Music for the ICEL Missal

[Nick Baty]

What's "pretification" – can't find it in me dictionary!

[gwyn]

I thought of Tartification, but that's not in there either.

[Nick Baty]

Sounds like my average weekend!

[gwyn]

I'm not allowed to have weekends like that any more. Am I Dearest?

[NorthernTenor]

In my head I hear the word prettification in a Welsh accent, Gwyn. I did live there once, and some of my friends were fervent Chapel.

[Nick Baty]

So did you mean "prettification" rather than "pretification"?

[NorthernTenor]

So did you mean "prettification" rather than "pretification"?

When I quoted Alan (note the quote marks around the word and the tagged quote from his comment), I took the liberty of assuming that was what he meant. Anyway, I don't think it would sound Welsh without the double 't'.

[Nick Baty]

I am confused. Alan writes "prettification" – you quote him as "pretification".
Can I presume I missing a joke here?

[musicus]

And when we have cleared that one up - we're all agog - let's get back OT.

[alan29]

Aye up lads - go easy. You know what I meant. I have been called some things, but never a Jansenist.
I think my (obviously badly expressed) point is that some people might want to draw a distinction between lyrical/poetic texts, and scripture readings that are meant for our instruction and perhaps should be allowed to speak to us unvarnished and unadorned by Mgr Falso-Bourdono's warblings.
Alan

[Reginald]

Generalisation alert!

Some years ago I helped prepare some of my Jewish pupils for their Bar Mitzvahs, taught them to read the text and so on. The element I couldn't do was teaching them to sing the text which was considered essential, and has been so considered for millenia. I assume speaking the readings is a modern (last 500 years) thing, prompted primarily by the Protestant reformers. I teach a comparative liturgy unit to our VI Form and I've struggled to find any major religious group that opts for plain speech over chant that isn't Protestant Christian, or hasn't been significantly influenced by Protestant Christianity (feel free to correct me - I don't intend to be precious about it). To my mind, restoring chant to the liturgy, in whatever language, however imperfectly it may be done, would be a truly ecumenical gesture. We have to look beyond the narrow concerns of western Christianity to what religious people share at the global level - all too often the things that raise temperatures here (specifically liturgical orientation, use of a sacred language, chant). Odd to think that as a fairly trad Catholic I have more in common with many Muslims than I do with many Christians!

I wonder if the new missal will prompt our bishops to reappraise their view of the importance of chanting readings/dialogues/prayers. The current guidance stops short, just, of describing it as an affectation and seems to set itself up in opposition to Musicam Sacram.

[alan29]

I may be wrong, but my understanding is that chanting in Islam etc is to aid individual memory - they are expected to memorise the text. Don't know about synagogues, though I suspect it weill vary according to which wing of Judaism is involved.
Alan

[Southern Comfort]

I wonder if the new missal will prompt our bishops to reappraise their view of the importance of chanting readings/dialogues/prayers. The current guidance stops short, just, of describing it as an affectation

Well, if the cap fits....

and seems to set itself up in opposition to Musicam Sacram.

I think we've had this conversation before. Musicam Sacram was written and issued before the Missa Normativa came into being in 1969 - i.e. when the Tridentine Rite was still in existence. There are two schools of opposing thought, therefore.

One says that, because of this, it is not always (or even mostly not) relevant to the kind of liturgy we have now: it was written for the Tridentine Rite. MS's insistence that the most important things to sing are the dialogues and the least important thing to sing is the Alleluia, is an example of this. No one could seriously hold that view today.

The other point of view says that those writing MS knew that the new liturgy was on the horizon in the aftermath of Vatican II, and took it into account.

The truth probably lies somewhere between the two, and in the Vatican archives someone will one day dig up chapter and verse on the arguments that must have taken place between the forward-looking and backward-looking camps responsible for drafting the text. There are some very good things in MS, but also some things that we would not agree with today (e.g. above).

[Hare]

http://www.mander-organs.com/discussion ... topic=2423

A parallel discussion here?

[Southern Comfort]

http://www.mander-organs.com/discussion/index.php?showtopic=2423

A parallel discussion here?

Interesting... Some of those posting are known to SSG members, but are not posting here for some reason.