Check out this GREAT choir!

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Rand_Al_Thor

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Peace be with you!

This is the choir that sings some Masses (usually the High Masses) at either the church I usually go to or a couple of other churches in Portland. This clip is from when they went to Rome for some big choir competition and took gold in all categories.

rdrop.com/~jamesb/cantores/track4.mp3

In Christ,
Rand
 
Josquin des Pres, I imagine, though I do not recognize the specific Mass.

Splendid. Stunning. Thank you so much for sharing it with us.
 
No, it is Tomas Luis de Vittoria’s “Missa: O Quam Gloriosam est Regnam”. How do I know? I’ve sung it. It was the Mass setting my choir used for St. Joseph Cathedral’s (Baton Rouge, LA) 200th anniversary in 1992. I wish I had a way to post some of the music from the CD we made in 1998!
 
The “Et incarnatus est” in the Credo from that Mass by Victoria in my opinion best captures the solemnity on the moment. The choir at an All Saints’ Day Mass I attended sang it nice and slow.

You hear the start of that part in the Credo from this clip (near the end) on Amazon.com:

Credo - fourth sample track

Notice how the quick polyphony turns into something more unified, although this recording is a bit too quick for my tastes.
 
It takes an awful lot of practice to sing such music but the end results are worth it. When a choir is sufficiently practiced in the music, they can enter into the music with hearts and souls to glorify Our Lord. As a chorister, I longed for these transcendental moments…we had a hymn that we would sing at the begining of practice as a prayer…

“When in our music, God is glorified; and adoration leaves no room for pride; it was as if all creation cried; alleulia!”
 
I recognized the voices in the choir imeadeately. I have sang with them and the Choir Director is a friend of mine - Dean Applegate. Catntores In Ecclesia is one corner of the salvation of sacred music in the Church. When I was singing with them we sung Widor’s Mass for Two Choirs and Two Organs for a High Mass (Dominican Rite) and also for a concert at Mt Angel Abbey.

The most amazing thing about this choir is that it is mostly children or young teens. Whenever I hear the banal childrens choirs I remember my time at Holy Rosary and know that it can be done much better. Also, this quality of music comes from about the same amount of practice as your average Church Choir - so really there is no excuse for the mediocrity that we find in most parishes these days.

A little side note: The director, Dean, was self taught and was not formally trained as a director and he has been able to do this just through his love of sacred music.
 
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brotherhrolf:
No, it is Tomas Luis de Vittoria’s “Missa: O Quam Gloriosam est Regnam”. How do I know? I’ve sung it. It was the Mass setting my choir used for St. Joseph Cathedral’s (Baton Rouge, LA) 200th anniversary in 1992. I wish I had a way to post some of the music from the CD we made in 1998!
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Right you are. I’m not used to hearing Vittoria end his movements with open fifths, but I guess it was still fairly common practice at the time.
 
Mosher, I totally agree with you. We could transform liturgical music across the US if we could convince people that IT IS NOT HARD TO SING POLYPHONIC MUSIC or GREGORIAN CHANT! I have sung in choirs since I was a kid - i.e. 1959. I learned to sing Gregorian Chant in our “children’s choir”. Kids are a “tabula rasa” and can learn quite easily. I long for a return to sacred music which is indeed sacred.
 
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jbuck919:
Right you are. I’m not used to hearing Vittoria end his movements with open fifths, but I guess it was still fairly common practice at the time.
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Josquin and Vittoria are around a 100 years apart. I’m no music historian by any strech of the imagination. As for me, I think Monteverdi’s 1610 Vespers for the Blessed Virgin are the most sublime piece of music that came from the Rennaisance. This is the ONE piece of music I always wanted to sng.
 
It is quite good.

One question:

How is a congregation supposed to sing along?
 
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cheese_sdc:
It is quite good.

One question:

How is a congregation supposed to sing along?
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A congregation is not supposed to sing along with a polyphonic piece performed by a trained choir. The notion that the congregation is supposed to sing everything is a modern innovation and has never been mandated in the rubrics. Just sit and listen, and get used to the idea. It is a disgrace that modern US parishes with 5000 families of record do not even have a serious adult choir.

I hate to use the example of a heretical displacement, but the Anglicans solved this long ago by allowing the most beautiful singing by the choir at many parts of the service while the congregation gets vigorously to sing from a huge repertory of strong hymns at various points. Purely aesthetically, and speaking as a church musician, they are the one true church. However, this would not work in the Roman Catholic Church, because our hymnody is ghastly and the ability of our choirs to carry on their part of the load practically non-existent.

The only real solution for the RC church is what they have practically done in Rome, with those ceremonies you see from St. Peter’s. It is not an ideal performance of the chant, but it is not absolutely awful, and it does allow everybody who can follow the music to sing along. Supplementation with polyphony would be very nice, but as I just pointed out, they now don’t even do that at St. Peter’s in Rome.

The person who posted that this stuff is easy knows little of what he speaks. Polyphony is extremely demanding and requires the most intense professional preparation and rehearsal. The Gregorian chant, in its original unaccompanied form, is an extremely complex repertoire that was originally delegated to specialized scholae in post-Carolingian Europe, at monasteries where a few talented men could figure out what at that time was a mind-bogglingly complex set of chants. Even today, at Solesmes, those recordings you hear are made only by a handful of monks, and the day-to-day liturgy is accompanied on the organ.
 
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jbuck919:
The person who posted that this stuff is easy knows little of what he speaks. Polyphony is extremely demanding and requires the most intense professional preparation and rehearsal. The Gregorian chant, in its original unaccompanied form, is an extremely complex repertoire that was originally delegated to specialized scholae in post-Carolingian Europe, at monasteries where a few talented men could figure out what at that time was a mind-bogglingly complex set of chants. Even today, at Solesmes, those recordings you hear are made only by a handful of monks, and the day-to-day liturgy is accompanied on the organ.
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I respectfully disagree. My music training consisted of being in the children’s choir in grade school. This was in 1957- 1959 and we children did indeed learn Gregorian chant in Latin. We were later taught to play the recorder and to learn to read music in the 6th and 7th grade. In 8th grade, I took up the trumpet, had music lessons until the 10th grade and sang in my high school’s choir. That is the extent of my musical training. When I joined our ailing cathedral choir in 1983, all I brought with me was a rudimentary ability to read music, a willingness to work, and a tenor voice. I grant you that we did have professionally trained musicians and vocalists in the choir but they were few. Most of our choir were volunteers. Given a good organist and a good choir director and a willingness to work on the part of the choir (we practiced three hours a week), polyphony and Gregorian chant are within the abilities of a good many local parish choirs. Does this mean we could take the Liber Usualis and use the chant of the day? No. Does this mean we could take a 14th century early polyphonic mass setting and sing it off the bat? No. But it is attainable certainly at a cathedral parish unless you are reaching for elitist heights. I can assure you that our congregation is quite happy with our Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus and the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon, France who presided at the 200th anniversary liturgy during which we sang the Vittoria mass was sufficiently impressed with our efforts.

It is precisely the attitude that this glorious music can only be attempted by professionals which derails any effort by a parish to bring back sacred polyphony and chant. It is demanding. It does require a great deal of practice. And it can be done by mere amateurs like myself. I sang in the choir for 18 years and stopped only when family matters took precedence over the time required to devote to the choir.
 
A ha! My friend jbuck, I just read your comment about never hearing the Exultet sung without wincing on another thread. How are we to restore sacred polyphony and chant to HMC if we insist upon perfection? I would rather wince at a clinker in a choir attempting to sing sacred polyphony and chant than subject myself to an aesthetically perfect rendition of a modern rock hymn by a “praise” band. Put it this way…I have driven 20 to 25 miles to go to Mass at our cathedral parish since 1982 rather than face having to put up with the a’strummin’ and a’grinnin’ Masses at my geographical home parish much less put up with the outright rock masses of today. If I want to hear perfection, I’ll buy a CD. I appreciate and laud your quest for musical perfection. My quest is to introduce to the parishes that which they have lost. Placing sacred polyphony and chant upon a pedestal which can only be attempted by those with impeccable music credentials will only continue the travesty which is the swill of contemporary liturgical music.
 
Our entire parish (which only seats 350)(regular attendees) sang the Mass of the Angels on a regular basis at the Sunday 9am Novus Ordo Mass for years.

Blessings,
Angel
 
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jbuck919:
The person who posted that this stuff is easy knows little of what he speaks. Polyphony is extremely demanding and requires the most intense professional preparation and rehearsal. The Gregorian chant, in its original unaccompanied form, is an extremely complex repertoire that was originally delegated to specialized scholae in post-Carolingian Europe, at monasteries where a few talented men could figure out what at that time was a mind-bogglingly complex set of chants. Even today, at Solesmes, those recordings you hear are made only by a handful of monks, and the day-to-day liturgy is accompanied on the organ.
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I agree that it can be difficult at times however the selection that you heard from the Op is from largly an untrained choir with only a once a week practice. As I noted they are mostly children and teens with a few exceptions and a few trained voices. In short it is your typical church choir. I think that Dean Applegate has landed on something that we all can learn - if you love the music Christ will fill in the gaps of your labor.
 
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brotherhrolf:
No, it is Tomas Luis de Vittoria’s “Missa: O Quam Gloriosam est Regnam”. How do I know? I’ve sung it. It was the Mass setting my choir used for St. Joseph Cathedral’s (Baton Rouge, LA) 200th anniversary in 1992. I wish I had a way to post some of the music from the CD we made in 1998!
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I think the latin should be in the masculine. “Missa: O Quam Gloriosum est Regnum”

I would love to see the polyphonic chant return to mass instead of the contemporary music they have.
 
Oh, my, it is good to read about some serious music.

The polyphonic MP3 was lovely, and almost made up for tonight’s vigil Mass…

They couldn’t even stick to the hippy-poppy glurge in the OCP, but gave us 3 songs on a song sheet, all from Protestant Christian pop. The one for meditation was that awful “Tell the people that I love them.” Gag me with a salted slug! That belongs at a campfire, at summer camp, along with “Cum By Ya” and “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore”… I keep thinking of that old teenage sob song, “Tell Laura I love her…”

I just put my head down and prayed for a Mass with real music.

Thanks for letting me rant.

How I would love to sing a grand old thundering hymn that reminds us not to sin!

I’m an ex-chorister, too. It is not impossible to train a lay ear to perform, a capella, polyphonic music. I was singing it before I knew the difference between Beethoven and Scarlatti!

And before I die I’d love to sing in a choir doing that Tallis piece, the one in, was it 40 parts?
 
I am greatly encouraged by these posts! Local parish choirs can sing plainsong chants like Jesu Dulcis Memoria or Parce Domine. The important thing is to get started in salvaging our majestic choral heritage. We threw the baby out with the bathwater after VII. Anyone remember “Sons of God”? I graduated from high school in 1969 - that was the processional for our graduation Mass. Want to know what the Offertory and Communion hymns were? How about Bridge over Troubled Waters and Sounds of Silence (I am still offended almost 40 years later). Recessional? “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love”. Yet, our choral director at my parish teaches choral music at our local magnet public high school. If these kids (the majority of whom are not Catholic) can learn Latin and polyphony and put on a magnificent Christmas concert each year in our cathedral, why can’t our own choirs do the same?
 
It’s not that hard for a dedicated parish choir to learn polyphonic pieces. The choir director can help them by making practice tapes of their parts, etc. Once a choir gets over the hump of learning to sing polyphonically, simpler polyphonic pieces should come easily enough. I have found that it is good practice to listen to recordings and try to follow my own part.

Now the really hard part is finding tenors…
 
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brotherhrolf:
Yet, our choral director at my parish teaches choral music at our local magnet public high school. If these kids (the majority of whom are not Catholic) can learn Latin and polyphony and put on a magnificent Christmas concert each year in our cathedral, why can’t our own choirs do the same?
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Amen. We (myself dreadfully included) often don’t give people enough credit. Polyphony, though challenging, is not something that we need professionals for. We can have dedicated amateurs sing polyphony. It won’t be perfect, but does that matter?
The Gregorian chant, in its original unaccompanied form, is an extremely complex repertoire that was originally delegated to specialized scholae in post-Carolingian Europe, at monasteries where a few talented men could figure out what at that time was a mind-bogglingly complex set of chants. Even today, at Solesmes, those recordings you hear are made only by a handful of monks, and the day-to-day liturgy is accompanied on the organ.
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I’ve heard too many children sing along with the chant at mass to agree entirely with this. I think what is important is perhaps using only a few chant settings as opposed to the entire Kyriale. Most 1962-mass churches that I’ve been to use either Missa de Angelis (because its supplied in those little red books) or Missa Deus Genitor alme (is this the proper name?). It is challenging, but again, not out of peoples’ grasps.
 
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