What type of music would you like at Mass?

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Sarabande said:
I find that our congregation loves to sing “Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise” as well. It must be the “Alleluia” part. Almost every hymn that has a big “Alleluia” seems to always be sung well.
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I think you are correct. Charles Wesley’s hymns also seem to be big favourites. “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” (with the Alleluias:thumbsup: ), “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” always get people to sing in our congregation too.
 
lak611 said:
I think you are correct. Charles Wesley’s hymns also seem to be big favourites. “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” (with the Alleluias:thumbsup: ), “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” always get people to sing in our congregation too.
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Oh, yes! I love those hymns, especially the Love Divine, “All Loves Excelling”.
 
I absolutely love latin lyrics. I love Hildegard Von Bingen’s music. Catholic chant, Gregorian.
 
La-Petite-Fleur said:
I absolutely love latin lyrics. I love Hildegard Von Bingen’s music. Catholic chant, Gregorian.
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I love all that as well. But I am also an admitted lover of Anglican hymn melodies. They are just so great to sing. They really know how to write great congregational hymns.

One of the chants I absolutely love is the Victimae Paschali sequence. The men in the choir does it so beautifully every year.
 
lak611 said:
I think you are correct. Charles Wesley’s hymns also seem to be big favourites. “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” (with the Alleluias:thumbsup: ), “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling”, and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” always get people to sing in our congregation too.
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Yup, these are all favorites at our parish. I love serving as cantor when these are on the schedule.

I lucked out big time today. 5 min. before Mass began, Father pulled me and the music director aside to tell us that he wanted the recessional hymn changed from “Sing Out, Earth and Skies” (the originally scheduled Haugen dreck) to “A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing” (same tune as “All Creatures of Our God and King”). The majority sang that one and the processional (Crown Him With Many Crowns) and someone from the congregation came up after Mass to thank me for changing the hymn. I’m not usually a fan of having last-minute switches when I’m the cantor, but this was a welcomed one. 😃
 
SeekerJen said:
Yup, these are all favorites at our parish. I love serving as cantor when these are on the schedule.

I lucked out big time today. 5 min. before Mass began, Father pulled me and the music director aside to tell us that he wanted the recessional hymn changed from “Sing Out, Earth and Skies” (the originally scheduled Haugen dreck) to “A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing” (same tune as “All Creatures of Our God and King”). The majority sang that one and the processional (Crown Him With Many Crowns) and someone from the congregation came up after Mass to thank me for changing the hymn. I’m not usually a fan of having last-minute switches when I’m the cantor, but this was a welcomed one. 😃
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It sounds like your parish is on the right track with the music. If members of the congregation are actually telling you they like the music, that is a good thing. It would be wise for the music director to consider this when he picks the music in the future.
 
Ilroy said:
I want Gregorian Chant to come back…as Vatican II stated, it should have a prominant place. I have yet to be at a Mass with Chant.:confused:

I wouldn’t mind the occasional Mass that is completely sung as I have heard was done in past times…before my time, but sounds wonderful.👍
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ditto:thumbsup:
 
lak611 said:
Thankfully, I have never been subjected to that in my parish! :eek:
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I’m usually very, very conservative in my choice of music. However, when one hears the four part original version of Suzanne Toolen’s “How Brightly Deep” which was watered down and eviscerated to become “Two Fishermen”. I don’t know folks. I’ve sung the four part original version a cappella and with bodhran. My Celtic heart leaps. It was one of my favorites way back when when my cathedral choir couldn’t sing Latin. I can’t even find the original words on the internet.

How brightly deep, how glory sprung, Creation’s Lord unbound, the reaching, longing, heart of things in charged unbroken sound…

Irish. Worthy of St. Patrick. One of the very, very few compositions to come immediately after Vatican II, IMHO, that was worth its salt. “Two Fishermen” is not the original composition.
 
Chant. Gregorian, Ambrosian, Sarum,or Mozarabic. Just not anything made by a couple of guys whose surnames remind me of a certain Ice Cream brand (I admit I kinda ‘Be not Afraid’ but couldn’t we revise it into:
We will not be afraid
for You are with us always
We now wantto follow You
and deigntogive us rest
though some people might complain we are tampering the songs [not hymns] that was supposed to be untouchable. ‘The Mass can be adlibbed just not this hym, er, song.’;))
 
brotherhrolf said:
I can’t even find the original words on the internet.

How brightly deep, how glory sprung, Creation’s Lord unbound, the reaching, longing, heart of things in charged unbroken sound…

Irish. Worthy of St. Patrick. One of the very, very few compositions to come immediately after Vatican II, IMHO, that was worth its salt. “Two Fishermen” is not the original composition.
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I’ve sung this hymn before, but I can’t recall if it was in the Catholic Church or the Episcopal. At the moment I don’t have either hymnal handy. BUT I will help you narrow it down. It’s either in GIA’s *Worship II *(that’s TWO - the one with all the original poetry unmolested - probably out of print now) or the *Hymnal 1982 *of the Episcopal church.

Betsy
 
It came from a 1969 immediatly post - VII Catholic hymnal.

The refrain was “Leave all things you have and come and follow me…and come and follow me.”

It ranks right up there with the Breastplate of St. Patrick. Such Irish imagery, magnificent text, emminantly singable. But it was not that watered down version of The Two Fishermen which is found in Worship III.
 
Solemn music. No more folk or rock music. The 1960s are long gone.
 
“Solemn music. No more folk or rock music. The 1960s are long gone”

So are the 1800s. And the 500s.
 
Do any of you personally know Mr. Haugen? Or Mr. Haas?

I think what you are saying about these men and others like them is pretty bad.

You talk about wanting to “sing your best” or “do your best” for the Lord.

Do you think these men deliberately don’t do their best? That they deliberately try to write awful (at least, in your opinion) music?

I think that’s not very nice at all. Until someone tells me that these men are non-Christians who are deliberately writing the worst music they can think of, then I will choose to believe that they are sincere Christian musicians who are asking the Holy Spirit to help them write the best songs they can write, just like I assume that when you play or cantor, that you are doing the best you can.

And as for whether their music is “appropriate” for Mass, well, as far as I know, the Vatican has not forbidden their music, and apparently, the local Catholic authorities have not banned “folk” music, or “Haugen” or “Haas,” or any of the music that you say isn’t appropriate for Mass.

If they do, then I will yield to their God-given authority, just as I trust that you will yield to their authority by NOT saying that music they have declared “appropriate” is inappropriate.

Our bishop, one of the “good ones,” a very conservative Catholic (we actually have a surplus of seminarians in our diocese), is featured on a weekly local radio show in our city, The Catholic Forum. The theme music for that show is …“GATHER US IN!”

I happen to like Haugen and Haas songs. And I’m trained in classical music, too (piano). When I first started attending the Catholic Church (as an evangelical Protestant), Haugen and Haas sounded “deep” to me compared to some of the church music I was used to hearing. So am I of sub-par intelligence because I like their music?

I think you ought to stop thinking about what you personally like, and remember that God gifts everyone differently.

As for the OP, I play piano, too, and I would use a mixture of hymns, contemporary music, folk, etc, depending on what the people respond to. If you have people who can READ MUSIC and who can actually sing on pitch in a good head voice, then try some Gregorian chant. IMO–and it’s just my opinion–Gregorian chant sung by ear singers who use a throat voice and can’t hit pitches is like listening to caterwauling cats.
 
Cat,

RE Haugen/Haas:

No, I don’t know them. However, I have been singing their music for 25 years at this point, and am largely unimpressed. The thing that kills me is that I know they are both capable of beautiful, liturgically appropriate songwriting, and so often they fall short. We don’t need to be singing about our feelings, or singing with God’s voice in the 1st person, or singing lyrics that are questionable with regards to fitness for liturgical hymnody. Many of the songs would be very appropriate for Christian recording artists to put on albums and play for concerts, but they don’t always seem to be written with liturgical/congregational singing in mind.

I’m a big fan of their compositions for responsorial Psalms; their arrangements are some of my favorites and are favorites with the congregation as well. This is how I know that they are both talented and capable of great things. Also, Haugen’s “Mass of Creation”, while maybe not Mozart, is familiar, very singable, generally well-liked, and easy to use whether one has a solo voice and piano or a choir, full brass quintet, strings and timpani. So no problems there, IMO.

I agree with you on the Gregorian chant and four-part hymns for the congregation. I think it would be a disaster to expect people who may have taken one choir class in high school and can otherwise be induced to sing maybe once a year at Christmas to be able to pick up a four-part hymnal, know which part they should attempt, know how to read the music, and know how to find their part within the rest of the voices and instrumental accompaniment. Would it be amazing and wonderful if they could? Of course. I imagine this is what the choirs of angels in heaven must be like. But can we expect it here in a typical American congregation after decades of neglecting to teach children how to sing? Not likely. And that is another reason why I am not always a Haugen/Haas (or Joncas, or Toolan, or Dufford) fan. A lot of the music is all over the place in terms of the range, the key signature, the time signature, the syncopation. Too much of that and most people just give up.
 
I’m open to any type as long as I can hit the notes and read the lyrics. At my parish we have choices of different weekend masses. One has the cantor alone, one has a children’s choir, one an adult choir with the organ, and another is a guitar mass. I don’t take offense at any of them.
 
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