Scholas

[Sarabande]

There have been talk on other threads regarding the state of Catholic liturgical music, about the conceiving of more professionaly-sounding scholas which would visit parishes to re-introduce Catholics to Gregorian Chant, rennaisance polyphony and other works from later periods. Well, a friend of mine (in his 20s, so he’s no old fogie ) is standing up to the challenge and is starting one up as a quartet with musically trained Catholic singers who also are very interested in re-introducing this music back into mass. He will first open it up up to everyone for a few rehearsals to see who can learn quickly and have good voices, then will break it down to a smaller group. My question is, has anyone else tried this and how did you make it work? Were pastors open to the idea of it? Thanks!

 

[brotherhrolf]

No. It took a major embarrasment to get Father to let us sing Latin. We had to use the Anglican 1940 hymnal for years to sing the sequences, etc. in English instead of Latin. In 1992 we celebrated our cathedral’s 200th anniversay as a parish and had a liturgical cast of thousands in attendance including the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyons who departed from script and instead of giving the Apostolic Blessing in English gave it in Latin. Thirty voice choir…five of us old pre-Vatican II types were able to answer. Priests of the diocese- the silence was deafening.

Since then we have greatly expanded the use of Latin both in sacred polyphony and in revival of the old standard chants -e.g Ave Maria, Jesu Dulcis Memoria, Salve Regina, Ave Verum Corpus, etc. My choir is composed of parishoners above the age of 50 who sang Latin when we were kids. We are supplemented by 4 paid section leaders (SATB) and young people who want to join and are willing to work. We practice 3 hours each week so this is not something you can do on the quick and easy.

Our pastor in 92 is not our pastor now. Father has asked me and a couple of us old fogey types if we would be interested in forming a Gregorian chant schola. :yup:

 

[pm1853]

With the upcoming school year, I will make the attempt to start a schola. Even if I can only get one of each voice type, I will be tickled pink. My normal choir however has improved dramatically over the past year, and we sang a very VERY basic motet on Ave Verum Corpus this week which went over quite well. The pastor has been extremely supportive.

I will likely take a similar approach as your friend, though I am fortunate to have a music school spitting distance from the church.

 

[Sarabande]

Thank you for your replies. Brotherhrolf - It’s wonderful to hear you story and know that there are other choirs out there doing that. It’s nice to hear that we’re not alone!

pm1853 - Congrats on singing the Ave Verum and I am encouraged that your pastor has been supportive of it. Since you have a music school nearby, you probably won’t have much trouble getting a schola together. Younger singer musicians are always wanting to discover new repertoire or to sing it.

I agree that it’s not something people can learn quickly unless they’ve been trained in it. The Cathedral where my husband and I sing at have been doing Latin for over 30 years (we have two Latin NO masses a month and the priests there also has to know it). So the choir, although volunteer and many aren’t musicians, knows the Latin and fortunately, for my husband and I who are post-Vatican II babies, we learned a lot. I already knew some from singing in secular choirs in college, but I wasn’t as familiar with Palestrina, etc. so that was a wonderful learning experience for me.

For the schola, though, my friend is looking for trained musicians and singers, people who already knows the style of repertoire and has decent sight-singing skills and probably already sings it at Protestant churches. We do know younger Catholic people who fit this, but have jobs in Sunday choirs, so he plans on doing this during Saturday masses at different parishes so that he can get these singers on board. So, I guess I’m more concerned about the support or the interest of the pastors or of the congregation themselves. What is the response to all of it? I know people tend to expect it in Cathedrals and they seem to always appreciate it, but what if it was brought to the regular parishes?

 

[PaixGioiaAmor]

This is the type of repertoire that my choir sings.

We do primarily SAT or SAB motets. There are many polyphonic motets that are quite doable, even for a choir of amateur singers.

Be prepared to be faced with a horrible lack of male singers. I have only 2 in my choir.

It is refreshing to see renewed interest in this great music which is part of our treasure of tradition.

 

[VociMike]

Be prepared to be faced with a horrible lack of male singers. I have only 2 in my choir.

Ain’t it the truth. We need to give out bumper stickers (in some “male” color like arrest-me-red) that say “Real men sing polyphony (when they’re not singing chant)”

 

[VociMike]

…So, I guess I’m more concerned about the support or the interest of the pastors or of the congregation themselves. What is the response to all of it? I know people tend to expect it in Cathedrals and they seem to always appreciate it, but what if it was brought to the regular parishes?

FWIW, here are some quotes my wife’s choir received after giving sacred concerts and evening or night prayer in local churches:

The parishioners were awe-struck by the beauty and quality of the music.
I feel as though I’ve worshipped in the presence of angels.
I’m so hungry for this music! Where has it been hiding all these years?!?
I cried. Fabulous! So moving!
The presentation is spellbinding, prayerful, and will touch your heart and soul in a very special way.
Your music is so beautiful and sacred.
It’s like being in the Sistine Chapel of music.
The sky opened, and for a miraculous hour we heard the Heavenly Choir.
I felt like I was listening to the angels in heaven.
I hope heaven sounds like this.
Thank you! A beautiful ministry.
Lovely, perfect
Beautiful voices and instrumentals.
Lovely – do come again next year.
Delightful
Beautiful, refreshing
Very devout, very spirited!
Great music that must be performed more often
Totally awesome!
Your music should be heard at Chartres Cathedral!
Superb
I love that you consciously seek to give glory to God through your beautiful art. Thank you!
Wonderful concert! Thank you.
Great!!!
Excellent music
Wonderful!
Your concert was so, so beautiful!
Wow!!
Lovely! Thank you!
Thank you for the beautiful music and your dedication.
Thank you for this wonderful concert.
Bravo! Keep up the good work!

 

[Sarabande]

FWIW, here are some quotes my wife’s choir received after giving sacred concerts and evening or night prayer in local churches:

The parishioners were awe-struck by the beauty and quality of the music.
I feel as though I’ve worshipped in the presence of angels.
I’m so hungry for this music! Where has it been hiding all these years?!?
I cried. Fabulous! So moving!
The presentation is spellbinding, prayerful, and will touch your heart and soul in a very special way.
Your music is so beautiful and sacred.
It’s like being in the Sistine Chapel of music.
The sky opened, and for a miraculous hour we heard the Heavenly Choir.
I felt like I was listening to the angels in heaven.
I hope heaven sounds like this.
Thank you! A beautiful ministry.
Lovely, perfect
Beautiful voices and instrumentals.
Lovely – do come again next year.
Delightful
Beautiful, refreshing
Very devout, very spirited!
Great music that must be performed more often
Totally awesome!
Your music should be heard at Chartres Cathedral!
Superb
I love that you consciously seek to give glory to God through your beautiful art. Thank you!
Wonderful concert! Thank you.
Great!!!
Excellent music
Wonderful!
Your concert was so, so beautiful!
Wow!!
Lovely! Thank you!
Thank you for the beautiful music and your dedication.
Thank you for this wonderful concert.
Bravo! Keep up the good work!

These are wonderful!!! Very encouraging to see these quotes especially from the people. And to just be able to get your foot into the door is great, so that would mean the pastors were open to it as well? Thank you for sharing these.

 

[brotherhrolf]

This is the type of repertoire that my choir sings.

We do primarily SAT or SAB motets. There are many polyphonic motets that are quite doable, even for a choir of amateur singers.

Be prepared to be faced with a horrible lack of male singers. I have only 2 in my choir.

It is refreshing to see renewed interest in this great music which is part of our treasure of tradition.

Don’t freak! My cathedral choir had two women who were capable of singing T I. I am most comfortable as a T II. So we had two women who sang with us male tenors. Our blend was superb!

 

[brotherhrolf]

Ain’t it the truth. We need to give out bumper stickers (in some “male” color like arrest-me-red) that say “Real men sing polyphony (when they’re not singing chant)”

Yes, we do. I am a second tenor. We regularly do 8 part polyphony and I love it. I learn my part and then I listen and blend. Nothing more satisfying than singing in a polyphonic motet in which the choir sings - as one.

 

[Sarabande]

Be prepared to be faced with a horrible lack of male singers. I have only 2 in my choir.

Don’t I know it!!! Even in the secular world there is trouble finding males. We’re actually having a hard time for male choristers in a production of “Die Zauberflote” that I’m performing in. Sopranos are always a dime a dozen. Thank goodness I’m a mezzo. Ha! We actually do have a fairly good size of basses in the volunteer Cathedral choir, but severely lacking in good tenors. There are about 4-5 tenors, but most aren’t that good and can’t read music. Well, I don’t mean aren’t good, they just aren’t good at reading music.

For the schola, my friend is mostly looking for men, too, with the use of some ladies for the polyphony. Even amongst professional singers and student musicians, male singers are gold. If there alive, breathing, can sing in tune and read music, they’re hired.

It is refreshing to see renewed interest in this great music which is part of our treasure of tradition.

Thanks! I believe it has gotten to a point with my friends, husband and I that we should just stop the complaining and do something. My friend is definitely doing something about it. We hear and perform all this music either in secular venues, cds or in Protestant churches and some Cathedrals and other Catholic churches, why not bring it back for everyone in the Church - give them a true taste of it? So, hopefully, by getting a fairly professional-sounding schola and presenting these sacred treasures in normal, everyday parishes, at least the people will be exposed to it and perhaps some or many will begin to appreciate and love it for mass. It doesn’t have to be for every mass, but let it become part of every day living and it won’t feel strange or foreign anymore.

 

[VociMike]

These are wonderful!!! Very encouraging to see these quotes especially from the people. And to just be able to get your foot into the door is great, so that would mean the pastors were open to it as well? Thank you for sharing these.

We were in a big area (San Francisco Bay Area) and we had no problem finding churches who would have us, and who wanted us back.

Our biggest “problem” was that most of the singers had church jobs so we could never sing at a Mass. Sacred concerts are great, but this music was written for the Mass and that’s where it comes fully alive.

 

[Genesis315]

I know the seminary in my former state (Florida) now has a schola. Likewise, the Vice President of the seminary in my new state is a big time Latin supporter (he offers the Latin Mass at my parish)–be patient, things are coming around .

 

[Sarabande]

We were in a big area (San Francisco Bay Area) and we had no problem finding churches who would have us, and who wanted us back.

Our biggest “problem” was that most of the singers had church jobs so we could never sing at a Mass. Sacred concerts are great, but this music was written for the Mass and that’s where it comes fully alive.

I’m in a metropolitan area as well, so hopefully that will make a difference.

Yes. That’s why my friend would like to do this for the Saturday Vigil mass since many of the singers he’s hoping to get also have Sunday church jobs.

 

[VociMike]

I’m in a metropolitan area as well, so hopefully that will make a difference.

Yes. That’s why my friend would like to do this for the Saturday Vigil mass since many of the singers he’s hoping to get also have Sunday church jobs.

Well then, somebody needs to sit down at their computer, go to your diocese website (we had three dioceses in our area!) and start making a database of parish addresses. Then (while the group is learning its music) write a “Dear Pastor” letter explaining exactly what you are proposing to do and asking if he would like to have you at a Mass. It might be hard at first until you’ve got some references and maybe some audio you can send along to back up your request.

I expect that priests will be much more guarded in having groups come to sing at Mass than to sing a sacred concert. You might need to give some concerts first before you can get invited to sing Masses.

And, personally, I’d recommend a startup group consider learning the seasonal Propers from the Graduale Simplex, rather than the Propers from the Gregorian Missal or Graduale Romanum. Get them down and you can use them all liturgical season, and they won’t get repetitive since you’ll be singing in different churches. Just MHO, and others may disagree (But I’ve heard how badly the Propers can sound when done by a group which is just not up to learning new ones each week. They don’t sell anybody on Gregorian chant!). I think this is an especially good idea because you may not know each week what Propers the priest will let you sing, if any. Imagine spending rehearsal time learning them and then being told just before Mass that you can’t sing them! Things like that can happen. Or the reverse, the priest asks you at the last minute to sing the Propers and you didn’t prepare them!

 

[timotheos]

My question is, has anyone else tried this and how did you make it work? Were pastors open to the idea of it?

Bravo for you. I too would love to start a schola in our parish, but I am still in the early feasibility stage (in other words, I haven’t even told my wife yet). Our existing choir is good, but, singing in the balcony, we never seem as a group to be very attentive to the mass, and the singing seems more like performance.

Chant feels like prayer to me, way more than our current music. If I could get anyone interested, I would love to just sing on, say, one early morning a week before the 7:00 AM mass or something, just for prayer. I really don’t want to compete with the existing music ministry; it’s hard enough to keep enough voices in the choir.

He will first open it up up to everyone for a few rehearsals to see who can learn quickly and have good voices, then will break it down to a smaller group.

In our parish this wouldn’t work, it would probably be seen as elitist, and feelings could get hurt pretty easily. But yes, to find people who could sing with one voice, read square notes and follow the dynamics, would be preferable.

-Tim

 

[Sarabande]

Well then, somebody needs to sit down at their computer, go to your diocese website (we had three dioceses in our area!) and start making a database of parish addresses. Then (while the group is learning its music) write a “Dear Pastor” letter explaining exactly what you are proposing to do and asking if he would like to have you at a Mass. It might be hard at first until you’ve got some references and maybe some audio you can send along to back up your request.

I expect that priests will be much more guarded in having groups come to sing at Mass than to sing a sacred concert. You might need to give some concerts first before you can get invited to sing Masses.

And, personally, I’d recommend a startup group consider learning the seasonal Propers from the Graduale Simplex, rather than the Propers from the Gregorian Missal or Graduale Romanum. Get them down and you can use them all liturgical season, and they won’t get repetitive since you’ll be singing in different churches. Just MHO, and others may disagree (But I’ve heard how badly the Propers can sound when done by a group which is just not up to learning new ones each week. They don’t sell anybody on Gregorian chant!). I think this is an especially good idea because you may not know each week what Propers the priest will let you sing, if any. Imagine spending rehearsal time learning them and then being told just before Mass that you can’t sing them! Things like that can happen. Or the reverse, the priest asks you at the last minute to sing the Propers and you didn’t prepare them!

Thanks VociMike!!! Great advice. I’ll have to definitely bring that up to my friend. That may be something I can help him with since I won’t be doing the schola due to my own music schedule and the fact that my voice is more trained for the Baroque/Classical/early-mid Romantic eras rather than for early music. Although, I love chant and polyphony and really enjoyed it when I sang it. I used to sing in a professional Rennaissance Ensemble and loved it. I’m, unfortunately, one of those perfectionists who doesn’t want to sing something if I don’t think my voice can live up to the style of music and actually did not renew my contract with the Rennaisance ensemble because of it. (It’s ok. I enjoy and love singing what’s in my repertoire now.) Plus, I’m a mezzo and you know in early music mezzos and altos get a lot of competition from the counter-tenor. ha!

 

[Sarabande]

I know the seminary in my former state (Florida) now has a schola. Likewise, the Vice President of the seminary in my new state is a big time Latin supporter (he offers the Latin Mass at my parish)–be patient, things are coming around .

Wonderful!!! I think things like that are happening in our local seminary as well. Or at least the newer generation of seminarians have been very appreciative of the music program at our cathedral. I guess the pendulum is starting to balance out.

 

[VociMike]

One more piece of advice, if I may. I’ve given this some thought and I think that the exact layout of who sings what needs to be agreed on in writing before the Mass. What I would do is to come up with a single-page checkoff form something like this (where ‘X’ is a check-box):

Entrance
X Schola (the visiting group) sings the Latin Introit
X The people sing an opening song chosen by music minister

Kyrie
X Schola leads Gregorian Kyrie
X Music Minister leads vernacular Lord Have Mercy

and so on. It would take some time to come up with a good checkoff sheet which covers all the possibilities, including when certain parts aren’t sung at all. Then have the priest decide what he wants and send the filled-in form back to you, and you send a copy back to him (maybe he forgot to keep a copy!) and also to their music minister. I’d even include a written summary of the sheet, as in “For the Vigil Mass to be celebrated on Oct. 3, 2007, guest schola will lead/sing A, B and C. The music minister will lead/sing X, Y and Z.” You can never be too explicit in these things!

 

[pm1853]

.
Be prepared to be faced with a horrible lack of male singers. I have only 2 in my choir.

Total opposite problem here. I have two young teenage bassi in my choir that, while not too powerful, certainly get the job done. I usually end up singing alto in my choir due to there only being one (I was blessed/cursed with a good high range but absolutely miserable low range) to compete with three sopranos.