The Recovering Choir Director

Thanks for the link — that is a blog I had forgotten to check out recently.
I’m heading to a diocesan workshop myself in a few weeks.
All in all, I was pleased with a previous music conference my pastor asked me to attend. (I can NOT say the same for a diocese sponsored “liturgical day of refelction” suggested by our liturgist.)

Incidentally any readers thinking about attending “The Place of Chant in Liturgy Today” conference in Mundelien [sp?], Illinois in September? The director of the Schola from Gonzaga U (about which I have heard nothing but good,) is one of the main speakers.
I think for a change I actually have both the money AND the time. I can’t seem to download the registration form, but Dr McNamara of the Liturgy Institute there is snail mailing me one.

(p.s. Aristotle, do you still want the spare Hymns Psalms and Spiritual Canticles, or shall I offer it to someone else?)

What the Bishop says goes, of course. Nobody disputes that. The question concerns what is binding on musicians in absence of specific directives on such issues as the communion hymn. The burden of many mistaken writings and speeches on this topic is to convince musicians that they must take it upon themselves to implement MCW and LMT in their parishes as a matter of church law. This is what’s incorrect.

Peace, all.

One apt excerpt from IGRM 2000 regarding the communion song: its “function is to express outwardly the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, to give evidence of joy of heart and to highlight more the ‘communitarian’ character of the communion procession.” (no, 86)

I think for Ms Oost-Zinner to conclude an assembly communion song need not be promoted at all would fall under Liam’s liturgical sword: lack of authority.

Another point: a strict approach to the IGRM (as Liam suggests with the Agnus Dei) would cut off nearly every choral Mass setting which repeats phrases of text beyond the letter one finds in the Roman Missal. For example, “et in terra pax” follows “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” not a repetition of the first phrase. In practice, such additions are rarely on the radar screen of bishops.

Except that the repeated text itself has at least been approved by Rome, well within the historic usage of the rite.

Of course, the assembly could chant, too. Unlike polyphony, chant at least is unison singing that the assembly could be given the means of joining if it wanted to.

Moreover, I quoted number 87 from the new GIRM not number 56 from the old. I think you’re wrong.

Todd, the old appendix approach died when the new Instruction was published in its current form in 2002. The decision was deliberate: the bishops and Vatican had found that having adaptations published separately meant that people had to look in two places, and often did not think to do so (a problem in both directions, btw), leading to errors or lack of full context in understanding the rubrics and instructions. I have to say that I think the new approach is a big improvement in that respect. It does, however, mean that the Instruction as published in authorized form does vary from conference to conference.

Peace, Mark.

Nowhere did I say choir motets are “forbidden,” I merely said they were not given options. A “suitable liturgical song” would not, in my view, include motets, although I will concede that on occasion, a motet with a text based on the psalms or the liturgy could be allowed. IGRM 40 lays down an ideal: the emphasis on assembly singing, but the leeway to not have the people sing everything within the realm of possibility.

IGRM 87 could mean a non-psalm setting as a “suitable liturgical song,” and my sense would be that with this choice, songs of a eucharistic or seasonal theme would be permitted.

I think a music director who never or rarely programmed congregational music during Communion could be criticized. I would also have no problem with a music director who ocaasionally programmed a motet with an appropriate text assuming her or his overall approach was in keeping with IGRM 40 and 86.