Gedackt flute wrote:Peter Jones wrote:I think I should also raise the point that Looking for good tunes & new texts omits any consideration of ritual function.
I honestly don't think so! The rites are musical, and so need good tunes. For example, Chris Walker's Alleluia from the New Belmont Mass is, in my view, a terrific tune. I think people will sing it, although I could be totally wrong about this.
The Gloria is a rite in itself, and as the text has been revised, I am looking for a good tune to sing it to - whether this is newly composed, or a different version of something that we already have, or something from tradition, for example Gloria XV.
I also feel that some of the new texts of John Bell, Marty Haugen, and Bernadette Farrell are needed as they weave in ideas from Lumen Gentium, and expand on already existing scriptural and liturgical texts.
I think you've missed Fr. Peter's point, John, which is that how we define 'good tunes' in the context of the liturgy must depend in part on the music's suitability to the text's liturgical function. I would also suggest that we cannot consider suitability to the function of particular elements in isolation; that is, without considering their context within the wider liturgy, and within the tradition that defines it and gives a cultural context to the ars celebrandi.
I also fear that a search for 'new texts', rather than settings of the liturgical text, rather misses the point that our priority is to sing the Mass, not adorn it with our supplementary thoughts. Or so the Council Fathers seemed to say.
