Music at Mass Patrick Hanley’s belated word for amateur music (Letters, 21 May) is too kind. The infelicities of the new Missal and the harsh diktats of Liturgiam Authenticam and Vox Clara tramp most crushingly on the parish choir. The hard work of decades, the gentle care and enterprise of parish priests and choir leaders, masterly music such as Peter Jones’ Coventry Gloria, all must go to the bin. The patient parish faithful who love the Mass know they must find the money now to pay for copyright settings of inferior texts. Musical despots – sometimes the very ones who enthuse over medieval tropings – *beep* the most apt and reverent amplification for music’s sake of the beautiful 1970s translation. The chant? That arose, one used to be taught, as a close, direct musical incarnation of the words themselves: and one hoped in the 1970s for many new chants, English words cast in the old modes. Despite one’s expectations, however, few composers, apart from Dom Gregory Murray, sought that fresh creation. Now, it seems, the chant is just a tune that English words can be fitted into. The bishops now exceed the Curia in their fixation on formula. We have nowhere to turn. Tom McIntyre Frome, Somerset
Bit of a poignant missive from Mr McIntyre in today's Tablet. He can't have been at the Hammersmith Seminar for Composers where the re-write of the Coventry Glory to God went down very well. I suppose it's gone through the panel process and is in a queue for ICEL approval and publication. Who knows?
Alternatively, Fr Jones and also many others could take the other route - who was it that said "publish and be damned"? Let's hope it doesn't come to that though!
I love the line "beautiful 1970's english." I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that, but I have always associated the 1970's translations with the Mock Turtle. The mock turtle has now abdicated in favour of Yoda. Who will come next? A translation of the mass by Jule and Sand perhaps?
presbyter wrote: Bit of a poignant missive from Mr McIntyre in today's Tablet. He can't have been at the Hammersmith Seminar for Composers where the re-write of the Coventry Glory to God went down very well. I suppose it's gone through the panel process and is in a queue for ICEL approval and publication. Who knows?
On the other hand, despite all the reservations about the texts which have been fully discussed elsewhere, this could be a good opportunity to re-visit the fundamentals of how we pray and sing the Mass... which is one of the objectives...
With regard to ICEL, having got the necessary approval from the Panel, I emailed ICEL about 3 weeks ago, with copies of everything plus panel certificate, but have not had the courtesy of even an automatic acknowledgement. As the setting is mainly for my parish (plus some friends perhaps) and I'm not charging for it, I'm going ahead anyway and assuming the permission is in place (after trawling through the turgid ICEL policy on permissions - they don't seem to charge if you are not charging, and I suspect they're mainly interested in restricting permission when they are due money, but someone here will doubtless correct me!).
Memo to self: I must get round to printing and sending off 5 copies to the Liturgy Office sometime!
Permission from ICEL is more or less automatic once you have the Panel certificate. For this sort of publication they don't charge anything on the first 500 copies sold (so that doesn't include those you give away) and just $30 for each 500 sold thereafter. So their costs aren't exactly prohibitive.
JW wrote:With regard to ICEL, having got the necessary approval from the Panel
JW, in another thread on this forum, we were told that only publishers could submit to the Panel, not individual composers. Have you become a publisher?
SC, I have been called many things, some of them complimentary, but you are the first to ask if I'm a publisher! I don't really even think of myself as a composer - I just wrote something for our parish to use!
I think the Bishops Conference's concept of a publisher is fairly wide. i.e. anyone who has the wherewithal to reproduce music, even if this is only copying for a few friends or putting it out (publishing) on the internet. Para 36 of the Composers Guide states "Many who compose music for the liturgy wish to pass on the fruits of their creativity to others, beyond the particular community for which it was first created. The development and accessibility of computer software allows people the possibility of producing professional looking editions." 'Appendix 3 - Copyright Information' of the Composers Guide states that "A setting which is made freely available on the web does not require permission but does require acknowledgement. It should be noted that such settings, even if made freely available, would be subject to the Bishops' Conference process."
Nick, it's not the cost I'm worried about as I make no charge for my music and, as stated above copyright permission is not required for settings made freely available. My beef is that, in accordance with suggestions made in other topics, out of courtesy, I nevertheless emailed copies to ICEL and asked for their acknowledgement that I could go ahead, I haven't heard a *beep* bird!
I need to put the record straight - I find I've unjustly maligned the ICEL office earlier in this thread. They responded, positively, yesterday and my original request was only emailed to them on 26th May, so a 15 day wait rather than the 3 weeks I had orginally posted.
