It was my great fortune to be asked recently to substitute teach a master class on Gregorian chant. The event was the Church Music Association of America’s Winter Chant Intensive. The original instructor for the men, David Hughes, became very ill—vale of tears!—and another great conductor, Richard Rice, was called upon to teach the men … Read more
Every Sunday in Christ the King Chapel at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia, the mass is celebrated with all the pomp and ceremony that the traditions of the Catholic Church and the humble means of that small college allow—glittering vestments, billowing incense, a liberal helping of Latin, and numerous grave-faced altar servers. And music. … Read more
Speaking of his medieval ancestors and ours, d’Alembert once said that “Poetry for them was reduced to a puerile mechanism.” James Madison, echoing him, judged the result of fifteen centuries of Christian civilization to be little more than “pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and … Read more
The offertory antiphon for the Sunday before the last Sunday of the liturgical year is the famous text “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine; Domine, exaudi vocem meam.” From the depths, I have cried out to you, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice. It’s not a text heard in parish praxis much anymore. It doesn’t … Read more
The birthday notification popped up on my Skype window: Jeffrey Ostrowski just turned 31. I had to look again. Only 31 years old? This is a musician who has produced probably two dozen books of music for Catholic liturgy that have provided new options to tired songs given to us by the old establishment that … Read more
I’ve long written in favor of reestablishing Gregorian chant as the primary musical language of liturgy for Roman Rite Catholics around the world. We’ve taken great steps in this direction with the new Missal in English, which embeds the chant tradition in the heart of the book. And for the first time, we are seeing … Read more
The Vatican has intervened in the guidelines on Catholic liturgical music in the U.S. It has sent a message to U.S. publishers that it objects to extending the official text of the Agnus Dei to add additional text. The practice is called “troping” but that’s using a rather high-minded and deeply historical term for what … Read more
Every weekend or so, some name composer of mainstream Catholic music is out and about giving a workshop in a parish somewhere. I’ve been to enough of these to pretty much know what they are going to say in advance. They stand in front of parish musicians and repeatedly tell them that the most important … Read more
“Are you interested in painting, sir?” asks the cheerful curator of the modern art museum. “No, not me,” says the detective. He passes his hand across his rumpled hair. “Now, Mrs. Columbo, she’s different. That woman is into everything. She does a little painting herself.” “She does?” “Oh, yeah, all the time. She buys these … Read more
This essay first appeared in the September 1996 issue of Crisis Magazine. The Mass is the very core of the Catholic liturgy, the supremely important expression of the Church’s faith. It is clear that a skewed concept of the Mass that fails to do justice to its essence will in due time harm the believer’s … Read more
A German opera called Palestrina, composed by Hans Pfitzner during the First World War, portrayed the 16th-century composer as the savior of Catholic Church music. Set during the Council of Trent, the opera had the council fathers on the verge of banning polyphonic music (many voices singing various melodies at variance) from the Mass. Then … Read more
ZENIT has published an interview with the long-time (and now-retired) director of the Sistine Chapel Choir, the recently elevated Domenico Cardinal Bartolucci. A brief journey through the Interwebs reveals the 93-year-old composer to be a feisty advocate for sacred music, particularly the “classics.” In this interview, he reveals his belief that “for sacred music, the … Read more
Rekindling a semi-tradition from last year, here is a piece of sacred music to help celebrate the First Sunday of Lent. I thought I’d start off with a relative newcomer (to me, at least): “In te Domine speravi,” from the ubiquitous Anonymous. O Lord, in Thee I have hoped; let me never be put to … Read more
Eric Genuis is a composer, performer, and conductor on a mission to save the culture from the destructive effects of bad music. Like the philosophers of ancient Greece, Genuis believes music shapes our character, and worries that "young people are damaged by popular music before they become adults." His solution is to make good music … Read more