Why do we rarely hear hymns such as these, and can anything be done about it?

[jilly4ski]

Maybe I was exaggerating, but the B Minor Mass is still a long piece. I added up the video times for the complete Karl Richter performance and it came out to over two hours. Maybe a Dutch “historically-informed” orchestra will manage to race through the music faster. I have never seen one of these big orchestral mass settings in a real liturgy (poor me), but I imagine the music is not continuous outside the sermon. The orchestra is not playing over the canon is it? I could see a mass set to the B Minor Mass taking around three hours.

The canon in the EF is silent, so it depends on the length of the Sanctus, on whether the orchestra is still playing when the priest begins the Canon. This is generally why the Sanctus is shorter though, so it doesn’t continue too much into the canon. The priest would also stop and wait until before the actual consecration if it had not been completed. Bach is too early a composer to be writing Mass settings for anything other than actual Mass. (Unlike Verdi and Faure, whose requiem setting were likely not written for Mass).

But I grant you, the Bach Mass in B minor , is a beast, and would have been reserved for special feast days, or a pontifical Mass (Bishop presiding), or something like that.

 

[pnewton]

One thing I’ve noticed is that no-one is saying “I love the new hymns”. It’s as if we put up with, or welcome them as a change, but could do without them.

There are some new ones I absolutely love. I would not hold this place as representative of Catholicism, though. Most people I know really like some of the newer songs.

FYI - Someone said something about a “coolness competition.” We do not engage in an attempt to be cool, but an attempt to find what best ministers, usually measured by the level of audible active participation. I know of no better criteria to measure what is conducive to worship. It is not like people have a dial over their heads showing the level of spirituality. If some music falls flat and no one want to sing, I will not use it after a short trial period. If something is well-loved and always sung with gusto, I will use it a few times a year. This all assumes appropriateness for Mass.

 

[MissRose73]

I grew up with the hymns from the Glory and Praise books. But since I’ve been going some to the EF, I’ve discovered many of the older hymns and more traditional ones too which I’ve grown to like also. It would be nice to have a mix of contemporary and traditional hymns.

 

[DaveBj]

By contrast with all this, I had a dream last night that I was back at one of the Pentecostal churches that I attended in Maryland, and there was a tenor sax soloist playing “Sweetheart of Sigma Chi.” In the dream I was wondering what new lyrics had been put to that tune