Catholic Church Music, forty-eight years later (Part XI of a series) « The Recovering Choir Director

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Catholic Church Music, forty-eight years later (Part XI of a series)

Chapter Four of Paul Hume’s Catholic Church Music addresses what he terms “The Problem of Hymns”.

The introductory paragraph:

The problems of Catholic hymnody bring us into a highly sensitive area. It may sound harmless enough, but in the realm of Church music no subject is more fraught with emotion. Or as a priest once said to me, “When you talk about hymns, you hit ‘em in the pews!” For to say, as I do unequivocally, that most of the hymns most frequently sung in Catholic parishes are excrably bad music is to raise the hackles of a large percentage of the Catholic population. In some cases rational argument on the subject of hymns is absolutely useless and leads to the same kind of frustration that would result from trying to convince Westbrook Pegler that the Democrats aren’t so bad after all.

As the four-hymn Mass format is the de facto norm in most parishes, we will dwell on this chapter a bit more than usual.

Posted 06.18.2004
by Aristotle Esguerra
10 comments.
Filed under: Book Excerpts; Catholic Church Music (Hume).

10 Comments

Remember, this is a comment on the state of hymnody used *before* Vatican II in the U.S.

So, before cruise missals are launched in the direction of the St. Louis Jesuits, the sisters Toolan, the Minnesota Trinity (aka Joncas, Haas & Haugen), et al., . . . let us recall also recall lovingly the preconciliar dreck.

Liam
06.18.2004 @ 4:49 pm #

(I’ll take credit for the “cruise missal” neologism, btw)

Liam
06.18.2004 @ 4:50 pm #

Cruz Misál, eh?

Obviously the ur-text for the Mozarabic rite.

Bernard Brandt
06.18.2004 @ 5:17 pm #

“(I’ll take credit for the “cruise missal” neologism, btw)”

Oh, I don’t know… my husband played Fr O’Reilly in a production of “Do Patent Leather Shoes…” spent a good portion of the show whapping altar servers in the head with a missal, and several reviewers mentioned the “guided missal,” “cruise missal”, etc.

I am looking forward to this chapter (perhaps I should just spring for a copy of the book? give it to myself for my birthday?)

We do the 4 hymn format, and omitting the “scattering” hymn, having the choir sing a motet, or programming one of the familiar Haggen-Hasz psalms in a spot that is “supposed to be” a hymn when it is a good match for the proper elicits cries of outrage from various sources.

Geri
06.18.2004 @ 6:58 pm #

I picked up this link from the Catholic Ragemonkey. The article is a Catholic community that has been kept alive even though they’ve had no priest for 50 years.
http://asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=992
In reading it, I noticed that because there were so many different languages among the converts they couldn’t really use the bible but had to spread the faith via HYMNS. This makes me wonder: if all we had were hymns to spread the faith how many 20th century hymns could be used? ANY of them?

Ruthann
06.21.2004 @ 1:17 pm #

Ooh! Sorry. The link was gotten from Kross & Sweord….originally from Mark’s Shea’s blog.

Ruthann
06.21.2004 @ 1:20 pm #

I can’t seem to access the Kross & Sweord blog. The ampersand (&) is making it invalid…any tips on how to fix this?

Art
06.21.2004 @ 1:39 pm #

Interesting, inspiring story, thanks.

(A hint of things to come in the US?)

Geri
06.21.2004 @ 11:23 pm #

Art: The url I provided takes you directly to the AsiaNews story about the Catholic community in China. Sorry you can’t get it. I just tried the url myself by copying and pasting from the comment above into my browser and it works fine. It came through very slowly….but it worked.

Ruthann
06.22.2004 @ 11:16 am #

Actually, I can access the AsiaNews story but my problem is with accessing the “Kross&Sweord” blog because of the ampersand.

Art
06.22.2004 @ 11:26 am #

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