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September 25, 2006
Support your local Schola
I think what I'll take away from the Legatus conference more than anything else (aside from the revelation that Kate O'Beirne is really tall....) was the music at the liturgies.
It was provided by the Schola Cantorum San Francisco, which used to be associated with the the National Shrine of Saint Francis of Assisi in San Francisco, but I gather, after years of financial struggle (on the Shrine's end), that tie had to be cut. (Those in the know can correct me). The Schola is now reorganized and is an independent entity, providing music around the Bay Area.
They are, of course, professionals, and some of the music they sang was too complex for your normal, average parish, but much of it wasn't. It was marvelous, and - this is important - simple, in its essence. This is, I think, something some folks don't understand. The best liturgical music is a mysterious weaving of simplicity and depth, in which the music, through what it is, reveals even more about God. It is not florid or showy (this is the constant struggle in liturgical music, and did not begin in the post-Vatican II era. Many, many statements warning against theatricality and ultimately self-referential music have come from Rome for centuries) .
Three points:
1) I had a brief chat with the Schola founder and director John Renke on Saturday evening, a conversation in which I undoubtedly revealed myself as a complete musical bumbler in my questions, but the good news was that he reports that he senses a turnaround. There is much, much resistance out there from clergy still fearing, in that reflexive way, "THEYJUSTWANTTOGOBACKTOPREVATICANII!!!" but things do seem to be changing, the hunger for that radiant evocativeness of chant and so on is growing and being increasingly recognzied. Support your local Schola!
2) Most of the Mass parts were in Latin (and Kyrie in Greek etc), and the response was vibrant - even, I was surprised to see and hear, when, on Saturday night, the Credo was intoned. A lot of (older) people around me, I could tell, joined right into the Latin without looking at the music program - at least for the first few lines. Then most of them had to refer to it, but at the beginning - they were there.
Now...you're probably going to say...oh, this is Legatus - they're all conservative anyway. Well, from my experience, in speaking to many local chapters and attending the Mass before dinners...liturgically, they're not. The liturgies have been your basic sort of daily Mass, and if there was music at all, it was all from Gather, etc. So, no, I wouldn't say Legatus is a hotbed of Chantmongers.
3) Check out the Schola's CDs. I brought one home - it's lovely. Here's a link.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
Very nice. In Cincinnati, there's a (sort-of) schola for young singers called Psallite. In their second year, they sing a variety of Catholic hymns, about a third of which are in Latin. It looks very promising.
Posted by: Rich Leonardi at Sep 25, 2006 3:57:54 PM
I add this post one big, huge "Thank You" to Amy and this blog: A year ago I hadn't ever listened to any chant or ancient church music; the farthest back I had gone was old hymns post-1500.
Since then, I've experimented with chant and very recently bought a CD of the Tallis singers sing Palestrina (whom I'd never heard of outside this blog).
Oh...my. What beauty, power and majesty. Sublime comes to mind.
I've heard some beautiful choral music, especially at a Lutheran cathedral-style church I used to belong to (in the Summit City, no less, Amy) and at the Presbyterian church across the street from it. All of it praising our savior. But the chant and Palestrina are simply otherworldly.
As a child I attended Catholic guitar folk masses week after week. In young adulthood we changed parishes and sang with piano and what I've learned are the Haugen and Haas songs. In visits to various family members' parishes and on vacations, I probably worshipped in a couple of dozen parishes in the Midwest and south over my youth.
I had utterly no idea Catholics sang anything but folk and Haugen piano and flute music. When I became Lutheran and sang A Mighty Fortress along with a huge pipe organ, a 100-member choir and most members of the congregation belting it out, I believed, of course in error, that *this* was the kind of music the Lutherans had developed, and the Catholics had never gone in that direction. That the Reformation had yielded vastly superior music for high church Protestants.
Anyway, I'm obviously no pre-Vatican II Catholic (in fact I still attend a Lutheran church though who knows for how long), and I'm in awe of Chant and Palestrina. I'm also stunned that I didn't hear any of it until I was 38 years old.
If anyone is aware of a Scola in the Ann Arbor area, I'd love to try helping out... I'm not a great singer, but I can hold notes in the low ranges.
Mark
Posted by: Mark at Sep 25, 2006 5:40:10 PM
Yes! Support your local Schola!
For these in the Charlottesville VA Area:
http://www.st-thomas-aquinas.org/schola.php
Posted by: Fr. Augustine Thompson O.P. at Sep 25, 2006 5:54:53 PM
For those in the Champaign-Urbana, IL area:
http://nhaggin.freeshell.org/champaignschola/
We are not as proficient as the SF Schola yet, but we're working on it. :)
Posted by: Nicholas at Sep 25, 2006 7:12:18 PM
It was a nice surprise to read about John Renke and the SF Schola in today's post. The first time my wife-to-be and I attended mass together was at the Shrine, with the Schola singing to God's glory. I was not Catholic at the time, but I wept at the beauty of the liturgy. We were married there the following year, again with the Schola up in the loft.
I converted a year ago. To the Grace of God do I give thanks for my wife and my faith. To John Renke and the San Francisco Schola I owe thanks for two beautiful masses I will never forget.
Posted by: Andrew at Sep 25, 2006 7:46:31 PM
John Renke used to be the music director at St. Dominic's in San Francisco. The 11:30 a.m. Mass there on Sunday, now under the musical direction of Simon Berry, continues a steady tradition of quality liturgical music as their online schedule attests. The St. Dominic's Traditional Mass choir is currently on pilgrimmage through Spain and Southern France, following the "Footsteps of St. Dominic." Theyll be returing in time for the parish's annual celebration of Rosary Sunday, on October 15.
Posted by: Tim Ferguson at Sep 25, 2006 7:55:08 PM
The St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum in Auburn, AL has been enormously helpful to those of us who are starting to form scholas in our own parishes and dioceses. So has the Church Music Association of America and the folks over at New Liturgical Movement.
Posted by: Pes at Sep 25, 2006 8:39:59 PM
Fr. Columba Kelly, OSB, a member of Saint Meinrad Archabbey, is a real expert on how to use English well and in a simple, yet elegant way in chant.
He's also adapted a lot of Latin chants for English in such a way that the chant fits the English syntax yet retains enough of the letter and spirit of the original melodies that those familiar with them will recognize them.
I know this from experience because I was a junior monk of Saint Meinrad in 1999 when I was a member of its chant schola that recorded a CD of Gregorian chant for Advent and Christmas in both Latin and English. They went on later to record a similar CD for Lent and Easter.
Fr. Columba has also started having some of his chant published through OCP. Go here to read more about him. If you take the links to his compositions for OCP, it seems like they're mainly publishing one of his Passion settings.
Posted by: Sean Gallagher at Sep 25, 2006 9:16:27 PM
Is there a list of scholas (or would that be scholae?) all over the U.S.? Someone should assemble such a list and post it online.
Posted by: L White at Sep 25, 2006 9:18:10 PM
I just took a close look at Fr. Columba's page at OCP's Web site. I think this statement is interesting:
With its free rhythm and modal sonority, chant has a decidedly modern sense.
True enough, if you like a lot of the choral music of Ralph Vaughan Williams. But I tend to think that the rhythms of Marty Haugen et al. are anything but free. Nor are their sonoritis modal.
In chant, the melody is the servant of the text. Can the same be said of "Sing of the Lord's Goodness"?
(Which, if it were given an old-fashioned hymn tune name, would be known as "Brubeck" since, in my opinion, it sounds a lot like "Take Five.")
Posted by: Sean Gallagher at Sep 25, 2006 9:24:35 PM
St. John Cantius in Chicago, IL has a schola.
www.cantius.org
Posted by: Mary at Sep 25, 2006 10:13:11 PM
Here's another reason to speak up and be supportive . . .
There are priests who want to do these things -- but they need people to do them. I can't be singing in the choir loft when I'm offering Mass.
When your priest pursues such things, a lot of the resistance (and it will come) will devolve to the question of how many people really want this. Be very sure the folks who are unhappy will speak up, loudly. No, priests shouldn't count noses, but they do and will. Be counted. Speak up.
And, I know, many priests resist. But not all are hidebound and awful; they may have good reason to drag their feet, from having lots of other things, to being unmusical, to not thinking it matters, to having a music director whose resistant. Point is, you speaking up can't hurt, and might get you thrown at least a small bone.
Finally, if there is one thing that turns off a priest is when someone says, "Father, you need to do such-and-such." As if I don't already have 20+ things I can't get to. Much better: "What if I did such-and-such?"
Point being: if you want your pastor to allow this sort of music, what will you say if he says, "who will do it?"
Posted by: Fr Martin Fox at Sep 26, 2006 12:33:06 AM
To add to Fr. Fox's comments from the perspective of the schola director....
Once someone has stepped up to put the schola together, folks can't be afraid to step up and sing. The single most common thing every choir director hears when recruiting is some variant of "I can't sing" or "I'm not good enough to sing with you guys." I've heard it enough times that my BS meter triggers almost immediately when it comes out of someone's mouth. Yes, the person saying it is probably not Birgit Nilsson or James King. But that's OK; I, for one, don't want a group of soloists up in the loft. Soloists have egos and don't blend. :)
My own choir is a group of guys with average voices (which most people really do have, I think) who, after learning to listen to each other while singing, magically blend together to create a nice sound. The individual voices vary in their quality, and almost none of them are formally trained, but if we're doing our job right the congregation doesn't hear the individual voices. The congregation hears the whole choir.
If you can carry a tune, can pay attention, and are willing to obey the director, you can probably contribute well to a parish choir or a schola cantorum. So stand up and do it. Yes. I'm talking to you.
Posted by: Nicholas at Sep 26, 2006 1:12:49 AM
I am a member of the Mater Misericordiae Tridentine parish choir/schola in Phoenix for the Tridentine Mass held at St. Thomas the Apostle. We sing at 2-3 High Masses every month. We practice every Wednesday night and we practice Sunday before Mass.
Here is the community's website
http://www.phoenixlatinmass.org
Posted by: Brian at Sep 26, 2006 2:14:10 AM
"Once someone has stepped up to put the schola together, folks can't be afraid to step up and sing. The single most common thing every choir director hears when recruiting is some variant of "I can't sing" or "I'm not good enough to sing with you guys." I've heard it enough times that my BS meter triggers almost immediately when it comes out of someone's mouth. Yes, the person saying it is probably not Birgit Nilsson or James King. But that's OK; I, for one, don't want a group of soloists up in the loft. Soloists have egos and don't blend. :)
My own choir is a group of guys with average voices (which most people really do have, I think) who, after learning to listen to each other while singing, magically blend together to create a nice sound. The individual voices vary in their quality, and almost none of them are formally trained, but if we're doing our job right the congregation doesn't hear the individual voices. The congregation hears the whole choir.
If you can carry a tune, can pay attention, and are willing to obey the director, you can probably contribute well to a parish choir or a schola cantorum. So stand up and do it. Yes. I'm talking to you."
I completely agree. I have no music training whatsoever, and have been asked by my choir director to join the choir/schola. However, I told him that I can't sing and have no training, he kind of left it at that.
However, over the past year I have been reading much of the New Liturgical blog, and I would love to pass on a love of our Sacred Music to my future children.
Therefore, I joined the choir about a month and a half ago, and I love it.
I use this website to practice regularly the propers for the Mass on my own during the week:
http://www.christusrex.org/www2/cantgreg/calend_ensaios_eng.html
Believe me if I can do it, anybody else can do it.
Posted by: Brian at Sep 26, 2006 2:20:04 AM
Greetings to Catholics and Dominicans in Hooville. The schola at St. T's reminds me of when I was part of the first traditional music choir at St. T's formed around 1981. Sr. Monica (IIRC) was a great leader of chant, though our efforts were not systematic by any means; we also did polyphony and Sacred Harp hymnody, in addition to classics. It was quite the radical venture in those days, back in the old church (I can still remember Mass in the university's Chemistry building when the old church had a fire). I did love the modern stained glass in the old church; did they preserve any of it?
Posted by: Liam at Sep 26, 2006 7:37:41 AM
Here in Philly the Archdiocesan Boy Choir of Philadelphia (http://www.archboychoir.org/)is holding auditions this coming weekend. They are always looking for boys who have some musical talent and a willingness to learn. It is an amazing experience for the boys (my son was an ABC choir boy for four years) and for their families (we traveled to Avila and Fatima with the choir). If there are to be more Scholas then there need to be more boy choirs like ABC to act as their farm teams. They chant and sing in Latin, Spanish, French, Polish, etc., etc. Check out their website for more info on the auditions.
Posted by: Tim at Sep 26, 2006 10:25:09 AM
This Schola is particularily wonderful, indeed. I think they are as fine musicians as Chanticleer, but they truly care about the liturgy, which is what makes them great. The most moving and powerful music I have ever heard was on Good Friday at the Shrine of St. Francis, when they chanted the Passion Gospel. It was awesome, and truly liturgical. SUPPORT THEM!
Posted by: wondrouspilgrim at Sep 26, 2006 10:31:45 AM
Dear Liam,
The stained glass of the old church was damaged even before it was taken down for the new parish hall, but it has, I believe been saved for future use.
I personally think the stained glass in the new church is more impressive (esp. the abstract and symbolic sections -- the human representations are less so, at least for me).
If you pass through C'ville, come join us at 7:30 a.m. on Sunday. We do all Ordinary chants (including the Creed) from the Dominican Kyriale, as well as communions and offertories. For a link to the schola, click on my name.
Posted by: Fr. Augustine Thompson O.P. at Sep 26, 2006 4:21:20 PM
Fr. Augustine
Glad to know at least some of the old glass was saved. I was not particularly taken with the glass in the new church, especially the representational material (stained glass having been something of a sometime hobby of mine). The old glass was the most beautiful part of the old church; very *different* from what one normally expects in a Catholic church, but capable of capturing and modulating light in all seasons in a remarkable way. It's important to realize that, in the older Christian artistic tradition, the way one images God the Father is not as a white-bearded guy on a throne (that's a later development) but as Light.
Anyway, a generation ago in the old church (1979), there was only contemporary guitar music. The little organ sat, basically unused, behind the wall behind the pulpit/ambo area. My oldest college friend, very very liberal mind you, detested what her family called "wang wang" music in liturgy. Eventually (1981-82), with the direction of Sr. Monica, we got a small group of reasonably skilled singers together to sing at the earlier Sunday mass. It became quite popular. The next year (1982-83), Sr. Monica had gone and there was a new director who was a bit more performance oriented for our tastes and there were soon two different tradition choirs....
Posted by: Liam at Sep 27, 2006 8:17:05 AM
Fr. Columba has also started having some of his chant published through OCP. Go here to read more about him. If you take the links to his compositions for OCP, it seems like they're mainly publishing one of his Passion settings.
Father Columba's psalms are available from G.I.A.
Posted by: Daniel Muller at Sep 27, 2006 2:29:22 PM
"Once someone has stepped up to put the schola together, folks can't be afraid to step up and sing. The single most common thing every choir director hears when recruiting is some variant of "I can't sing" or "I'm not good enough to sing with you guys." "
I sing in a 200 voice choral group that does not audition and regularly performs the major choral works with a professional orchestra in a large concert hall. So, I know it can be done.
Unfortunately, our new pastor decided to replace the volunteer choir with a paid, professional one that will sing at the Latin (not Tridentine) Mass each Sunday. He also hired a new "master of music" to direct them. This past Sunday, the music for the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Die came from Schubert's Mass in G. Not only does the congregation NOT participate, but we remain seated for the Kyrie and Gloria because they are so long (with several solo parts). It is beautiful music, but IMO more suited to a concert hall than a suburban parish Sunday Mass.
The congregation has voted with its feet, and very few people attend this Mass, which routinely runs over 90 minutes and is decidedly not child-friendly. The parishioners have not been advised of the costs of adding a "master of music," two assistant organists, two cantors, and two dozen or so choral singers to the payroll.
I used to complain about the banal music at Mass, but "be careful what you wish for" has taken on a new meaning.
Posted by: Marie at Sep 27, 2006 8:29:00 PM
What a wonderful posting, Amy, and what a fantastic host of comments! Gregorian chant is definitely on the way back! Here at Ave Maria University we have Men's and Women's Scholæ that sing either separately or together every Sunday at the 10:00AM Novus ordo Latin Mass. The Scholæ also chant at feast day Masses. Some of the chanters are students in our sacred music major, but many are just lovers of Gregorian chant who enjoy worshiping God in this way.
Posted by: Susan Treacy at Sep 27, 2006 10:27:42 PM
I attended performances of Schola Cantorum of SF and have some of their CDs, and their singing is beautiful. A friend hired them to sing at his mother's funeral in the Carmelite monastery chapel in Santa Clara. I heard as you did that they used to be associated with the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi, but the leadership at the shrine changed and the schola's ties with the shrine were cut.
Anyone living in the Bay Area can hear a Mass with Gregorian chant and polyphonic motets every Sunday at noon at 100 year old St. Thomas Aquinas Church at Waverly and Homer in Palo Alto. The Mass is sung by the St. Ann Choir under the direction of William Mahrt. Mahrt is a music professor at Stanford, editor of Sacred Music (http://musicsacra.com) and has been leading the choir for over 40 years. The choir just got back from singing in St. Wenceslaus International Music Festival in Prague, where they performed a polyphonic Mass (Missa Nisi Dominus by Senfl) at St. Ignatius (Sv. Igac) Church on their last day to a standing room only crowd. With the strong support of Pope Benedict for a return to the use of the Church's treasury of sacred music during worship, the tides might be turning.
Another chance to hear this great music is available the first Saturday of every month at Our Lady of Peace Shrine 2800 Mission College Blvd. in Santa Clara at 7:30 pm, when a Tridentine Mass is sung.
I have a vested interest in my raving about this topic. I joined the St. Ann choir last Spring. After singing the good stuff every Sunday, it is a shock to my system when I have to go back to hear the post-60s music performed in other Catholic churches.
Posted by: Roseanne Sullivan at Sep 28, 2006 2:15:13 AM
