gregorian chant is the music that is normative, proper to the Roman Rite. It is the only music in the official liturgical books for this reason. The Church has continuously taught this throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Any other music is there by means of addition or substitution for the normative, official music—Gregorian chant.
This is not to deny that these valid “substitutions” can happen to varying degrees based upon pastoral prudence and even subjective choice. The problem is that these subjective choices have been allowed and practiced to such a great degree over the past forty years that the Roman Rite’s very own music has been almost totally erased in the actual experience of probably a majority of Catholics.
The Roman Rite as an actual historical cultus with its own traditions, customs and music has been considerably dimmed. At least before Vatican II Catholics knew “what the score was” even if many of them would go to a more stripped down low Mass because it was quicker.
If I could continue with my restaurant analogy, too many Roman Rite Catholics have been going to seafood restaurants that have been serving little to no fish. They need to learn that, whatever their subjective preferences, fish will be a big part of the menu.
Kurt Poterack is editor-at-large of Sacred Music. He teaches music at Christendom College. poterack@hotmail.com
Source: Winter 2007 Volume 134, Number 4 Sacred Music
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Passer invenit rehearsal
This is a partial clip of our rehearsal on 23rd February 2008 singing 'Passer invenit' (communion antiphon for 3rd Sunday in Lent).
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Passer invenit
We are going to sing the "Passer invenit" this Sunday, which happens to be one of my favourite communion antiphons. Here's a commentary from Dom Johner's Chants of the Vatican Graduale regarding this piece:In the three phrases of this piece there is mention of a threefold kingdom. The first speaks of the realm of Nature, of the birds and the nests in which they harbor their young. We are struck by the numerous podatus forms, which may, in the composer's mind, indicate the fluttering of birds. That which is expressed pictorially in the first phrase, in the second becomes a reality, even though mysteriously, in the realm of mystery, in the kingdom of grace. From the altar and its Mystery flow the strength by which the Lord of hosts—the melody stresses this word—becomes our King, our God. There the soul has found her earthly home; there she is harbored safely and securely; thence she draws a marvelous fecundity. Such was the yearning of the catechumens: to be privileged to draw nigh to the altar. And the penitents, who had to remain outside the church during Lent, how will they envy the good fortune of those who come out with the Saviour in their heart! The third phrase refers to the kingdom of glory, to the house of God, where we shall sing praises for a blessed eternity. How luminous the melody here is! There we shall sing Alleluia in unending Paschal joy. There we shall forever sing our joyous thanksgiving for the boon God has bestowed upon us; for now evellet of the Introit has become full reality. There we shall sing an everlasting Redemisti nos-—Thou hast redeemed us with Thy blood; our soul has escaped like a bird from the snares of the fowler: the snare is torn and we are freed. For this happiness the Mysteries of the altar are to prepare us. Holy Communion gives us the strength requisite to attain eternal glory. Our praying and singing in the house of God is a preparation for that more sublime song of eternity. May God's merciful love one day bring us all together in that celestial choir!
Lovely, isn't it?
Friday, September 14, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Liber Usualis (1961)
Hear ye! Hear ye! The ubiquitous chant book for the Traditional Roman Rite, the Liber Usualis (1961 edition) is now available for free download online from the good folks at CMAA.No more excuses of expensive Libers from Novus Ordo parishes wanting to implement Pope Benedict XVI's motu proprio Summorum Pontificum.
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