2008 explained in 3 minutes and 30 seconds!
(HT -- The Anchoress)
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music. Show all posts
Friday, January 2, 2009
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
The cure for the common liturgical dance
Catholic churches do not use enough Palestrina these days. If heaven has a soundtrack, I hope this is included.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Touching the Sacred
For Holy Thursday, I decided to attend Mass at Saint John Cantius. Saint John Cantius is a special parish here in Chicago, dedicated to preserving the Latin Mass and Catholicism's sacred tradition. If you are Catholic, you should attend a Latin Mass occasionally. It is a wonderful way to reconnect with our past.
Here is a bit of video from Wednesday night's service (nothing from last night is on the net yet):
This may be a shock to any Protestants or modernist Catholics reading this, but the Latin Mass is one of the great glories of the Catholic Church. And the Mass last night was not a Tridentine High Mass but rather an Ordinary Mass, partly in English, mostly in Latin.
The choir at St. John Cantius is incredible. And given the mode of Mass, the people joined in the Gregorian Chant Now I know that Church is a special one. Most of the members have joined because they have a special devotion to the Latin Mass and to traditional Catholic sacred music. I know that all of our Churches were not all like that in the old days. But whenever I attend a Latin Mass, I wonder what we as Catholics have lost.
I am very much a child of Vatican II. I have no memory of the days when the Tridentine Mass was the primary mode of Catholic worship. Nor do I wish to really go back to those days. But listening to the choir sing old Gregorian chants you could almost touch the sacred. That feeling is, I fear, too often missing from Catholicism today.
Here is a bit of video from Wednesday night's service (nothing from last night is on the net yet):
This may be a shock to any Protestants or modernist Catholics reading this, but the Latin Mass is one of the great glories of the Catholic Church. And the Mass last night was not a Tridentine High Mass but rather an Ordinary Mass, partly in English, mostly in Latin.
The choir at St. John Cantius is incredible. And given the mode of Mass, the people joined in the Gregorian Chant Now I know that Church is a special one. Most of the members have joined because they have a special devotion to the Latin Mass and to traditional Catholic sacred music. I know that all of our Churches were not all like that in the old days. But whenever I attend a Latin Mass, I wonder what we as Catholics have lost.
I am very much a child of Vatican II. I have no memory of the days when the Tridentine Mass was the primary mode of Catholic worship. Nor do I wish to really go back to those days. But listening to the choir sing old Gregorian chants you could almost touch the sacred. That feeling is, I fear, too often missing from Catholicism today.
And now for a musical interlude
The Kinks are the Village Green Preservation Society!
For some reason, back when I was in high school, my favorite band was the Kinks. Strange, as by the time I was in high school, the Kinks were almost 20 years past their prime, though in the mid 1980s they did have something of as revival.
The songs of the British invasion were about rebellion against a Britain that was tired and boring and crying for change following war, rationing, decolonization and stagnation. The Kinks of course with their electric power chords and long hair and songs about sexual freedom tied into this rebellion.
But unlike other bands, the Kinks showed a real sentimentality for "Old England." The "Village Green" does not extol modern sensibilities but rather looks half ironically, half wistfully, at the simpler pleasures of small town English life.
Other songs are in the same vein. "Victoria" for example is a not totally unsentimental view of the pre-World War I Empire while "Come Dancing" remembers a time of innocence after World War II but before the sexual revolution. "Living on a Thin Line," while something of an indictment of Thacherism, also seems to grope for a simpler times of "kings and days of old."
It is always a danger to read too much into music. Maybe you can just sit back and enjoy it. And while we are at, God save the Village Green!
For some reason, back when I was in high school, my favorite band was the Kinks. Strange, as by the time I was in high school, the Kinks were almost 20 years past their prime, though in the mid 1980s they did have something of as revival.
The songs of the British invasion were about rebellion against a Britain that was tired and boring and crying for change following war, rationing, decolonization and stagnation. The Kinks of course with their electric power chords and long hair and songs about sexual freedom tied into this rebellion.
But unlike other bands, the Kinks showed a real sentimentality for "Old England." The "Village Green" does not extol modern sensibilities but rather looks half ironically, half wistfully, at the simpler pleasures of small town English life.
Other songs are in the same vein. "Victoria" for example is a not totally unsentimental view of the pre-World War I Empire while "Come Dancing" remembers a time of innocence after World War II but before the sexual revolution. "Living on a Thin Line," while something of an indictment of Thacherism, also seems to grope for a simpler times of "kings and days of old."
It is always a danger to read too much into music. Maybe you can just sit back and enjoy it. And while we are at, God save the Village Green!
Sunday, January 27, 2008
What will it take for Catholics to find their voice?
I find so much about being a Catholic that connects me to the eternal. The ritual, the spirituality, and Apostolic Succession all give me a feeling of touching the eternal, of reaching back to the time of Jesus (and before) and reaching forward into future generations.
What I really wish, however, is that someone would choose some better hymns.
I sat through Mass on Sunday listening to the cantor warble through unsingable hymn after unsingable hymn. I tried to sing, but none of the hymns were singable. The words were vacant and tune tuneless. Save the last one, which was Amazing Grace.
I have complained about this before. Cannot someone in the Church write some hymns that (i) are singable and (ii) are beautiful?
If that is impossible, cannot we at least borrow from the Anglican hymnal or go back to singing some Latin hymns?
What I really wish, however, is that someone would choose some better hymns.
I sat through Mass on Sunday listening to the cantor warble through unsingable hymn after unsingable hymn. I tried to sing, but none of the hymns were singable. The words were vacant and tune tuneless. Save the last one, which was Amazing Grace.
I have complained about this before. Cannot someone in the Church write some hymns that (i) are singable and (ii) are beautiful?
If that is impossible, cannot we at least borrow from the Anglican hymnal or go back to singing some Latin hymns?
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Will American Catholicism Ever Find its Singing Voice?
In a long post touching many subjects, The Anchoress notes a problem that all American Catholics have noticed. Namely, the poor quality of modern church music.
There are some very good hymns. Often they are seen as too old fashioned, but Catholicism and the feelings that the Mass and hymns conjure up SHOULD feel old fashioned.
One solution is for the English speaking church to look to the hymnal of the high church Anglo-Catholics. They have almost 600 years of expressing the majesty of God in the English language. I have been to high church Anglican weddings where the music was uplifting and expressed perfectly my feelings toward God and Christ. While it might seem slightly scandalous to use Protestant music in the Catholic Church, do not forget that the greatest of the early Anglican psalm composers, Thomas Tallis, was a practicing Catholic his entire life.
Worst Jesus Praise Song Ever. Really. That’s execrable. H/T Junkyard Blog. 95% of all “praise music” and 98% of all Catholic “hymns” written since 1972 are just shudder-inducing. Most of what is played at mass these days serves as useful penance and not much else.Partly, this is due to the "progressive" priests who tried to make the new Mass more "relevant. But some is I believe due to the movement to the vernacular after Vatican II. As much of the Catholic musical tradition was in Latin it seemed the right time not just to change languages, but also styles (this was also needed as pre-Vatican II, much of the music was meant to be LISTENED to, not sung). The result was a hymnal full of songs that were either unsingable or just plain silly. Not all of the new music was bad, but so much of it was. It lacked majesty and reverence.
There are some very good hymns. Often they are seen as too old fashioned, but Catholicism and the feelings that the Mass and hymns conjure up SHOULD feel old fashioned.
One solution is for the English speaking church to look to the hymnal of the high church Anglo-Catholics. They have almost 600 years of expressing the majesty of God in the English language. I have been to high church Anglican weddings where the music was uplifting and expressed perfectly my feelings toward God and Christ. While it might seem slightly scandalous to use Protestant music in the Catholic Church, do not forget that the greatest of the early Anglican psalm composers, Thomas Tallis, was a practicing Catholic his entire life.
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