The Recovering Choir Director

While at Colloquium 2008 I had the opportunity to meet some fellow musician-bloggers who (I think) started their blogs during my approximately 18-month blog sabbatical. In alphabetical order (and roughly ascending order of activity):

• “PrayingTwice” of Cantate Deo
• Kimberly of Catholic musician of the NLM
• Scelata* (frequently updated)

Catholic blogging pioneer Fr. Rob Johansen (Thrown Back), with whom I had the pleasure of dining and conversing at Colloquium XVIII, has posted a multimedia presentation (pictures, audio and his own commentary) of the Requiem Mass that he celebrated in Loyola University’s Madonna della Strada chapel.

Check it out.

St. Odilo Parish in Berwyn, Illinois has released mp3 recordings of the Ordinary of the Victoria Missa Simile Est Regnum Coelorum (Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei) on their website and on the MusicaSacra Forum. The ad hoc choir consisted of a subset of Colloquium attendees singing under the direction of Scott Turkington.

Sheet music of this Mass is freely available at the Tomas Luis de Victoria supersite of Nancho Alvarez.

Fr. Frank Phillips CR, pastor of St. John Cantius Parish and founder of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius delivered this lecture on June 19, 2008 at the Church Music Association of America’s Colloquium XVIII. He tells of his own personal experiences immediately following the Second Vatican Council (including an episode involving incinerators and volumes of Gregorian Chant), his years under Monsignors Martin B. Hellriegel and Richard J. Schuler, and the initial difficulties of establishing a solid music program at Cantius.

Listen to the lecture (45 min.), hosted by MusicaSacra:

Download it here.

Making the perfect the enemy of the good is always a temptation in music; so much more can it be when the most appropriate sacred music is used within the context of divine worship. And yet, when human frailty manifests itself within the execution of sacred music, sometimes the result can be illuminating for the singer, conductor and listener.

Case in point: Sunday’s Offertory antiphon and motet, whose words are taken from Psalm 16:5-7:

Pérfice gréssus méos in sémitis túis,
ut non moveántur vestígia méa:
inclína áurem túam, et exáudi vérba méa:
mirífica misericórdias túas,
qui sálvos fácis sperántes in te, Dómine.

Perfect thou my goings in thy paths,
that my footsteps be not moved:
incline thy ear unto me, and hear my words:
show forth thy wonderful mercies,
thou who savest them that trust in thee, O Lord.

Modes III and IV - which happen to be my favorite modes - proved challenging to more than a few chant choirs over the week of the CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium. Last Sunday was no different. The schola meandered through the melody of the underlined text uncertainly, but gamely achieved the cadence of the phrase and continued the chant through the end without incident.

As an appropriate coda, the polyphonic choir started the Di Lasso setting of the same text, stopped before the completion of the words “Pérfice gréssus méos” and started it again, this time without incident.

A perfectionist would have pilloried the efforts of the schola and choir. (In a different, less mature time in my life, I would have done so, without a doubt alienating those who put so much time and effort into it.) Of course everyone wants to do better next time and allow the correct melody, rather than errors in execution, to draw attention to the words. But upon reading the underlined text, isn’t it somehow appropriate that the schola started to waver - and recover - exactly where it did? And isn’t it somehow fitting that the choir had to start over after singing those first three words?

This brings me to an important point that Fr. Frank Phillips, C.R., founder of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius made in his insightful, humorous and inspiring presentation last Wednesday:

When I directed the choir, I always told them before Mass…I’d say: “Once Mass begins, there are no mistakes, because what you are offering is your very best to the honor and glory of God.”

And sometimes, like last Sunday, mistakes serve to call even more effective attention to the words. I find both occurrences really quite appropriate - even providential - for the first Colloquium in Chicago, and looked at a certain way, they can provide a lesson for all choirs both now and into the future. Let us never lose sight of the ultimate recipient of our musical offering.

are being posted on the MusicaSacra Forum as they become available.

Right now most of the files are of the polyphonic works; more chant files will come online soon.

If Colloquium attendees have any audio files they would like to have MusicaSacra.com host, please contact me and I will place them on the server personally. Be sure to provide a reasonably accurate description of the file, and limit the bitrate to 128kbps.

Here is an mp3 recording of a choir, composed of a subset of Colloquium 2008 participants, singing the Palestrina setting of Tu Es Petrus a 6. This motet was sung within the context of a Mass offered for the intentions of Benedict XVI, after the proper Offertory Antiphon.

The director is Horst Buchholz. Feel free to sing along with your own PDF copy of the piece.