Do you like this version of Holy Holy?

[Sam_Maloney]

I like it, because it’s far more reverant and ‘churchly’ than the others used in my area.

But so much goes to how a piece is performed-- Ms Squeaknsqwack, our musical dictator, makes Chant sound like Anne Murray, and takes pride in that fact.

 

[Edward62]

Ooh I love it! It sounds JUST like the music director at my home parish used to play it (before the pastor fired him and I moved away though).

 

[Namid]

I guess i don’t leave our parish very much. This is the one I have heard since a child and didn’t know there were others.

 

[Cat]

I don’t understand why the cantors would change the mass settings. The music choices are usually up to the music director or if no music director, then the organist/pianist and sometimes the pastor. I’ve cantored at numerous parishes for regular Sunday masses and never once did I have a choice in the music. The only time I’ve ever had a say was during a funeral should the family not have any requests for music, or during a wedding when the couple left it up to the musicians to choose all of the music or didn’t have a preference for any particular mass setting.

All that aside, I can understand getting confused with the settings changing constantly like that no matter who is deciding the music.

At one of the parishes where I often play, many of the cantors only know Mass of Creation. So the Liturgy Director will indicate on the syllabus that the cantor can either do Mass of Creation or the Mass of Angels and Saints.

So perhaps that’s why cantors change the Mass settings. If they don’t know a certain Mass, they sing what they do know.

 

[Pro_Domina]

Gee, thanks. 12 years of piano lessons down the toilet.

If my day could get any happier, I would be at a funeral.

Get yourself on an organ!

Piano?

I rather go on a harpsicord.

 

[Cat]

Get yourself on an organ!

Piano?

I rather go on a harpsicord.

I’m sorry, but I can’t play an organ. I wish I had learned when I was young, but I spent between 2-4 hours a day (more on weekends) practicing piano and didn’t really have the time to learn a second instrument.

There is a very different technique to playing an organ than playing a piano. They only look alike, but they’re not.

Also, there are the pedals, which at this point, I cannot manage because of the surgery that “froze” my foot in a locked position. I can still do the pedals on a piano, but I have no side to side movement in the foot, which is necessary to playing pedals. I’m sure there are disabled organists who manage to play with worse deformities. But I’m not them.

Perhaps YOU should learn to appreciate the beauties of a well-played piano in Mass. The Church has NOT forbidden this instrument. It does not fall into that nebulous category of instruments that are exclusively “secular.”

 

[Pro_Domina]

The piano is too Renaissance. And jazzy.

Plus I learned to play the organ in piano lessons.

Yet my real instrument is the trumpet.

Plus Handel did not use the piano…

Trumpet, organ, timpani and drums.

Better than that is marching and playing.

 

[Sarabande]

At one of the parishes where I often play, many of the cantors only know Mass of Creation. So the Liturgy Director will indicate on the syllabus that the cantor can either do Mass of Creation or the Mass of Angels and Saints.

So perhaps that’s why cantors change the Mass settings. If they don’t know a certain Mass, they sing what they do know.

I didn’t think of that. Thank you. I forget that many, if not most, cantors are volunteers and some aren’t musicians, learning the music by rote.

Speaking of “Mass of Creation”, I just discovered today that our Director of Worship for the archdiocese will be making that mass obsolete within the archdiocese. For now, they will be allowing it for a while if cantors or other musicians don’t know any other masses, but they will working to choose new or better mass settings for everyone in the diocese to learn and use. I believe they will be giving a time line as to when this needs to be implemented. It’s coming from the top down - meaning the Archbishop. This is just a very minute change to numerous other additions and implementation our archbishop and new DofW will be doing.

 

[Sarabande]

Get yourself on an organ!

Piano?

I rather go on a harpsicord.

Organs are not easy to play - especially real ones. You can sometimes tell when the person playing an organ is more of a pianist - they don’t use the pedal board among other things. But, a pianist can learn if they have the time AND the money to shell out. Our organist is also an incredibly gifted pianist, having learned on the piano first. The pianist I was working with today for a concert we’re performing, also learned how to play the organ, so he can play both and is the music director for a Catholic Church. Again, though, that takes money. Some parishes will foot the bill to help their musicians continue their education and training, but many don’t. And when is the last time any of us have met a well-off church musician unless they have a spouse supplementing the income with a good salary or if they’re independantly wealthy? I haven’t and I’m in this circle of musicians a lot.

Although I absolutely LOVE the organ for mass, the piano, if played by a competant musician can be used very beautifully and reverently for mass.

Harpsichord is awesome, but in a large church if the organ is broken and the parish can’t afford to fix right away, the piano is the best option to use and will carry better than a harpsichord.

I can understand ing at the thought of a piano when it’s played honkey tonk-like or when a “pianist” fakes his/her way through pieces at a few masses I’ve attended in the past. That’s a HUGE

Anyway… back on topic.

 

[Sarabande]

The piano is too Renaissance. And jazzy…

Plus Handel did not use the piano…

Piano too Renaissance? The piano wasn’t even around during the Renaissance. The piano was used first in the classical repertoire. Jazz came much, much later.

Handel didn’t use the piano because the piano that we know today wasn’t invented yet. They had the harpsichord at that time.
My memory is a little foggy as to when the pianoforte came about, but I believe it was a little after Handel. And even that had a different sound from the piano as we know it today.

 

[cheese_sdc]

I like it with guitars, bass, and piano - played just a touch slow and a bit jazzy.

 

[Pro_Domina]

I like it with guitars, bass, and piano - played just a touch slow and a bit jazzy.

Jazzy?

Do you want to be burned on the stake in this thread or are you joking?

Gitars and the sorts.

[Edited]

 

[Cavaille-Coll]

Works for me just fine. Of course, we all know that a REAL pipe organ has at least THREE manuals

REAL pipe organs aren’t built by Allen! However, I’d take an Allen any day over a Rodgers.

The organ in my parish is a two manual, 11 rank Estey/Richard Bond instrument. There are many surviving pipe organs in Mexico with one manual, divided into bass and treble sections like an old American pump organ with separate registrations.

 

[Cat]

REAL pipe organs aren’t built by Allen! However, I’d take an Allen any day over a Rodgers.

The organ in my parish is a two manual, 11 rank Estey/Richard Bond instrument. There are many surviving pipe organs in Mexico with one manual, divided into bass and treble sections like an old American pump organ with separate registrations.

Hi Cavaille-Coll–sorry to take the topic off subject, but I just have to comment on how beautiful your yellow tabby cat is!

 

[Cavaille-Coll]

Hi Cavaille-Coll–sorry to take the topic off subject, but I just have to comment on how beautiful your yellow tabby cat is!

Watch me bring it back!

Leo thanks you for the compliment. It’s hard to tell from the small photo, but he is a 22 lb. Maine Coon and enjoys playing the organ, especially at the same time as I’m playing. He can literally stand on his hind legs and reach the keys of my 1950 Estey Virtuoso. He also likes pianos, particularly early in the morning when he jumps on the keys. We also share a mutual dislike for Haugen’s Lutheran Mass of Cremation. For English Mass parts, I prefer the Heritage Mass (Alstott), Community Mass (Proulx), and any of the Mass parts in the Adoremus Hymnal.