The Wedding March

[pm1853]

JKirkLVNV:

I once sat through a PBS presentation of “Parsifal.” It went on for weeks and weeks!!!

Eventually, I’m going to have the guts to lose a week of my life to see the entire Ring Cycle. I’m not a huge fan of Wagner, but its something I just have to see (once…only once). I think “Flight of the Valkyries” should be used as a wedding march. The Bridal party shouting “Yoho toho…heia” at regular intervals while the bride marches in a full out, cast-iron war uniform (with the helmet and horns…and pigtails). The Bride’s father going “Thats our little girl, all grown up.”

I studied Parsifal in Music History, I can’t imagine a more tedious opera. I forget, is that the one where the pope’s staff sprouts leaves?

The Clarke and Purcell to my knowledge aren’t attached to particularly controversial work. I don’t believe Purcell was a controversial figure (he was the last good English composer people study in Music History for a long looooooong time…Haendel doesn’t count).

 

[Anton82]

I suppose you can always use Mendelsson’s “Wedding March”…

Anton

 

[JKirkLVNV]

pm1853:

I studied Parsifal in Music History, I can’t imagine a more tedious opera. I forget, is that the one where the pope’s staff sprouts leaves?

.

Dunno, I wasn’t exactly glued to the set. It’s the one were the king is FOREVER in his bath, due to a wound or sickness or something.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

pm1853:

. . . I studied Parsifal in Music History, I can’t imagine a more tedious opera. I forget, is that the one where the pope’s staff sprouts leaves?

. . .QUOTE]

The pope’s staff is in Tannhauser. It comes in in the Pilgrim’s Chorus, which is rather good.

Tannhauser’s singing about his hot time with Venus is rather lively.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Anton82:

I suppose you can always use Mendelsson’s “Wedding March”…

Anton

I am not familiar with the play or the opera, but I think that is for a mock wedding in Midsummernight’s Dream.

Now Flight of the Valkyries is *Superman’*s music if I remember rightly.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

Joe Kelley:

I am not familiar with the play or the opera, but I think that is for a mock wedding in Midsummernight’s Dream.

Now Flight of the Valkyries is *Superman’*s music if I remember rightly.

Flight of the Valkyries is not Superman, but “Kill the Wabbit” from Bigs Bunny. It was also used in Apocalypse Now when the flight of heliocopters comes in (“I love the smell of nahpalm in the monring”- that part).

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

SnorterLuster:

Heck, what do I know. I wanted to use Jimmy Rushing’s “My bucket’s got a hole in it.” or Bob Wills “Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry”. Neither my wife to be or our priest would let me though.

And for your recessional, did you prefer “You’ve Got the Money, Honey (I’ve Got the Time)” or “Honey Don’t”? I know, “Livin’ On Tulsa Time”!

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

TO THE BEST OF MY knowledge, it was never allowed until the 1970s. This is based on etiquette and wedding planning books through that period. Part of it was because of Wagner, part of it was because it is secular and rather banal.

The 1970s, well, things got a little crazy. My sister’s nuptial guitar Mass featured “Let It Be” as the meditation song after Communion. I was in more than one wedding as a bridesmaid during that time-frame that featured “You Made Me Feel Brand New” as the processional.

If it now again on the no-no list…Well, if I was your friend, I’d take myself out to the Internet and explore the MANY other appropriate musical pieces available before sitting down with the parish music director. Just as “the Wedding March” might be deemed inappropriate, the bride might not want to process to “Gather Us In”. In that case, she should have some other appropriate pieces at the ready.

 

[Nance]

SnorterLuster:

Heck, what do I know. I wanted to use Jimmy Rushing’s “My bucket’s got a hole in it.” or Bob Wills “Take me back to Tulsa, I’m too young to marry”. Neither my wife to be or our priest would let me though.

 

[KnightErrantJR]

I hear the anti-Semite charge against Wagner alot, and it is true, but it seems like we don’t apply this standard to a lot of modern culture, just when it suits us. I love Wagner’s music, even though in school I distinctly remember reading a biography about him that talked about the fact that he wasn’t just anti-Semetic, but an all around monster to just about everyone.

Using the anti-Semite=we can’t enjoy his music logic, none of us should drive Ford cars then. I can understand, respect, and support not using secular music during a wedding, since it is indeed a sacred sacrement, but I don’t think Wagner’s moral failings have anything to do with this issue.

 

[axolotl]

Anton82:

I suppose you can always use Mendelsson’s “Wedding March”…

Anton

yeahbut…Mendelsson’s “Wedding March” from A Midsummers Night Dream is thre traditional recessional. Also, isn’t that also kind of pagany?

 

[axolotl]

Tantum ergo:

And of course, if you choose, you can ALWAYS have it played at the reception.

You can’t have “Here comes the Bride” either, BTW, in church. Same reason, really. The pieces are not sacred music. Catholic weddings are sacraments, are sacred, and deserve, for processional and recessional (or “gathering” and “going forth”), sacred music, not popular music, not even “classical” but profane music.

“Here Comes the Bride” is the “Bridal Chorus” from Wagner’s Lohengrin.

 

[Chatter163]

I think that this thread shows that prohbitions against the Wagner and Mendelsson pieces have always been a matter of local policy. In some dioceses and parishes, these pieces have long been banned from Nuptial Masses (they were where I grew up), while in others places they have always been played. In some places these prohibitions were formerly in effect, but are no longer, while in other locations the reverse seems to be the case. These are the perrogatives of the ordinaries and pastors.

Many Episcopal parishes have also had the same restrictions, for the same reasons.

 

[Digitonomy]

I have been to at least two weddings where they played the Masterpiece Theater theme. Looking it up, I see that it’s Mouret’s “Rondeau” written for the court of Louis “After us, the deluge” XV.

This is also a secular piece, so that criterion doesn’t seem to apply.

Actually, while I’m not much of a musician, it seems to me that most marches and processionals are probably secular. Religious pieces seem to be more along the lines of hymns, parts of the mass, etc. I’m sure someone will be along shortly to poke holes in my theory.

 

[VeronicaAnne]

Hmm. It’s been almost 5 years since the most recent post on this thread. I wonder if anybody has been seeing (hearing) the Wedding March at weddings these days? Or… have we finally succeeded in stamping it out yet? Hope so!!

The cafeteria IS closed!!

 

[Phemie]

Hmm. It’s been almost 5 years since the most recent post on this thread. I wonder if anybody has been seeing (hearing) the Wedding March at weddings these days? Or… have we finally succeeded in stamping it out yet? Hope so!!

The cafeteria IS closed!!

There is no such policy in my diocese and in my parish they can pretty well have whatever they want – a CD of Shania Twain is not unheard of.

That said, in 1975 I walked down the aisle to “First Time Ever I Saw Your Face”. I am forever grateful that the church was small enough that there was no necessity for Verse 3, which I’d never heard and which would have seen my mother & father faint in the pew!

When the soloist, who sang regularly at Catholic weddings, gave me the list of what she could do, I picked the above for the processional, Paul Stookey’s “The Wedding Song” (There Is Love) for the signing of the register, and an Edith Piaf song (L’hymne à l’amour) for the recessional.

What did I know?! The priest never asked and never indicated that there were things that couldn’t be sung, except I knew from a previous wedding that he didn’t want Ave Maria.