The Recovering Choir Director

Tu es Petrus
et super hanc petram aedificábo ecclésiam meam
et portae ínferi non praevalébunt advérsus eam.
Et tibi dabo claves regni caelórum.

Quodcúmque ligáveris super terram erit ligátum et in coelis,
et quodcúmque sólveris super terram erit solútum et in coelis.

Et tibi dabo…

Thou art Peter
and upon this rock I shall build my church
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I shall give to thee the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven:
and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven.

And I shall give to thee…

• Choir: Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Bavarian Radio Chorus)
• Conductor: Mariss Jansons
• Rehearsals: Michael Gläser
• Scripture: Matthew 16:18-19

Fr. Mahler^[1], in addition to being the priest under whom I first delved into liturgical music (with mixed results), was effectively my pastor for ten years at the Cornell Catholic Community. To hear of his passing away at such a relatively early age is sobering, though he could not have “picked” a more appropriate date. Reprinted below is his obituary from the Ithaca Journal.

Rev. Michael J. Mahler (1946–2009)

Ithaca: Passed away peacefully Monday, June 29 of cancer, age 63.

Predeceased by parents, John and Marie and early mentor and lifelong friend Reverend James E. Kircher.

Survived by sister, Mary Therese (Gregory) Storey & brother James (Jocelyne) Mahler, nephew Jeffrey Storey, aunt Allison Piehler, cousins in Rochester, South Carolina, Arizona & Germany, devoted friends and caregivers Dawn & Michael Redlin, longtime friends Sylvia Mancuso & family, and many close colleagues and friends in the Catholic community.

Fr. Mahler was born in Rochester and attended St. James School; prepatory studies at St. Andrews Seminary and St. John Fisher College; theological studies at St. Bernard’s Seminary; received his tonsure Dec 4, 1969; minor orders Oct 22, 1970; exorcist & acolyte Feb 4, 1971; sub-deaconship Mar 27, 1971; deaconship May 8, 1971; ordained Roman Catholic priest at St. Margaret Mary Church, Mar 30, 1973; first appointment Holy Apostles, Jun 27, 1973; SUNY Geneseo chaplain, Jun 23, 1976; appointed co-chaplain Cornell University, Jun 30, 1983 and later as Chaplain; appointed pastor St. Catherine of Siena, Ithaca, NY, Jun 24 2003; chaplain of Ithaca College, Jun 28, 2005 while retaining his pastorate at St. Catherine’s. Father Mahler was also Cornell University Police Chaplain, Cornell University Football Chaplain, and Chaplain Emeritus of Cornell University.

Fr. Mahler will lie in state from 3 PM to 7 PM on Wednesday, July 1 at St. Catherine of Siena Church, 302 St. Catherine Circle, Ithaca, NY with Evening Prayer at 7:30 PM. Father will lie in state on Thursday, July 2, from 10 AM to 11 AM with his funeral liturgy at 11 AM with Bishop Matthew H. Clark, presiding. Burial will take place at Immaculate Conception Calvary Cemetery, Ithaca. Memorial donations can be made to: St. Catherine of Siena Parish, 302 St. Catherine Circle, Ithaca, NY 14850.

Tu es sacérdos in aetérnum, secúndum órdinem Melchísedech. Requiéscat in pace. Amen.

As highlighted by Jeffrey Tucker on NLM, and available in PDF, below is an HTML version of “Hymns at Church,” an essay by David Beresford that appears in the June 2009 issue of Catholic Insight. (Reprinted below without alteration, save added hyperlinks.)

Hymns at Church
by David Beresford

The revolutionary elements in our epoch do not mark the beginning, but the end, of an epoch of revolution.
–G.K. Chesterton, “The End of the Moderns”

Church music is something that I know nothing about, other than I know what I like and do not like. I am a child of the 1960s, so my experience is perhaps a little biased. When I was very young, I can just recall singing hymns like “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “Faith of Our Fathers,” and “Immaculate Mary.” Then came the big change, and much against the wishes of the Council Fathers who wrote that we (the laity) had the right to sing our hymns in Latin, we became part of the large-scale experiments testing how long it would take to empty the parishes.

First came the tambourines, wielded by earnest young ladies who were trying to get everyone to sing “Cum-Bye-Yaw.” Then, once this gateway music was no longer achieving the requisite high, our parish advanced to folk Masses complete with lead and bass guitars, electric piano, and drums in front of the altar. The following songs were sung during Mass on a regular basis: “One Tin Soldier,” “Share the Land,” “Imagine”—yes, by John Lennon—”The Rose,” “You Light Up My Life,” “Let It Be,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.” I do not know why these were chosen out of all that was available on the radio at the time.  I can see no reason why we did not sing “Convoy,” or better yet, “A Boy Named Sue.” In fact, a good argument can be made for singing “A Boy Named Sue” at any church that would allow us to sing “Blowin’ in the Wind” or “Imagine.” “A Boy Named Sue” has all the elements that the modern innovators like: a non-traditional family, ambivalence about gender, and the implicit message that girls (and by extension, men with girl’s names) are subject to societal oppression.

By the end of the 1980s and early 90s, the worst of these excesses had begun to subside and the preposterous was replaced by the banal. Instead of singing old Beatles songs at Mass, we were given insipid, gender-neutral translations of the psalms set to saccharine melodies. Now I am not against such modern hymns as “Peace is Flowing Like a River” per se, these are perfectly fine around a youth-group campfire or during a sensitivity-training session. But not at Mass.

My main concern is that these hymns are now private property, and I cannot escape the suspicion that the Mass is not supposed to be carved up by copyrights into private enclosures in which we are only allowed to sing or pray “with permission of the publishers.” I am of an older, more robust school, that believes prayers and hymns can be used by anyone who wants to pray or sing. I secretly suspect that this privatization of prayers and hymns is a modern phenomenon. Consider the “Salve Regina,” which was written by a monk named Herman the Cripple in 1054. The “Salve Regina” was one of the battle cries of the knights who crusaded in the Holy Land. I am not convinced that they were advised in their Crusaders Hymn Book © that the “Salve Regina” was printed with permission of Brother Contractus, all rights reserved.

I have assessed this trend in the Canadian hymnals, the Catholic Book of Worship (CBW) put out by the CCCB (Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops). There have been three such hymnals, CBW I (1972), CBW II (1980), and CBW III (1994), each with 192, 296, and 402 hymns respectively. I counted the ones with copyrights, those “with permission,” and those in the religious public domain (see Figure 1). The proportion of hymns with copyrights has increased steadily with each edition, eroding those held in common. What is interesting is that many of the hymns that now carry copyrights originally did not do so. For example, “Immaculate Mary” has a copyright because verses two to five were replaced.

Figure 1.

In light of this, I have decided that while at Mass I will no longer sing hymns with copyrights attached to them. And if we are assigned a hymn that has been translated into inclusive language, I sing the old words out loud (very loud), complete with thees, thous, and thys. It is plausible that I will miss out on one or two modern songs that are actually good, but I will take this risk. The real payoff is that I do not have to decide if a hymn is good or not; my system settles that problem for me. And, in so doing, I am simply following the teachings of my Catholic religion—that we all have been given the gift of a working brain and are supposed to use it.

I have some issues with this article, mainly with deportment (as found in the final paragraph). Others may find more with which to object.

Below are ten MP3s of last Tuesday’s Ordinary-form Sung Mass celebrated by Fr. Jeffrey Keyes, CPPS. Other than the instances of Amen and Hosanna, the entire Mass was sung in the English language.

• Introit^[1]
  
• Introductory Rite; Penitential Rite; Opening Prayer^[2]
  
• Liturgy of the Word
  
• Offertory^[3]
  
• Motet, Interlude
  
• Orate fratres; Preface; Eucharistic Prayer I; Great Amen^[4]
  
• Lord’s Prayer; Agnus Dei; Domine, non sum dignus^[5]
  
• Communion Antiphon; three organ pieces^[6]
  
• Postcommunion Motet: “O How Amiable” (Vaughan Williams)
  
• Postcommunion; Dismissal; Organ Postlude
  

A Colloquium participant commenting on this Mass writes,

Tuesday morning after Mass I thought, “If we participated in Masses like this every week, it would change our lives.” It is impossible to be indifferent to such a Mass. Such a Mass is so profoundly otherworldly, so oriented to the transcendent, so powerfully prayerful that it is impossible to be lukewarm. One must choose whom one will serve. [Full post]

(Courtesy of Corpus Christi Watershed, who is filming and editing on location.)

Shen khar venakhi, akhlad aqvavebuli.
Norchi ketili, Edems shina nerguli.
(Alva suneli, samotkhes amosuli.)
(Ghmertman shegamko vervina gjobs kebuli.)
Da tavit tvisit mze khar da gabrtsqinvebuli.

[Thou art a vineyard, newly blossomed out.
Tender, beautiful, planted in Eden,
(Aloe-scented from Paradise.)
(God adorned thee, no one deserves praise as thou,)
And thou art thyself a brilliant sun.]

• Location: Tallinn, Estonia

I am now liveblogging Professor William Mahrt’s and Jeffrey Tucker’s lectures at the CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium. Follow my Twitter feed for live updates.

Jeffrey Herbert of Chironomo’s Podium has posted the full audio files of today’s Colloquium liturgies.  Please click on the links below to access their respective download pages:

• Morning Prayer
• Sung Mass (English), Tuesday of the 12th Sunday of the Year (Ordinary Form) — Fr. Jeffrey Keyes, CPPS, celebrant

Introit: Mass, June 23, 2009

Download mp3

Psalm 26(27): 7, 9; 1, etc.

Antiphon: “The Lord is the strength of His people, and the protector
of the salvation of His anointed: save, O Lord, thy people, and bless
Thine inheritance, and rule them forever.”
Verse 1: “Unto thee will I cry, O Lord: O my God, be not Though silent
to me, lest if Thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down
into the pit.”
Verse 2: “My heart hath said to thee: My face hath sought thee. They
face O Lord, willI seek. Turn not away they face from me.”
Verse 3: “I believe to see the good things of the Lord in the land of
the living. Expect the Lord: and let thy heart take courage: and wait
thou for the Lord.”

(English-language chant settings by Fr. Samuel F. Weber, OSB, of the Institute of
Sacred Music, St. Louis, MO)

CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium XIX

This week, starting now, I will be writing from the Sacred Music Colloquium of the Church Music Association of America, held at Loyola University Chicago’s Lake Shore Campus for the second consecutive year.  The schedule is rather tight, as you can see from the calendar, so you may also wish to follow me on my Twitter account.  (I will be liveblogging the lectures and highlighting important points that the lecturers address. Any blog posts I publish will appear in the Twitter feed as well.)

I will also link to fellow musician-bloggers that you may wish to follow this week and thereafter.  Finally, as I did last year, I will providing sound files from the Masses and other services celebrated over the week.

Stay tuned.  In the meantime, feel free to browse my blog entries from last year’s edition.