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Showing posts with label Gregorian chant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gregorian chant. Show all posts
How to sing Et Cum Spiritu Tuo at the Preface
Advent is a beautiful time of year to restore traditional practices, countering the implementation of the novus ordo liturgy, which was done on the First Sunday of Advent in 1969.
Advent is also an ideal time to clean up or correct liturgical details, starting the liturgical year anew.
Gregorian Chant: The One True Liturgical Chant of the West
Fr. Hubert Bizard, FSSP
Claves
Aug. 20, 2023
There are many ways to sing at Mass, but only one way to sing Mass: Gregorian chant.
To talk about the traditional liturgy, or even to just think about it, almost automatically brings us back to Gregorian chant, which is one with it.
The inseparable liturgical chant
Why is it so? Because our liturgy is meant to be sung. And sung... in Gregorian chant, since this is the only chant to be found in the official liturgical books.
Father Paul Doncoeur, military chaplain during the First World War and apostle of scouting, rightly asserted: "the liturgy is created solemn, and the pieces of the Divine Office can only be fully understood in the melodic context that rightly accompanies them".
This melodic context is, once again, Gregorian chant: a chant that is not something to be listened to or performed in the course of a liturgical action, but which is truly "liturgical sung action."
It's one thing to hear hymns or canticles during mass - however beautiful they may be - it's quite another to "sing mass"; in other words, to sing the Mass proper (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, Communion) or the Kyriale (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei). Not to mention the Epistle and Gospel, for which the Church also provides us with the Gregorian melody.
Interpreting texts through melody
Dom Jean Claire, a disciple of Dom Gajard (famous choirmaster at Solesmes Abbey for 57 years) said of his illustrious master:
Book Announcement: “Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life”
The first part deals with the corrosive cultural and psychological effects of a lot of modern popular music, contrasted with the numerous benefits of a lifelong apprenticeship to the great music of the Western tradition (including the many excellent composers working today). Here I draw upon such thinkers as Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Pieper, and Ratzinger as well as years of interesting interactions with young people, whom I often guided through what might be called their “musical conversion.”
Beautiful New Book Teaches Kids Gregorian Chant with Active Keyboard and Color-coded Music
Do you want your child to sing but don’t know where to start? Does your child enjoy music and need some inspiration to sing? Whether your child has been singing for years, or not at all, Children’s First Chants will help them grow in their love for sacred music!
Thinking of starting up Compline? Check out these editions (English/Latin & Spanish/Latin) of the old Roman Compline
I was happy to see that, in the recent Rorate survey on the Divine Office, Vespers and Compline emerged as the frontrunners. For indeed, Vespers has always been regarded in the tradition as the primary liturgical function after Mass (as seen in the ceremonial that accompanies it), and Compline is the most comforting of prayers.
What is your favorite Hour of the Office?
— Rorate Caeli (@RorateCaeli) March 30, 2022
New Catholic recommended monastic Compline for its unchangeable structure, and as a Benedictine oblate, I agree that this feature is both highly practical and deeply consoling. But let's not forget that the old (pre-Pius X) Roman Compline was exactly the same way, showing the continuity that existed between the diocesan and monastic worlds. A beautiful new edition of the classic Tridentine Compline has been prepared by Gerhard Eger, as announced here back in December (see that post for more information):
The Mass of Paul VI “Well Celebrated”—a Myth! (Guest Article by Cyril Farret d’Astiès)
INTRODUCTION
A few weeks ago, a group of priests, religious and lay people, led by our friend Denis Crouan of the association “Pro Liturgia,” seized the opportunity of the publication by Francis of his motu proprio Traditionis custodes to launch a plea to our pastors to “finally” implement the Novus Ordo according to its liturgical rules and to abandon all the initiatives which, according to them, distort it and constitute one of the motives for which the faithful attached to the traditional liturgy distance themselves from the Novus Ordo.
A Saint—and a Mass—for Our Times: St. Camillus de Lellis (July 18)
This morning I had the privilege of singing the chant for a Solemn High Mass in the cathedral of Lincoln, Nebraska. It was a feast for which I had never sung before: that of St. Camillus de Lellis (1500–1614). The texts of the Mass itself made me want to learn more about him.
A soldier and a gambler, Camillus experienced a profound religious conversion that led him to attempt to join the Capuchins. Refused admission due to an incurable leg wound, he moved to Rome, took as his spiritual director St. Philip Neri, and dedicated himself to the unstinting care of the sick, whose wretched abandonment he witnessed firsthand. He was eventually ordained to the priesthood by the last surviving Catholic bishop of Great Britain, Lord Thomas Goldwell, in 1584.
Camillus established a religious congregation, the Order of Clerks Regular, Ministers of the Infirm (also known as Camillians), devoted to the care of the sick—above all, the dying. Like so many other Counter-Reformation saints, he ministered tirelessly to plague victims. In 1591, the Order adopted a fourth religious vow: “to serve the sick, even with danger to one’s own life.”
Coronavirus Prayer
What can we do, in addition to washing our hands and taking prudent measures to avoid contracting or spreading the coronavirus? PRAY.
Here is one idea. Ask your parish schola to chant this prayer in a time of pestilence on Sunday. Imagine if hundreds, if not thousands, of churches around the world took a few minutes to pray for the end of the coronavirus.
Please share.
The Star of Heaven that nourished the Lord drove away the plague of death which the first parents of man brought into the world. May this bright Star now vouchsafe to extinguish that foul constellation whose battles have slain the people with the wound of death.
O most pious Star of the Sea, preserve us from pestilence; hear us, O Lady, for Thy Son honors Thee by denying Thee nothing. Save us, O Jesus, for whom Thy Virgin Mother supplicates Thee.
Gregorian Chant: Perfect Music for the Sacred Liturgy
I am pleased to publish here at Rorate Caeli the full text and video of the lecture I gave on Gregorian chant as the supreme model of sacred music—a reservoir of faith and a wellspring of devotion—at the Sacred Liturgy Conference in Spokane, Washington, in May of 2019. The organizers of the Sacred Liturgy Conference gave me permission to post the video, which I recommend for its slides and musical examples. However, the text may be of value to those who prefer to print it out and read it. There are slight discrepancies between text and video that make no difference to the meaning. PAK
Gregorian Chant: Perfect Music for the Sacred Liturgy
Peter A. Kwasniewski
One might think that something called “plainchant” or “plainsong” would not furnish much to talk about; after all, its very name says it’s plain and it’s chant. In reality, Gregorian chant it is anything but plain, except in the sense that its beautiful melodies are meant to be sung unaccompanied and unharmonized, as befits the ancient monastic culture out of which they sprang. What we call “Gregorian chant” is one of the richest and most subtle art forms in Western music—indeed, in the music of any culture. In my presentation today, I will first give a rapid sketch of the history of chant, then address why we sing our liturgy rather than merely speaking it, and finally delve into the characteristics that make Gregorian chant uniquely suited to the Catholic liturgy.
Events: Dr Kwasniewski Lecturing in Detroit area on May 10–12, 2019
On the weekend of May 10–12, 2019, I will be giving four lectures in the larger Detroit area: one in Detroit proper at Old St. Mary's Church; two in Jackson at St. Mary Star of the Sea; and one in Windsor at St. Alphonsus. Each lecture will be followed by a Q&A period. Happily, all three events start off with traditional Latin High Masses: a new springtime, indeed!
Event: Dr Kwasniewski on Liturgical Chant in Whiting, Indiana, Nov. 3
For those in the Chicago area, I will be giving a lecture on "Liturgical Chant: Wellspring, Model, and Heart of All Sacred Music" on Saturday, November 3, 2018, at St. Mary Byzantine Catholic Church, 2011 Clark Street, in Whiting, Indiana. Byzantine Vespers will be sung at 5 p.m., with the lecture immediately after. All are welcome.
New Video on the Traditional Office of Tenebrae
Readers may be interested in this short video that explains the traditional Office of Tenebrae and why it is so powerful a way of entering into the Passion of the Lord.
The First Sunday of Advent: "God alone can be our ideal, our goal"
On this First Sunday of Advent, let us join our prayers to those of all our forefathers in the Latin rites of the Church who have gone before us, praying in the Introit of the Mass: "To Thee, O Lord, have I lifted up my soul."
Sacred Music as a Latin Mass magnet | January - May 2015: an Event Series in Vicenza, Italy, and an idea for the entire world
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We receive the following from a reader in Vicenza (Veneto), Italy, where a group of Traditional-minded Catholics has had a fine idea for their small community: through a kind of Sacred Musical festival lasting several weeks and with the participation of organists, polyphonic choirs, a Schola Cantorum. Each Sunday, at Mass, the presence of musical beauty for the praise of God, with the intent of both delighting listeners and of bringing new people to Christ and His Church through His Mass:
The Manifestation of the King of Kings
The doctrine of the Kingship of Christ has been relegated almost entirely to a claim about the private commitment of individual believers to live according to the Gospel, and surely, while this is where our Lord's kingship must always begin, it cannot be where it ends. As Pope Pius XI's encyclical Mortalium Animos warns against a relativistic conception of ecumenism, so does the same Pope's encyclical Quas Primas warn against a narrow subjective conception of the reign of Jesus Christ, who is, in fact, whether we acknowledge it or not, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Judge of the living and the dead, the One who can and should reign in the social, cultural, political and economic spheres. He has reigned thus before; and if He does not now reign, that is not to our credit, but to our shame.
All this has been on my mind as I ponder the magnificent Gregorian propers for the feast of the Epiphany -- chants that bring the exceptionlessly comprehensive Kingship of Christ very much to the fore, to be pondered, loved, and longed for. Of course, most Catholics no longer hear these or any songs that convey the traditional doctrine, but -- blessed be God! -- Catholics who attend the usus antiquior Mass today, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, will hear these propers spoken or sung. They are always used in the classical Roman Rite because the Church of Rome always believes and professes one and the same doctrine.
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