Kevin Mayhew

[JW]

I wonder if he sees the Anglican market as more akin to his thinking than the RC market? As I said in January, whilst I'm not wholly unsympathetic to his viewpoint, individual action is likely to be ineffective. If Kevin Mayhew steps aside from the RC market, others will fill the void if necessary. Our parish has now taken the decision to purchase Laudate.

[Southern Comfort]

Both the revised editions of Laudate and Celebration Hymnal for Everyone have been delayed by the Nihil Obstat process, I gather. Might be worth waiting to actually see them both before deciding which to opt for. The differences between the supplements was noticeable.

[JW]

The pew edition of Laudate is already published. The only (pleasant) surprise for me is that I'm not sure what, if anything, the Nihil Obstat has filtered out - there must be something!

The McCrimmons website states that the new edition of Celebration Hymnal for everyone will be published in September.

[Southern Comfort]

The pew edition of Laudate is already published.

I have not yet seen the pew edition, but the full music edition is still at proof stage, I am told.

[Nick Baty]

The full music edition is now available. Details here.

[JW]

I got a flier in the post this morning for a new Hymn Book: "Just Catholic Hymns Old and New":

This important new addition to our Catholic hymn book range does exactly what the title says - it just contains hymns. New Mass settings will be available separately, but this exciting new hymnbook is simply a straight forward (sic) collection of Catholic hymns, making it extremely user-friendly

My concerns would be:

1. The book contains loads of old Mass settings and settings of parts of the Mass, including 'The Israeli Mass', the 'Peruvian Gloria', 'Scarborough Fair Sanctus', etc, etc. This contradicts the assertion that the book just contains hymns - they were written to be used at the relevant places at Mass.
2. There is no mention that the hymn book has gone through the approval process for hymn books. The current General Instruction of the Roman Missal says that hymns used at Mass must be approved. I would have thought that the items contained in (1) above would not be approved as some churches could interpret approval as being OK to use at Mass.
3. Would 'hymns' such as O when the saints, Kum ba yah, and some of the children's hymns in the book be approved? Some of these may have been OK in the early days of vernacular music but surely not now.

Kevin Mayhew has contributed a great deal to our liturgies over the years, producing affordable, well laid-out resources. It is unfortunate that he seems to be ignoring recently laid-down procedures. I wonder what advice he received? It is basic marketing that, if you are selling to a particular market, you need to observe any regulations to which that market is subject. The fact that I believe that this censorship is wrong (and I do) does not mean that I can flout the rules in my music ministry, or in my compositions.

[Peter]

On another thread,

...except that since the new Missal came in they no longer use the "Israeli Mass" ....

Have heard quite a few similar comments in the last couple of years suggesting that the new translation banned such items. In fact, they were outlawed around 1985 – although they had never been allowed in the first place. Sorry, Peter, hope I don't appear to be correcting you. That's not my intention, it's just that you mention something which I've heard quite a bit of recently.

No offence taken at all, Nick! I hadn't realised the practice was outlawed that long ago, because in my parish, as I'm sure in many others, paraphrased settings were used up to the change eighteen months ago. I suspect PPs either were unaware of the ban or tolerated paraphrases until the introduction of the new Missal gave them the incentive they needed to change what had long become accepted by custom, at least in their parishes. Before the change came in I told the guitarist at the "other" church in my parish that the Israeli Mass and the like would not be allowed and indeed were not strictly allowed then; his reply was an innocent "But they're in the book..."! The "book" in question was Hymns Old and New (published by Kevin Mayhew), which is why I posted this reply here rather than on http://www.ssg.org.uk/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1683&p=23651#p23653.

On the other hand, I visited a church last year where they were still using the Salazar Gloria on the grounds that they could not cope with the one in the setting of the new text that the other music they used was drawn from.