presbyter wrote:I have been informed that not only do we have a panel checking the ways in which composers use the texts of the Missal;
we also have an anonymous theologian checking non-Missal texts and that in future, publishers will have to submit all hymn and other song texts for scrutiny.
Looks as if all new collections published in this country will require a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur.
Well … it may be that the Liturgy office is having one of its periodic fits of folie de grandeur. It can fill its otherwise pointless days by interfering with the detail of settings of ICEL copyright texts, but outside of that it can no more prohibit the publication of text-settings than King Canute could hold back the waves. Perhaps it believes that the diocesan Bishops will instruct their clergy not to permit anything to be sung that lacks an imprimatur?
NorthernTenor wrote:Well … it may be that the Liturgy office is having one of its periodic fits of folie de grandeur.
Perhaps the goal on the distant horizon is a National Catholic Hymn Book? SC has given us some insights as to what has happened in other countries when that has been attempted.
Eastern Promise wrote:I think I would quite like to write music for the liturgy too. How does one go about it?
My experience to date, from diocesan workshops, is that quite a few people are indeed doing this for their own parishes. For your own parish, just get on with it EP.
Thanks Presby. I have suggested this to one of the pps in the area, but he's one if these Graduale Schmaduale freaks and seems to have his own outdated ideas. I even took him along a piece by Nick Baty, which might be the kind if thing I could aspire to/offer them, but he would have none of it.
A printed catalogue from Kevin Mayhew has arrived in the post today. No mention whatsoever of new or revised Mass settings for the new texts - and still the promotion of a hymnal with over ninety Mass settings (or partial settings), most (all?) of which are now unusable (but will still be used?).
Why do we bother ourselves trying to compose for the new texts - and why do the Bishops bother with a permission to publish procedure - when a major publisher simply ignores the new translation of the Missal and the Bishops' insistence that we now sing only approved settings of the new text? What are the Bishops supposed to do? Tell parishes to stop using Mayhew hymnals? I can't see that happening somehow.
presbyter wrote:A printed catalogue from Kevin Mayhew has arrived in the post today. No mention whatsoever of new or revised Mass settings for the new texts - and still the promotion of a hymnal with over ninety Mass settings (or partial settings), most (all?) of which are now unusable (but will still be used?).
Why do we bother ourselves trying to compose for the new texts - and why do the Bishops bother with a permission to publish procedure - when a major publisher simply ignores the new translation of the Missal and the Bishops' insistence that we now sing only approved settings of the new text? What are the Bishops supposed to do? Tell parishes to stop using Mayhew hymnals? I can't see that happening somehow.
Because someone saw it as an opportunity to have their arguable views treated as holy writ. It's a temptation few of us who spend time arguing the toss on comment boards would be able to resist, I suspect, but that's what management oversite is supposed to be for.
There is a "new Missal" text link on the Mayhew drop down search menu (if you type in "new Missal" but this leads only to lists of standard hymnals and - obliquely via Google search for a sound file - to this:
Not exactly something the Panel would look favourably upon, I think.
It, like the Israeli Mass and other notable paraphrases, is never going to go anywhere near the Panel because it is not a liturgical text, but a paraphrase, and therefore does not need approval by the Panel and so will never be submitted to it. This is precisely the sort of thing that the Panel process was designed to deal with, but which it will never be able to touch. The process has misfired, but no one will admit it. In the meantime, it is slowing things down for everyone else. There is a lot of anger out at the grass roots because of this, I can tell you.
Surely, any attempt to control printing is doomed to failure. The church needs to lead by example. In the past there have been church supported hymnbooks, the Westminster and the Leeds spring to mind. There was a publisher to the Holy See, Burnes, Oates and Washbourne, but that arrangement was let slip. I suggest that the church needs to stop messing about with the composers, and buy the copyrights to some good mass settings outright, and make those freely available, perhaps on a web site. It strikes me that the present arrangement of just hoping that publishers will publish only suitable material is very naive.
Things may get worse for the control freaks soon. Eventually protestant churches will produce new translations but without the weird bits. After all, it is only the oddities that are really copyright, good translations are in the public domain already. Publishers will then publish those, and nothing stops catholics using them. Even if the church decides its copyrights are being infringed, are we really going to throw over ecumenism by suing another bunch of christians. It is time to get real about this.
I think I should make it clear that the Anderson Mass snippet I posted is copyright Kevin Mayhew 1999. It's not new music. But it does come up on the first page following a site search of music for the new translation of the Missal.
Will Mayhew withdraw this - and other paraphrase settings - from his catalogue now? I can see a media car-crash looming over approved new text settings and the continuing publication and use of paltry paraphrases if he doesn't.
nazard wrote:I suggest that the church needs to stop messing about with the composers, and buy the copyrights to some good mass settings outright, and make those freely available, perhaps on a web site.
If you held the purse-strings, how much would you offer, nazard?
I myself would not be in total agreement with the Canadian Bishops on the quality of some of what is presented there (and I don't just mean the twangaroo setting).
I myself would not be in total agreement with the Canadian Bishops on the quality of some of what is presented there (and I don't just mean the twangaroo setting).
I would agree with your judgements. Its so hard to write a decent, memorable melody that doesn't meander all over the place or continually come down with a bump - there were examples of both in those sound files.
