CONSOLIDATED STICKY: Traditional Catholic Music

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I am old enough to remember when hymns were almost exclusively about GOD; now it seems more and more of them celebrate US instead. Just another manifestaion of our Oprahfied, “self-esteem” culture, I suppose. One of my favorite Christ-centered hymns was one I actually first saw in an Episcopal hymnal; I’ve never heard it sung in a Catholic Church. It begins:

Here now, O Lord, I see Thee face-to-face,
Here would I touch and handle things unseen;
Here grasp with firmer hand Eternal Grace,
and all my weariness upon Thee lean.


– and is meant as a communion hymn.
I grew up in the Anglican church. I recall that many hymns ended with “Amen”. Now I find I cannot join in the singing of many hymns (and I love to sing at church).
I first became aware of this problem (which had been there for years) when my parish adopted “Come let us build” as its theme song for fund raising. I started to join it and discovered that this recessional song (not a hymn) had virtually nothing to do with God. And it sounded far too much like “One Tin Soldier”!
 
There is just so much that I love.

Anton Bruckner’s sacred motets are gorgeous for mass. Our choir does a couple of his. A relatively affordable cd of them with a good choir is on the Naxos label. “Bruckner Motets - Choir of St. Bride’s Church - Robert Jones”.

Sir Charles Stanford’s sacred music is beautiful as well.

I love so much of Mozart’s sacred music, especially his “Ave Verum Corpus”, “Panis Vivus” and his “Vespers Mass” namely the “Laudate Dominum” from that.

There are also some really beautiful Russian choral pieces that our choir has done - Tschesnokoff, Rachmaninoff for example.

Faure is just incredible with his sacred music. I love his “Ave Maria” and actually chose that for my prayer to the Blessed Mother on our wedding day.

Durufle is another French composer who wrote such beautiful music. His Requiem is one of my favorites. (Not that I don’t like Faure’s. I LOVE both.)

Schubert’s “Deutsche Messe” in German is beautiful. I’ve heard it done both with organ and a capella. Both ways are beautiful. Unfortunately, the English translation for the “Agnus Dei” isn’t correct, so we can’t do that mass anymore here - and it’s one of my favorite mass settings for congregation. 😦 My German friend loves doing it at his church in Germany.

Practically anything from the Renaissance makes me melt in spiritual ecstasy. haha!
  • Allegri’s “Miserere” is gorgeous
  • Tallis’ “Spem in Alium” is perhaps one of the most unearthly works I have ever heard. Words cannot describe what I experience whenever I hear it. I would LOVE to hear it live in a church at mass some time.
The cd “Sancte Deus - a journey through the renaissance” has that piece and an absolutely beautiful compilation of other works by various renaissance composers.
 
To me, TRADITIONAL Catholic music would the O Salutaris, the Tantum Ergo, On This Day Oh Beautiful Mother, Bring Flowers of the Fairest…and one that I especially loved
was the chant that the congregation would say at the end of each station:
One went:
At the Cross her station Keeping, stood the mournful mother weeping…
and I can’t remember the rest, but it warmed my heart to be a part of it.
We have a Choir director who does her best before Mass to get people to do well at Mass while singing the hymns, but the general congregation is pretty dismal, though they
are praising God, not trying out for American Idol with Tracy as Simon Cowell.
 
for all the lovers of Gregorian chant, I just found out that Amazon.com is releasing on June 20th a collection of 99 Essential Chants (mostly Gregorian and Orthodox Chant) for a total of 99 Cents only.
I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that it is the best recession proof Father’s Day gift I could find.
 
I went all over Catholic Answers Forum trying to decide where I should put my comments – I only hope I haven’t made a mistake.
For those of you who can play a CD – that remember the beautiful hymns we used to sing – I want to recommend a CD that is absolute BEAUTIFUL!!! I first read about it in the “St. Anthony’s Messenger” several months ago. It’s a CD that was made by three priests in Northern Ireland and it’s called “The Priests”. I tried to buy it at Border’s but of course, they didn’t have it but ordered it for me. The priests sing such hynmns as “Ave Maria” – “Panis Angelicus” - “Abide With Me” and many more. The “Ave Maria” is so beautiful it brought tears to my eyes.
If you decide to get it, please post a response on this forum – I LOVED it!!!
 
I enjoy the following composers:

Palestrina 😃
Some Mozart
Monteverdi’s Vespers for the Blessed Virgin Mary are pretty amazing. There was a CD by Telarc that included the traditional chants followed by his florid antiphonal responses.

If you like stuff pre-Barqoue
Material from the Notre Dame School is great - 👍
Perotin, Josquin, and others.

And let’s not forget the (reconstructed) music of St. Hildegard of Bingen 🙂

Followed by any of several recordings the traditional Gregorian Chant.

Music is always a heated topic in the Church - as a church musician I’ve always found myself stuck in the middle. On one hand I was very careful to follow the wishes of whatever priest may have been celebrating, but on the other hand I had parish members who desired everything from Gregorian chant to you name it.

In a slightly different vein - here’s a meditative piece that I wrote (non-liturgical use) - a setting of Psalm 62 - youtube.com/watch?v=83fekTybcnY

God bless you all! 🙂 :harp:
 
Sacred music has, over many years drawn me closer and closer to God. I’m not a fan of the Hymns or the hand clapping music that I encounter in my local Presbyterian church. How often I have longed for what I call real Protestant music. When I ask about playing some Bach or Mozart, I am met with looks of horror! "We don’t play that sort of music…I was once told…it’s old fashioned and papist! So one Sunday morning I rebelled. Our church plays music DVD,s before the service starts, it is a vain attempt to quell the chattering women. The ***Noise! *** . But on this Sunday morning something really incredible happened. I replaced the usual DVD with a copy of Leonard Bernstein directing a choir who were singing Mozart’s haunting Ave Verum Corpus. There was a stunned silence; and then came tears and the sound of people holding their breath!
Suffice to say I now get my Bach and Mozart. For this Sundays track I have chosen the beautifully evocative Gabriel’s Oboe by Ennio Morricone from The Mission sound track.
Cant wait!

Mozat link YOU MUST LISTEN!
youtu.be/6KUDs8KJc_c

Morricone link
youtu.be/Qep59A_RwKQ

When you hear music like this you know that God exists!
Love Richard.
 
I’ve recently discovered that Antonin Dvorak’s “Stabat Mater” and “Requiem” are really awesome, especially for those of us who like strong, powerful performances. They are available on iTunes and Amazon.
On the more mellow side, I also recommend Hearts of Spaces “Sacred Treasures” series, (there are five cd’s in the series), the best are the first, fourth, and fifth. They are very relaxing and beautiful. They are also available on iTunes and Amazon.
For those who like getting really deep into Eastern Christian music, there is the series “Orthodox Shrines of the Russian North” on iTunes.
Enjoy!👍
 
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So true. Another of my pet peeves is “Here I am, Lord; is it I, Lord? I have heard you calling in the night…”, which is almost identical in tune to “Here’s the story, of a man named Brady; who was busy with three boys of his own…”

I don’t know about the St. Louis Jesuits, but I personally don’t go to Holy Mass so I can listen to The Brady Bunch. :mad:
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one who hears the Brady Bunch theme in that hymn. Another hymn that really bothers me is** Gift of Finest Wheat** (Richard Prolux) which goes “You satisfy the hungry heart with gift of finest wheat”. The opening strains sound like a jingle for Dinty Moore’s Beef Stew or something like that. 😃
 
Hello there everyone. I actually went straight to the music section since that’s one of the things I like about religion in general - its music. But particularly Christian music. The orthodox ahve the best “music” in my opinion with their chants, and I have listened to chants in Russian, Greek, Arabic and English.

Unfortunately I can’t say the same about Catholic music. all the chant seems to be gregorian (and rarely, plainsong), and its always in Latin. Is there any sort of website, youtube cahnnel, album etc that I can get that is not gregorian chants, and any that are in English or other languages?

Another thing I am trying to compose is a playlist of Japanese Catholic hymns, since I am learning the language. You can find some on Youtube but I haven’t found an extensive list. Anyone else also into it?
 
A combination of factors (my father instilling the love of classicalmsic in me, being in choirs mos of my life and my love of Sacred music and preference of more traditional music at church, not even asking for Palestrina, Allegri or Tallis…)

I’ve enjoyed singing many of these (though I always joke that Beethovenmay have just had it in for Soprano Is given how high some notes are and they’re sustained over various measures at times.)

Some of my favourites:

Mozart - Mass in C Minor (esp. the Kyrie)
Mozart - The sequantiae of his Requiem in D Minor (especially theKyrie with its nod to Handel’s"And With His Stripes…" and the Lacrymosa)
Mozart -Ave Verum Corpus
Allegri - Miserere Mei, Deus
Palestrina - a lot of his works but of course, Missa Papae Marcelli (I like the Kyrie)
Tallis - SPem in Allium
Henry F. Lyte - Abide With Me (though used by various denominations)
Faure -In Paradisum

Most of those are in Latin which, for me, comes easy thanks to 8 years taking it as a foeign language plus knowing Spanish andsome Italian helped. Many more of the common, more modern hymns come to mind but I decided to stick to classics.
 
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