MERGED: Spem in alium/Mass - the compositions

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Sarabande

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I didn’t know where to place this… My husband and I were just listening to a recording of Thomas Tallis’s “Spem in alium”. It’s a 40-part choral motet. Whenever I hear it, I can’t help but imagine that this is how heaven would sound like. It is so spiritually overwhelming. I would love to hear this during mass one day.

If you have never heard it, you can listen to a part of it on here, although you can’t get a full appreciation. I have this cd. It’s awesome!!! Track 2:

amazon.com/Sancte-Deus-Journey-Through-Renaissance/dp/B00004XMYS/ref=sr_1_15/102-6716616-3631303?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1174852406&sr=1-15
 
The problem with this is that most choirs don’t have the choral forces necessary to sing this. Mine is a cathedral choir and we average about 24 voices.
 
brotherhrolf said:
The problem with this is that most choirs don’t have the choral forces necessary to sing this. Mine is a cathedral choir and we average about 24 voices.
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Oh, I know… It’s just wishful thinking. 🙂 Ours is also a Cathedral choir - a volunteer choir with about 30 voices and my husband sings in it. Although it has done a lot of Tallis, I don’t think it has the musicianship to accomplish one voice per part (if there were 40 voices). They have some musicians in the choir like my husband, but most are “lay” people who appreciate and want this kind of music at mass and willing to work hard to achieve it.

It would be really neat to see parishes within a diocese get their best musicians together to achieve this for a mass at a cathedral.
 
Another CD to put on my Amazon wish list! 😉

It includes one of my favorite composers, William Byrd.
 
Sarabande said:
Oh, I know… It’s just wishful thinking. 🙂 Ours is also a Cathedral choir - a volunteer choir with about 30 voices and my husband sings in it. Although it has done a lot of Tallis, I don’t think it has the musicianship to accomplish one voice per part (if there were 40 voices). They have some musicians in the choir like my husband, but most are “lay” people who appreciate and want this kind of music at mass and willing to work hard to achieve it.

It would be really neat to see parishes within a diocese get their best musicians together to achieve this for a mass at a cathedral.
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We do eight part routinely. We just don’t have the numbers to do much beyond this.

We have four paid lead choristers - our section leaders. The rest of us are voulunteers. And, yes, we have been augmented by a sister parish which sings pretty much as we do. But blend is a big problem. As well as the problem of just how many people we can put up in the loft.
 
I own another recording of this piece (done by the Tallis Scholars). Its some of the most amazing music I’ve ever heard. If this were ever done in some huge resonant cathedral…I can’t even imagine. As great a recording our two CD’s are, I bet it doesn’t hold a candle to a live performance.
 
pm1853 said:
I own another recording of this piece (done by the Tallis Scholars). Its some of the most amazing music I’ve ever heard. If this were ever done in some huge resonant cathedral…I can’t even imagine. As great a recording our two CD’s are, I bet it doesn’t hold a candle to a live performance.
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Which one is it? I love the Tallis Scholars. They came to my city a few years ago and my friends and I were fortunate to be able to hear them live. They are incredible!

I agree… It would be absolutely sublime to hear the Spem in alium live.
 
Yes, I am talking about the mass (or requiem) music composed by Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Faure… Are these compositions used in any way in modern times? What does the church say about those, and what does in mean? As much as there are arts, I would like to learn more about the spirituality behind these compositions. (I hope there are enough people on this forum that knows classical music well… btw are there any modern mass composers?)
 
I’m no expert, but yes is the answer to your question and yes there are some brilliant modern Mass composers including James MacMillan.

When the Pope visited Hyde Park last year, he entered to the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah, which was awesome! You can hear the music on this short video which I shot on my phone as he arrived! We were right at the front, but you have to be a bit patient, he starts far to the right, but the pope mobile actually stopped pretty much in front of us and the Holy Father waved out the window!

Enjoy: youtube.com/watch?v=vDQvJjKK9ZA

The squeaky voiced woman shrieking “I saw him, I saw him” at the end is my wife! 😃 To put it in context, she’s only 5’2"!

The Mass at Westminster Cathedral also had a brilliant Mass setting! You can watch that here youtube.com/watch?v=CAf7nlRfOtA
 
Pius XII in Mediator Dei said that it is acceptable

62 … Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer’s body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.
  1. It cannot be said that modem music and singing should be entirely excluded from Catholic worship. For, if they are not profane nor unbecoming to the sacredness of the place and function, and do not spring from a desire of achieving extraordinary and unusual effects, then our churches must admit them since they can contribute in no small way to the splendor of the sacred ceremonies, can lift the mind to higher things and foster true devotion of soul.
vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_enc_20111947_mediator-dei_en.html
 
Poor Pius X, so ignored these days, said that liturgical music ought to be devoid of the piano, percussion instruments, and profane virtuoso passages. These criteria most certainly exclude Bach, Schubert, and Haydn from use during the Mass. Of course, his proclamation is hardly binding after Vatican II, but it’s still a sensible document to read. We don’t need the rhythmic pound of cymbals in the reverent holiness of the Mass.

I think the classical Mass repertoire (almost all of which I have been blessed to hear) is more secular than religious. Many of these 18th century settings include a soprano solo outside the choir, often taking 4-5 minutes to sing one line of the Gloria! It’s a tad ridiculous, despite its intense sublime quality. 🙂
 
GloriousOrder said:
Poor Pius X, so ignored these days, said that liturgical music ought to be devoid of the piano, percussion instruments, and profane virtuoso passages. These criteria most certainly exclude Bach, Schubert, and Haydn from use during the Mass. Of course, his proclamation is hardly binding after Vatican II, but it’s still a sensible document to read. We don’t need the rhythmic pound of cymbals in the reverent holiness of the Mass.
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De facto Classical Masses and Requiems (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi etc ) were performed regularly before 1970. The most famous Hungarian musician Zoltan Kodaly, contemporary for me composed Masses and those were performed too.

The orchestra was at the back of the Church upstairs, piano was not used, I believe neither percussion instruments.

No one considered this masses ‘profane’. they were written especially for performing on solemn Masses.
 
When Pope Benedict visited the National Shrine in Washington D.C. their choir sang to him in the Crypt Church at vespers.

They sang John Taverner’s (1490-1545) Dum Transisset Sabbatum “When the Sabbath had Passed.”

Until then, I didn’t know such beautiful music was used in Mass.

I wish that music was brought back. If not sung, then taped and played.

youtube.com/watch?v=pTLx7aL7dIQ
 
I suppose since these compositions are dedicated to be perform in grand mass, then it would be ok. The risk lies on the fact it might be easy to switch the attention from God to man. Since those compositions were written for the Trinedine form, do they still apply to modern masses?
 
Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer, has set some lovely Masses, one accompanied solely by strings (Berliner Messe), the other by organ (Missa syllabica). They are quite extraordinary.
 
Hi:

I heard this piece many years ago on a classical music station here in Canada, and was so moved by it I missed my exit as I was driving. It is of course on youtube now, here’s a nice version. The comments there also describe it as “what Heaven must sound like”, and I’m inclined to agree with them (and you):

youtube.com/watch?v=7Cn7ZW8ts3Y

I’d love to find a similar choral performance of Thomas Stoltzer’s “Ich Klag den Tag” (another beautiful hymn), but so far, all we have online is a lute version. Eventually, all of these older vinyl records will stop playing, I suppose…and while we can convert them to CD and MP3, there is always some loss of quality in the conversion from analog to digital. My own copy of Stoltzer is on cassette tape…I’ve never seen it on CD. Of course Spem in Alium has been preserved digitally, by the Tallis Singers, the King’s Singers, and many more. I just wish there was more effort to keep this music alive.

Jacques
 
PLAT said:
I suppose since these compositions are dedicated to be perform in grand mass, then it would be ok. The risk lies on the fact it might be easy to switch the attention from God to man. Since those compositions were written for the Trinedine form, do they still apply to modern masses?
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Friend, the Ordinary of the Mass has not changed in Latin. Even good translations into English and other languages make the performance of these masses impossible. If we follow Vatican II directly, though, and use Latin in our worship of the Almighty, we can still use these compositions. The Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei still have exactly the same text as they did in 1796, at the height of Haydn’s Mass composition period.

Here is the use of Haydn in a real FSSP Mass:

en.gloria.tv/?media=81842

Here, also, is what I consider to be far more uplifting music for the Mass:

en.gloria.tv/?media=34660 - Antoine Brumel composed this in the early 16th century. It is the Missa et ecce terrae motus (and behold the Earth is moved), using a dozen voices! I think the use of orchestra and organ really dates a composition, but the angels in Heaven continually cry to God with (incorporeal) voice alone. What joy!
 
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