What is so wrong with the hymn "Gift of Finest Wheat"?

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anonymous_in_fl said:
If a song is in the Catholic hymnal there is nothing “wrong” about it.
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I wouldn’t be so quick to say that. There have been more than a few documented cases of blatantly wrong hymns found in “Catholic” hymnal.
 
If there is one complaint for the song, it is that I don’t like the harmony of the 4-part choral arrangement when I learned this song. I think I’ll be doing my own choral arrangement of this. Hehehehe!
  • flies away! :thankyou:
 
anonymous_in_fl said:
If a song is in the Catholic hymnal there is nothing “wrong” about it. Not everyone has the same musical tastes, that’s all.
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Some of the drivel that passes the Catholic hymnal test is horrible! Quite a few songs are not even theologically sound! And there are many older hymns that are no longer sung only because OCP or whoever just doesn’t have the copyrights.

Also many choir directors are converts and haven’t been “schooled” in Catholic music except as a class. I can’t tell you how many times we sing “How Great Thou Art” and “Beautiful Savior.” Yes, they are both beautiful, but they also are directly borrowed from our Protestant bretheran.

What the Catholic Church desperately needs is Catholic composers who are classical trained.
 
Saralinda said:
Some of the drivel that passes the Catholic hymnal test is horrible! Quite a few songs are not even theologically sound! And there are many older hymns that are no longer sung only because OCP or whoever just doesn’t have the copyrights.

Also many choir directors are converts and haven’t been “schooled” in Catholic music except as a class. I can’t tell you how many times we sing “How Great Thou Art” and “Beautiful Savior.” Yes, they are both beautiful, but they also are directly borrowed from our Protestant bretheran.

What the Catholic Church desperately needs is Catholic composers who are classical trained.
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I’ve been a Catholic all my life and I love the Gregorian Chant, the song of worship and praise and the songs about the Eucharist. I even loved the Requiem masses we sang as children (I was in the children’s choir!) But I also love those Protestant songs whose composers were trying so hard to give praise, honor and glory to God. I LOVE that old time Gospel music. Hey, I just love any song that sings about my favorite subject–God, Jesus and the Good news… I admit that some are questionable about dogma but I can see the composers were really trying and I give them credit for that. It tickles me at church when we sing an appropriate Protestant song because I feel that our church is trying to make everyone feel “at home.” Our pianist at one church was a convert!!!
For example there is one song that says something like “before his hands were nailed on the tree, he shed his blood for me.” Oh, it made me think of Jesus life before the cross, how he was circumcised and how he sweated drops of blood in the Garden… I could feel how the song writer was so involved in seeing Jesus’ life that the words just came out…
Sorry if I’m ranting… I don’t have the musical background except in music appreciation…
 
I’m not particularly fond of many of the modern hymns and prefer Gregorian Chant every single time. However, one thing… can we please eliminate the following songs:

Gather Us In (Sounds like The Wreck of Edmund Fitzgerald)
Here I Am Lord (Sounds like the Brady Bunch theme)
Dan Schutte’s Gloria (Sounds like My Little Pony)
Baptized in Water (Sounds like Morning Has Broken)

Really the whole Dan Schutte collection should be obliterated. I won’t even get into songs like On Eagles Wings which makes my ears want to bleed.
 
GangGreen said:
It’s great to hear people trying to write chanted Mass settings in English. However, IMO, when it comes to music, Latin blows English out of the water. Latin is so beautiful musically. There are a few nice new Latin hymns on that site. Really wonderful.
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The thing with Gregorian chant, it really is meant to fit the Word in Latin. It works with Latin accentuation and phraseology. Applying Gregorian melodies to other languages has mixed success. Some very simple melodies can be made to work. More complex chants like introits… not so much. Then the really complex and melismatic stuff (I’m talking the Mass here) like Graduals and Offertories, forget it. So while I would prefer the simple English propers (or rather I’d prefer the same in French as that’s my first language and the local vernacular for most Masses), Gregorian is best. The problem is though, in the past (EF Mass), these pieces were really proper to trained choirs; the laity had no role in their expression at Mass. It’s extremely difficult to get the faithful to chant along with, say, an introit like Ad te Levavi, so traditional Gregorian chant would probably only work for a sung Mass with a trained choir, or in some special places like our local Benedictine abbey that uses the full Gregorian repertoire for the Mass (and Lauds and Vespers) in Latin, with French plainchant for the rest of the Mass. But these are monks with a trained schola, and liturgy is much more than just a bunch of rules to follow, it’s their passion.

There is the Graduale Simplex though but even that might not be so simple for the laity.

The other thing with chant, is that psalm modes don’t work too well in other languages than Latin either. Some work OK in English if you forget the accentuation rules. But French is a disaster. One monastery I know of basically re-translated the psalter to make the French phrases and words fit Gregorian psalm tones (the silent “e” at the end of words is a really big problem in French). Our abbey has instead adopted its own French psalm tones that can be made to work with the Latin antiphon for those times when the minor hours are sung (Sundays, feasts and solemnities; at other times they’re recited recto-tono). But I digress.

I think realistically, at the parish level, we can hope for the Ordinary in Gregorian chant, using some of the simpler settings from the Kyriale, and English plainchant for the Eucharistic prayer, if the priest is sporting and willing to give it a go. We have a few priests that do it in French. Also the responses can be in vernacular plainchant fairly easily.

The real problem is the loss of Latin and Gregorian skills. It’s been decades since Latin was systematically taught in school (it stopped being compulsory the year before I started high school in 1971).

Personally I’d prefer a spoken Mass to one with many of the modern hymns (you think English is bad, most of the modern French hymns are even worse). But realistically the desire to have the laity in the pew participate, means banal hymns are probably here to stay. The best we could hope for is simple melodies with truly meaningful lyrics (i.e., the Word including the psalms… that is, the Propers).
 
Many popular chants can easily be learned by non-trained people and same goes for the Mass settings. Sure it takes some effort, but right off the bat, Mass I, IV, VIII, IX and XI should be taught to everyone along with Credos I, III, IV. Add in Asperges and Vidi Aquam and you can at the very least sing a decent portion of the Mass. Then you can teach some of the more popular songs like Te Deum, Adoro Te Devote, Pange Lingua Gloriosi, Veni Creator Spiritus, Ave Maria, Peter Noster, Regina Caeli, Ave Verum Corpus, O Salutaris Hostia, O Sacrum Convivium, Salve Regina, Ave Maris Stella, among others.

Many of these aren’t too difficult to sing with only a bit of practice.
 
GangGreen said:
Many popular chants can easily be learned by non-trained people and same goes for the Mass settings. Sure it takes some effort, but right off the bat, Mass I, IV, VIII, IX and XI should be taught to everyone along with Credos I, III, IV. Add in Asperges and Vidi Aquam and you can at the very least sing a decent portion of the Mass. Then you can teach some of the more popular songs like Te Deum, Adoro Te Devote, Pange Lingua Gloriosi, Veni Creator Spiritus, Ave Maria, Pater Noster, Regina Caeli, Ave Verum Corpus, O Salutaris Hostia, O Sacrum Convivium, Salve Regina, Ave Maris Stella, among others.

Many of these aren’t too difficult to sing with only a bit of practice.
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Yes but, most of those hymns aren’t proper to the Mass but to the Divine Office and adoration. Only the Mass settings, Credo, Asperges/Vidi Aquam and Pater Noster are. The others are great to know of course. Maybe I’m too fussy but I believe Gregorian chant should be used in its proper context. The words of the Propers are meant to align with texts of the Mass.

I’m also not a big fan of Mass VIII (which isn’t really “Gregorian” chant) but I realize I’m fighting an uphill battle there 😛
 
GangGreen said:
It’s great to hear people trying to write chanted Mass settings in English. However, IMO, when it comes to music, Latin blows English out of the water. Latin is so beautiful musically. There are a few nice new Latin hymns on that site. Really wonderful.
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Baby steps! Or, as Fr. Z is wont to say, “brick by brick!”
😉
 
OraLabora said:
Yes but, most of those hymns aren’t proper to the Mass but to the Divine Office and adoration. Only the Mass settings, Credo, Asperges/Vidi Aquam and Pater Noster are. The others are great to know of course. Maybe I’m too fussy but I believe Gregorian chant should be used in its proper context. The words of the Propers are meant to align with texts of the Mass.

I’m also not a big fan of Mass VIII (which isn’t really “Gregorian” chant) but I realize I’m fighting an uphill battle there 😛
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Well some can be used at certain points of Mass (post Offertory, post Communion, entrance, recessional). The propers are not something that will be easily learned by the people. There are just too many. Sure I guess you could technically try to teach people the propers for every Sunday plus feast days, but that’s A LOT. Then add to the fact that the propers tend to be more difficult to sing. Those are best left to a choir that regularly practices. However, at least teaching people these other things can be a big help in allowing them to participate in the music of the Mass. The nice thing about the Mass settings and the Credo are that the words are the same. So it becomes a matter of learning the different ways to sing them.

In terms of Mass VIII. It can be done quite nicely. However, yeah I prefer other Mass settings to it. Unfortunately, it’s also the most commonly used and the one that non-traditional choirs would be most willing to try to learn.
Here’s a beautiful version of it
youtube.com/watch?v=37q9zIznj2M

BTW, if you haven’t checked out his YouTube channel, Giovanni Vianini is absolutely fantastic. He has many great chants.
 
I don’t think that there is anything “wrong” with “Gifts of Finest Wheat,” but it is certainly not Omer Westerdorf’s finest effort. The lyrics to me are kind of insipid compared to his “Where Charity and Love Prevail” or “Shepherd of Souls in Love, Come Feed Us.” The words are not heretical, but banal. The tune, on the other hand, I don’t even know how to describe. I will have to quote the classic “Why Catholics Can’t Sing–The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste” by Thomas Day, who at the time this book was written in 1990, was head of the music department at Salve Regina University, who has a PhD in musicology from Columbia, and who is able to articulate what I can’t. Fortunately things have improved since Dr. Day wrote this, but from reading these posts I can see that there is still some truth in it. He said, “…the comtemporary Catholic is supposed to reaffirm the principles of Vatican II by singing “contemporary” songs of the reformed-folk variety (e.g. “Be Not Afraid”) or the newer hymns with refrains (e.g. “Gifts of Finest Wheat”). In almost every case, the melodies of these songs are like drifting aromas which arise from the complex harmonic vegetation underneath; separate the melody from the harmonic background and the vocal part sound enormously silly. Under “primitive” conditions (no accompaniment), a congregation could sing a simple chant melody or something like “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” but that repertory of cocktail lounge “contemporary” songs need all kinds of accompaniment props to keep it from collapsing.” I found it interesting the he mentioned “Gilfts of Finest Wheat” by name.

Also, GangGreen “Baptized in Water” sounds like “Morning Has Broken” because that is what it is. I found “Morning Has Broken” in my old Presbyterian hymnal from 1955. The words were written in 1931 and set to a Gaelic melody.
 
GangGreen, I should have mentioned this in my previous post. As you pointed out the hymn “Baptized in Water” is set to the same tune as “Morning Has Broken.” There is nothing wrong with that. Every hymnal has a metrical index of tunes in the back so that you can mix and match hymns to tunes. That is what the numbers and letters on a hymn mean. For example “While Shepherds Watch Their Flocks by Night” could be sung to the same tune as “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” because they have the same meter, C.M. Of course you wouldn’t do that, but a choir director might choose to sing a new hymn to a familiar tune rather than have to teach a new one. Some hymns even have more that one tune in a single hymnal, for example “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” which has at least two tunes so commonly used that they are often both found in the same hymnal. So whoever wrote “Baptized in Water” used an old choir custom by setting his new words to a tune that he thought a lot of people would know.
 
ManyFaces said:
Both songs are beautiful. There is always someone who will complain without a clear explanation as to why. I pray for them.
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Thank you for your prayers. To paraphrase a noted critic, On Eagle’s Wings is a folk style that does not proclaim Psalm 90/91, but embraces the text in a romantic way. Basically, the the real topic of the words is not the comforting of the Lord but of “me” (comforts of my personal faith). Other modern hymns have us switching persona of the voice of God and lowly faithful looking up.

It’s a matter of perception and likes. The choir and music has been moved from the back or side to up front. Traditionalist (& I’m slowly raising my right hand and nodding yes with my head) just don’t appreciate the music. I’m sure the folks a couple of centuries in front of me would have hated music of my era. Matter of taste. I tune it out and concentrate on the liturgy.
 
Hopey said:
Theological understanding?
When you sing “Gift of Finest Wheat” and are about to receive the Body, blood, soul and divinity of our Lord, do you have the understanding that it is still Wheat (finest) or that the change has occurred although still under the appearance of Bread and Wine?

Some of these I rank as good, better and best at what we believe (theological understanding).

It is a beautiful melody. Not my favorite as we, Catholics, have a deeper understanding and belief of the Body and Blood of Christ in communion.
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Perhaps you’re not recalling some of the actual words of the song which confirm Catholic understanding of transubstantiation:
“Is not this cup we bless and share, the blood of Christ outpoured?”

The song also includes 23 references to scripture.
 
whipp711 said:
To paraphrase a noted critic, On Eagle’s Wings is a folk style that does not proclaim Psalm 90/91, but embraces the text in a romantic way. Basically, the the real topic of the words is not the comforting of the Lord but of “me” (comforts of my personal faith). Other modern hymns have us switching persona of the voice of God and lowly faithful looking up.

.
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Thanks for this…I quoted you here, Post 19:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=12058261#post12058261
 
GangGreen said:
BTW, if you haven’t checked out his YouTube channel, Giovanni Vianini is absolutely fantastic. He has many great chants.
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Oh isn’t he though! If a chant exists, he’s probably recorded it. I use his YouTube recordings regularly to learn specific chants, or demonstrate them to people who want to learn. Our schola gives them as reference when we have a new chant to learn; choristers practice with him at home then we come together at our rehearsals to work out the details and blend the voices.

He is a truly excellent resource on the 'net for chant aficionados.
 
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