Contemporary Liturgical Music

[CountrySteve]

I think the average parish can add chant to the liturgical celebrations. Plainsong style chant is within the grasp of every parish and priest. After all, it is not guitar music that the Church asks the faithful to employ in the liturgy, but rather it is Gregorian chant.
Of course one shouldn’t expect a Beethoven or Oxford quality choir, that would be demanding too much. We should give our best effort and humbly submit to Mother Church’s desire for liturgical music.

CS

 

[Anne1964]

In my parish for Sunday Mass we chant the Gloria, the Sanctus (Missa de Angelis), and the Agnus Dei. Occasionally the Our Father. Adoration/Benediction hymns are also chanted in Latin.

We are a small traditional novus ordo parish with a pastor who used to be a professional organist. We have a truly stunning very expensive organ and the best organist in the Diocese. He is paid a very generous salary and everyone in my parish sings.

We have beautiful music and people love it. I do think music set the tone for a reverent Mass.

I remember being shocked when I visited another parish for Sunday Mass and hardly anyone sang.

 

[misstherese]

I used to belong to a parish who had a priest that composed “Sing to the Mountains” and other popular contemporary music. I wasn’t much of a fan but I thought all church music was like that and just accepted it.

I moved about two years ago and attended a Latin Mass for the first time. I was astonished at how beautiful the music was.

They had a group of women who sang in Latin the whole time with some organ accompanying it. You would’ve thought it was actual angels singing. You couldn’t see them until they came up to receive communion. They sang from the back of the church, so it wasn’t a performance and all the focus was on what the priest was doing.

I’ve heard the organ is a sacred instrument. Is this true?

 

[twf]

Chant is not easy.
There needs to be highly experienced Schola director.
Most parishes and pastors, simply do not want it.
If people want something different (more to their personal taste) they need only see the Pastor. Either he will say OK, or he will say no.
Simple as that.

Full on Gregorian chant takes discipline to learn and is usually only found in cathedrals or the odd very traditional parish… but vernacular plain chant is exceedingly common. At least in my experience. I suppose it depends what part of the world you’re in. I would say about half of priests chant at least sometimes in these parts… and I personally greatly appreciate that with or without the added plus of a full schola.

 

[OraLabora]

Full on Gregorian chant takes discipline to learn and is usually only found in cathedrals or the odd very traditional parish… but vernacular plain chant is exceedingly common. At least in my experience. I suppose it depends what part of the world you’re in. I would say about half of priests chant at least sometimes in these parts… and I personally greatly appreciate that with or without the added plus of a full schola.

Agreed, it takes discipline, but it’s not unsurmountable. I belong to a men’s schola that does it monthly from September to June. We rotate around different parishes. We are lucky that we are near a Benedictine abbey that uses Gregorian chant daily and we have had chant sessions with the choirmaster. We’re solid enough now that the sessions are more for polishing our technique than learning.

The schola started back in '97 and I joined in 2002. At that time, the abbey’s choirmaster (now former choirmaster) was our choirmaster. We started off simple, with organ accompaniment. Now we do more complex stuff like offertories and graduals, a cappella. But it took years of effort to get there.

To the OP I would say if you don’t like the music, rather than parish-hop, get involved. Become part of the traditional choir; lack of choristers can be a problem if too few show up to sing a Mass, though our schola has chanted with as few as 7 members at Masses (we also do the Liturgy of the Hours in Advent and Lent; and we do recitals outside the liturgy). Start simple with a few of the easier introits and communion hymns, and simpler settings for the Kyriale. Use simple antiphons for the responsorial psalm instead of trying to tackle a Mode V Gradual with a change of key mid-way! We do the responsorial psalm in the vernacular (French in our case) on Gregorian modes. Occasionally we’ll do a gradual (we do Christus factus est for Lauds on Holy Saturday), and we usually do offertories and complex alleluias now, though not all of them, just a handful that we’ve mastered.

Good amateur choirs don’t happen all by themselves. They happen because people love chant enough to get involved, and to put in the grunt work necessary to learn and improve. I started as chorister in 2002 with zero musical knowledge or ability. Now I teach the choir how to properly psalmody in Latin and I chant the Liturgy of the Hours daily. It does mean showing up to rehearsals, and doing a lot of work at home with the help of Youtube and other recordings.

 

[OraLabora]

I used to belong to a parish who had a priest that composed “Sing to the Mountains” and other popular contemporary music. I wasn’t much of a fan but I thought all church music was like that and just accepted it.

I moved about two years ago and attended a Latin Mass for the first time. I was astonished at how beautiful the music was.

They had a group of women who sang in Latin the whole time with some organ accompanying it. You would’ve thought it was actual angels singing. You couldn’t see them until they came up to receive communion. They sang from the back of the church, so it wasn’t a performance and all the focus was on what the priest was doing.

I’ve heard the organ is a sacred instrument. Is this true?

It helps the beauty that the corpus of Gregorian chant is about 90% the Bible verses, most from the psalms. The music is designed to support the text, not the other way around.

The good news is that Gregorian chant need not be restricted to the pre-Vatican II Mass. All the chant books necessary and adapted to the post-Vatican II Mass exist, and are readily available on-line or at good religious bookstores. The three best are:

The Graduale Romanum of 1974, the official chant book for the post-Vatican II Mass;
The Graduale Triplex, which is the 1974 GR with the neumes from ancient manuscripts superposed above and below the square-note staff, for advance practitioners only;
The Gregorian Missal which exists in Latin-English, Latin-French, Latin-Italian and Latin-Germain (and maybe Spanish, I forget); it is good for Sundays and feasts only, whereas the GR is for every day of the week but is Latin (and of course some Greek) only.

I’ve been to countless ordinary form Masses in Gregorian chant, and of course have myself sung at many at the parish level.

Gregorian chant is a rich heritage of the Church that deserves preservation and exposure outside of monasteries, but that will only happen if people get involved.

 

[Megan7]

I left a parish because of the “Glory and Praise” music. I now attend an FSSP parish which offers Gregorian chant and Sacred Polyphony. Masses seven days a week and confession before and after every Mass.

Speaking of which, this CD by the Fraternity of Saint Peter=FSSP (in Communion with Rome) is heavenly! I love them! Cannot praise them enough.

Thanks, Corsair! I hope you like this video.

The REQUIEM

youtube.com/watch?v=f_iQHw5b8z0

 

[OraLabora]

I forgot to mention the Graduale Simplex in my previous post. A Vatican gradual with simpler chant settings using simpler antiphons more in the style of the antiphons of the Divine Office (the simpler ones), and simple rather than solemn psalm tones. The book was purposely created so that lesser churches and less-abled choirs could learn and sing chant.

 

[M-Dent]

Our Parish has utilized Meinrad tones and English texts, as well as the Graduale Simplex and Latin texts.