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Ultimo Aggiornamento: 21/05/2013 07:05
21/06/2011 05:45
 
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The ‘Simple English Propers’—a Sacred Music Revolution?

by DENYS POWLETT-JONES
Catholic Phoenix
JUNE 20, 2011

A parish music director in Phoenix has recently completed a major project in the renewal of sacred music, one that could have a revolutionary impact upon the celebration of the Ordinary form of the Mass all over the English-speaking world, as the latter prepares for the renewal of sacred language on its way this winter, courtesy of the new translation of the OF Roman Missal.

Adam Bartlett, director of music at St. Joan of Arc parish, is the composer and compiler of the Simple English Propers, an anthology of music for the Mass that is unlike anything else available in English today. The book, a 500-page hardback, has just been published by the Church Music Association of America (CMAA); in keeping with the radical and principled open-source, creative-commons intellectual-property-libertarianism of the CMAA and its tutelary genius Jeffrey Tucker, the entire “Simple English Propers” corpus is also available for free download.

In order for readers to understand why the Simple English Propers are so important, a brief introduction to some technical aspects of music in the Catholic Mass is in order.

The experience of most Sunday massgoers in America has for decades been one of music as something added to the Mass but not integral or essential to it—so while the words of the liturgy itself are prescribed by the Missal, and the psalms and readings for every day of the three-year cycle are dictated by the Lectionary, one generally gets the sense that when it comes to music, the Catholic Mass is a blank canvas, an empty decorative space to be filled up by the wits and talents of the parish music ministry.

With four such hymn “slots” to be filled each Sunday—from the entrance and offertory, through the communion to the recessional—American Catholics’ experience is that songs at Mass are something freely chosen by the music director. From choir-and-organ arrangements of “Soul of My Savior” to rockin’ Matt Maher tunes to “Gather Us In” to “God Bless America” or other special numbers on holidays, what we get week in and week out can be, like radio programming, interesting, varied, eclectic, coherent, or not. This programming model of music as a freely chosen, extraneous addition to worship is nearly universal, and, from what authorities like Thomas Day, author of Why Catholics Can’t Sing, tell us, it is deeply rooted in pre-Vatican II American Catholicism. We might have a lot more choices now than we did in 1959, but the model is the same—picking tunes off the nickel jukebox, downloading the playlist.

If American Catholics have had any Sunday experience of Gregorian chant, outside of chanted “ordinary” texts like the Sanctus or Agnus Dei, that experience has likely been within the same model of freely chosen music inserted into the liturgy, as one option selected from among others: perhaps one special week out of twenty, the choir chants an unaccompanied Regina coeli for the “meditation” piece after communion; or, if it’s Pentecost, maybe Veni Sancte Spiritus in the same slot. But not too much chant: back to “Faith of Our Fathers” or something else rousing for the recessional.

While the music-as-choice model is ubiquitous, and technically “allowed” according to the General Instruction for the Roman Missal, a different and much older model of Catholic sacred music is the ideal, described and advocated in all Roman magisterial documents on liturgy in the 20th century, including Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium. The model is simple: just sing the integral proper chants of the Mass, the prescribed Latin texts and ancient Gregorian melodies contained in the official music book of the Catholic Church, the Graduale Romanum, or “Roman Gradual.” No choices needed: 4 different Gregorian chants for every single Mass of the entire year, with words and music compiled in a normative Roman liturgical book.

Most lay Catholics, not to mention parish musicians and clergy, are not even aware of the existence of the Roman Gradual—but even if there were two dozen copies of it in every choir loft (or “musicians’ space” at the front of more progressive churches), learning to sing these ancient Latin texts and intricate, exotic melodies would be an extremely daunting task for even the most healthy of parish music programs. There is simply no living tradition of Gregorian chant to be found anywhere near all but a handful of our parish churches. Without it, the Roman ideal remains a dream for some and simply inconceivable for most. Wishing it were otherwise—that there was a culture of Latin chant in our parishes just as vibrant as you’d find in a French Benedictine monastery—isn’t enough to conjure it up. What, then, is to be done?

This is where the Simple English Propers come in. This revolutionary anthology, the first of its kind, contains English-language translations of all the ancient Latin liturgical chants of the Roman Gradual, set to simplified melodies adapted from the originals; unlike the daunting, technically complex lines of the Gregorian chants, a week’s worth of these adapted melodies can be easily mastered by a parish choir of average competence in a week’s time, and new ones sung with confidence and clarity in the assembly Sunday after Sunday.

What is most revolutionary about the Simple English Propers anthology is that it offers a way to a different model of sacred music, one in which there are no “songs”, no extraneous, independent musical compositions stuck into the silent slots in the liturgy, no need for a music director to program the week’s playlist according to his wits or whims. Instead of our own choices and preferences, the SEP gives us a way to sing the Roman Church’s ancient songs, texts that have been fully integrated into the Roman Mass for centuries–unlike, say, “Amazing Grace,” “Come Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” or “America the Beautiful.”

As one liturgist recently put it: truly sacred music means not singing “at” Mass, but singing the Mass itself. The Simple English Propers present a comprehensible and technically feasible way for the average American parish to move off the beaches, where previously there had existed only the sheer cliffs of the Graduale Romanum. Thanks to Adam Bartlett and the CMAA for making this possible.

11/07/2012 16:25
 
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Sacred music rings through Salt Lake City cathedral during colloquium

By Laura Vallejo
Catholic News Service
July 10, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY (CNS) -- Priests, nuns, seminarians and laypeople had opportunities to sing, learn and interact with the best musicians in the Catholic community from all over the world at the Church Music Association of America's Sacred Music Colloquium.

Sessions were held at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City.

It was the 22nd such colloquium presented by the association, which bills itself as the oldest organization in the United States dedicated to Catholic sacred music.

The event opened June 25 and ran through July 1. More than 200 attendees enjoyed six full days of activities, which culminated with a Mass at the cathedral, bringing together parishioners and colloquium participants to hear music from association members.

"They sing like angels," said Mary Cohchran, a cathedral parishioner who was attending the Mass with her family. "We are all stunned by all this magic."

"I didn't know today we would hear this beautiful music, I am glad that we are here," fellow parishioner Michael Leal told the Intermountain Catholic, newspaper of the Salt Lake City Diocese.

During the week, the colloquium participants gathered in rehearsals and classes to further their knowledge and enrich their parish music ministries.

"This colloquium has enriched me in all three senses: musically, spiritually and intellectually. Everything was perfect," said Frank Merhart, who came from Virginia.

The colloquium's primary focus was instruction in chant and the Catholic sacred music tradition. Activities included participation in chant choirs, daily and nightly lectures and performances, and daily celebrations of liturgies in both English and Latin.

Instructors included vocal pedagogist Cecilia Nam, who led a choir that was designed to introduce and improve on the critical vocal and musical techniques necessary for singing polyphonic music.

Horst Buchholz, a conductor with experience with both early choral music and the romantic repertoire, and his choir sang at a celebration of a Latin Mass June 29, the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul.

For the fifth year, William Mahrt presented a rendering of polyphonic vespers, focusing in the works of Orlando di Lasso.

During the colloquium's closing liturgy July 1, Wilko Brouwers conducted portions of Claudio Monteverdi's "Messa a quattro voci da Cappella (1650)," including the "Gloria" and the "Sanctus."

"For me, these six days were like being in true heaven, I enjoyed every part of it as well as I learned a lot with all the rehearsals and organ performances," said Miko Thum of Oklahoma.


21/05/2013 07:05
 
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Rome university launches course on liturgical music

Rome, Italy, May 20, 2013 / 09:34 am (CNA/EWTN News).- A pontifical university in Rome has launched a master's program in Gregorian chant and the use of the organ at Mass so as to build unity among Catholics world-wide.

“The most important thing is that music, when it is truly liturgical, creates community,” Father Jordi Piqué, dean of the Pontifical University of Saint Anselmo's liturgical institute, said May 20.

“When one hears a Mass that is sung or the organ interpreting a beautiful melody, it’s never individualistic, it’s always as a group,” he added at the Benedictine Abbey where the university is located.

Fr. Piqué, who plays the organ, is from the Benedictine Abbey of Montserrat, Spain, and was named dean of the program six months ago.

“The Pontifical Liturgical Institute has always had liturgical sources as its base and since the Second Vatican Council studies have been adapted to spread and make liturgy be valued by the faithful,” he explained.

“A very important part of liturgy is the music and chants, and now we’ve been able to unite with the Pontifical University of Sacred Music and offer this Master's.”

The degree will require that students study Gregorian chant with “a scientific reflection” as well as seeing its central place, “directed within the liturgy.”

Classes for the two-year program will be held every Thursday evening and will be divided into three main topics: liturgy, music, and theology.

The university will regularly invite speakers to lecture on topics such as organ improvisation, the sources of Gregorian chant, and music composition.

Students will also learn about how to use the principles of Gregorian chant to compose chant in their own vernacular languages.

There will also be guests for the course including the president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, president of the Pontifical Council for Culture, will lecture on the vision of music within the liturgy.

“The biggest challenge of liturgical music is the same as always been: to take modern-day musical languages and translate them into liturgical languages, or vice versa,” reflected Fr. Piqué.

“We have to invite composers to adapt popular and modern day music, but within the environment of the (Eucharistic) celebration.”

Fr. Piqué believes that music can help people pray, but that liturgical celebrations should include times of silence, as well.

“Music needs silence,” he stated.

In explaining the essential link between Gregorian chant and the Roman liturgy, Fr. Piqué noted Saint Augustine's well-known dictum, “who sings, prays twice.”

St. Benedict directed his monks to “sing with pleasure, sing with wisdom,” he added.

He noted that liturgical participation includes not only singing the chants, but attentively listening to them as well.

“Whoever sings, or listens to music, is praying,” he explained, “because you are praying when you are listening” and that “by singing, you reveal what your heart contains.”

He also believes that sacredness has not been lost, but is “transforming itself and taking on new forms that are related to our times.”

Fr. Piqué noted the increasing use of Gregorian chant at Mass, and interpreted it as a refuge from the hurried pace of modern life.

“But our times are very filled with noise, and so music within the liturgy is taking on again the calm, tranquil and serene aspect that this open and serene dialogue with God needs to have,” he concluded.

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