johnquinn39 wrote:Which hymn books are these -- why the secrecy?
There are three major catholic hymn book publishers - one produces a green hymn book - one produces a blue hymn book - and one produces various old and new editions of different colours. We're hardly being secretive, are we?
Any opinions expressed are my own, not those of the Archdiocese of Birmingham Liturgy Commission, Church Music Committee. Website
I'd always thought that the Green Book, the Orange Book and the Blue Book were volumes 1, 2 and 3 respectively of "Carols for Choirs" (ed. Willcocks and/or Rutter, OUP).
To get back to the topic, I thought we'd established on another thread that the publisher of the old and new hymnals was boycotting, or at least disregarding, the Panel. Do we know whether his new editions will have an Imprimatur - and what will happen if they don't?
BTW, congratulations to this thread for achieving a half-century. Is it the first one to do so? Should we have a smiley for removing a helmet and waving a bat at an admiring crowd?
I find hymn book colours a little like madelines in their capacity to evoke. After all these years I still associate green with that best of all its kind, the English Hymnal; blue with singing from Ancient & Modern at school; and Red with a rather low affair called the Anglican Hymnal. Orange was used on the cover of A&M's 100 hymns for today, which dated almost as quickly as Catholic music of the 80's and 90's.
Peter wrote:BTW, congratulations to this thread for achieving a half-century. Is it the first one to do so? Should we have a smiley for removing a helmet and waving a bat at an admiring crowd?
It is the first to do so, Peter, but we are reserving the pictorial celebrations for the 100th page.
Peter wrote:BTW, congratulations to this thread for achieving a half-century. Is it the first one to do so? Should we have a smiley for removing a helmet and waving a bat at an admiring crowd?
It is the first to do so, Peter, but we are reserving the pictorial celebrations for the 100th page.
Is that a challenge I suspect there are some who would like to see this particular thread locked
Back to the panel - does anyone know if/when the results of the review of Panel working will be published?
JW wrote:I suspect there are some who would like to see this particular thread locked
I don't doubt it, John, tho' I am also sure there are those who believe it a valuable and proper channel for semi-public criticism of a process that's gone badly wrong - even if they don't always agree with the complainants on other matters.
JW wrote:Back to the panel - does anyone know if/when the results of the review of Panel working will be published?
It has been, but I can no longer point you to it since the re-organisation of the bishops' conference website, which has hidden it from view (or at least made it difficult to find). Funny, that. I can tell you, though, that it's quite as remarkable for what it doesn't say as what it does. Pass along, ladies and gentleman, there's nothing for you to see here ...
The document provides a good example of what can happen when an organisation reviews its own activities. Self-congratulation becomes the order of the day. Significant criticisms of design and execution are not mentioned. Those problems that are documented are someone else’s fault.
The criticisms that have been made are that:
(a) The process goes beyond its stated purpose of textual fidelity.
(b) The Panel is unaccountable because it is anonymous and to date – contrary to its terms of reference – no appeal has been possible against its decisions.
(c) The decision to use the Composers’ Guide as a source of rules for the process, rather than the helpful guide for composers that its name implies, introduces considerable uncertainty and complexity. The Guide lacks the concision and precision that are required of a rule-book, and it is by no means clear what may be interpreted as mandate and what preferred practice or advice. This is hardly surprising, as the Guide and its history show no signs of it having been created with that purpose in mind.
(d) The Office and Panel have made judgements in non-textual matters that admit of difference of interpretation and of subsidiarity. An example is the rule that partial settings of the Eucharist acclamations are not permitted, and that all settings should display a ‘musical unity’. This confuses an arguable issue of good practice for Parish musicians with the duty of a composer, for whom it is reasonable to write a setting of any of the elements in the expectation that the Parish musician will make an informed decision as to how and with what it will be used.
(e) The Office has shown incompetence and lack of courtesy in its dealings, to the point of maladministration. It is now well over half a year since I submitted an appeal under the terms of the Process, and apart from a letter from Bishop Hopes telling me he was passing it to Bishop Roche, I have been given no indication as to when and how it will be considered; apart, perhaps, from a telephone conversation with the Acting Secretary, in which he admitted he hadn’t given any thought to the appeals process until he received an appeal. The failure to acknowledge this ongoing problem in the review compounds the deafening silence.
These points have been made by interested parties in public and private. The Acting Secretary of the Liturgy Office and the Bishops responsible for its management can hardly have been unaware of them. It is therefore reasonable to expect them to be addressed in any review of the Process, even if only for explanation or disagreement. It is therefore with distress that this English Catholic is left to conclude that the absence of any reference to them is a distressing sign of institutional dishonesty. I say distressing because dishonesty is to my mind a more serious problem than incompetence; though when, as here, the two are combined, the result is an unholy mess.
I have to say that I'm concerned, but not altogether surprised, that NT's concerns are neither addressed nor mentioned in the report. If the Conference wished for a proper review they could have commissioned a report externally.
Gwyn wrote:Ah The English Hymnal. Such beauty. Why, after that, did it all go so horribly wrong?
Ah! You must be referring to The New English Hymnal (1986) - an ugly travesty of RVW's masterwork.
Hear him. I'm still on the 1933 in hard-copy, bought second hand at the old SCM bookshop on the Euston road. I love its introduction, including RVW's remarkable assertion that poor hymnody is a moral problem. As a singer, I find its typesetting of words and music unsurpassed for ease of reading. The colour and pattern of its cover are redolent of a subtle liturgical green that's the beautiful antithesis of the polyester material I have become used to seeing at certain times of year. In my modern, digital persona, though, I'm a fan of the 1906, which is out of copyright and therefore fully downloadable & distributable. It includes more and better Catholic hymnody than can found in a clutch of Mayhews.
Is it the first one to do so? Should we have a smiley for removing a helmet and waving a bat at an admiring crowd?
I suspect there are some who would like to see this particular thread locked 
