PANEL decisions

[presbyter]

(Don't you break "the rules" if your donkey falls down a hole and gets stuck on the Sabbath?)

So does this mean I can use Clap-Clap Gloria and Israeli Mass on Sunday?

Do these adapt well to the new texts then?

[HallamPhil]

Nick Baty wrote: So does this mean I can use Clap-Clap Gloria and Israeli Mass on Sunday?

I couldn't comment but the 'clip-clop' Gloria would probably be most appropriate!

[Nick Baty]

Do these adapt well to the new texts then?

Don't have to according to Presbyter:

...if we come up with something better - musically and pastorally. (Don't you break "the rules" if your donkey falls down a hole and gets stuck on the Sabbath?)

[musicus]

No I didn't. Presbyter did!

Fixed. Sorry - I got my quotes in a twist.

[Southern Comfort]

So does this mean I can use Clap-Clap Gloria and Israeli Mass on Sunday?

The bishops would like to prevent you, but they are powerless. These will no longer be allowed to be printed in the "service music" section of your hymnbook, but there's nothing to stop you singing them if your parish wants to.

In fact they will most probably be relocated to the "praise" section of your hymnbook.

The farcical thing is that these things are precisely what the approval process is supposed to stop. But it won't. And it won't because these things are actually not liturgical texts and therefore will not even be submitted for the approval of the Panel. Publishers will simply continue to print them elsewhere in their hymnbooks.

[presbyter]

So does this mean I can use Clap-Clap Gloria ..........

I understand that such musical practice is actively encouraged and promoted presently by a member of the Bishops' Conference Department of Life and Worship Liturgy Committee.

[Nick Baty]

So it's beginning to sound as though the best thing is to move away from the official text as far as possible, writing whatever we like – for musical and pastoral reasons – thereby circumnavigating the Panel. As SC has noted, it only appears to be a problem for those of us who wish to sing the liturgical texts.

[NorthernTenor]

So it's beginning to sound as though the best thing is to move away from the official text as far as possible, writing whatever we like – for musical and pastoral reasons – thereby circumnavigating the Panel. As SC has noted, it only appears to be a problem for those of us who wish to sing the liturgical texts.

*** Aunt Sally Alert. ***

There is a consensus here that we should stick to the text. The concerns are about process and non-textual issues.

[alan29]

I'm starting to wonder how relevant the process will be to the vast bulk of parish musicians. Is it maybe just a tad "ivory tower?"

[presbyter]

*** Aunt Sally Alert. ***

I have no sticks, stones or brickbats to hurl ...... and no will to indulge in such a practice, even if I had.

There is a consensus here that we should stick to the text........

Yes there is.

[Nick Baty]

I'm starting to wonder how relevant the process will be to the vast bulk of parish musicians.

It doesn't really affect most of us.
Only publishers have to go through the process.

[quaeritor]

The bishops would like to prevent you, but they are powerless.
. . . . . .
The farcical thing is that these things are precisely what the approval process is supposed to stop. But it won't. And it won't because these things are actually not liturgical texts and therefore will not even be submitted for the approval of the Panel.

It's very simple to me (saving your Reverence, Presbyter): it's all down to the Parish Priests. If they recognise and welcome the shift of emphasis - we don't go to Mass on Sunday to sing, we go to church on Sunday to sing the Mass - and actively push for the singing of the genuine texts then it will be done, and if they don't it won't. Neither the Bishops on the one hand nor the musicians on the other can achieve it. The pronouncements of the panel are valuable to composers who would like to follow the principle but would like to bend the texts just a little to suit some musical idea and have some impartial input as to whether they are going too far, or to a PP of good will who is being railroaded by the musicians into using stuff he would rather not, but as has been said passim those who don't want to be bound by the decisions really do not have to be - more's the pity.

[What's the "smiley" for "distinctly grumpy"?]

Q

[Calum Cille]

Although I don't understand why anyone one would want thematic unity between a Gloria and an Agnus?

Gloria:-

... Lamb of God, ...
you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us:
you take away the sins of the world,
receive our prayer;
you are seated at the right hand of the Father,
have mercy on us. ...

Agnus Dei:-

Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,
have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world,
grant us peace.

I think many people would agree that too much musical repetition can numb the musical senses; singing the same notes at every occurrence of the word 'Amen' would not be something I could make satisfying to myself musically, unless the melody were very short and perfunctory and therefore not worthy of much of one's musical attention. Perhaps of all parts of the mass ordinary, however, the above sections are the most significant repetition over the length of the mass. I find it entirely appropriate that the feature of recurrence of an important verbal (and thus conceptual) theme at opposite ends of the mass be served by some kind of musically thematic connection.

CC - let's say you composed a chant setting of the new ICEL texts and set yourself up as a desk top publisher in Edinburgh. To whom do composers in Scotland submit their work?

To my knowledge, there has been no public notification on this matter yet beyond referrals to England and Wales, so the matter of what you are doing downstairs is evidently considered very important in Scotland.

http://www.forthinpraise.co.uk/mass.php accessed 17 June 2011
"Depending on what decisions the Scottish bishops take about liturgical music - something we don't know yet - the form of this page may change in the weeks to come. We'll keep you posted."

http://www.romanmissalscotland.org.uk/t ... music.html
http://www.rcagliturgy.org.uk/preparing ... ation.html

There are fundamental problems for the music of the Catholic church in Scotland which, until they are solved, will continue to be detrimental to full and healthy development of, particularly but not exclusively, the Scottish musical tradition in the modern liturgy. I once seriously considered getting involved in the liturgy until I met with full-blown experience of certain liturgists and liturgical trainers which left me aghast at the strength of their (sustained) negativity and enmity (to someone who didn't even take a particular view at that stage). In those days, I learned not to express any reflection on any topic unless compelled to but I found even that approach not to lessen the ire of the liturgists concerned; communication is relationship, after all. If that's still what's going on in pastoral liturgy, I can certainly see why there remain such fundamental problems relating to the healthy development of liturgical music here in Scotland.

[presbyter]

http://www.romanmissalscotland.org.uk/t ... music.html

If you do not know where to find the new material, there will be people in your diocese who can help you.

That must be comforting CC

I notice the Glasgow archdiocese site points to the England and Wales Guide for Composers and the videos of the chants produced by http://www.ccwatershed.org

[Calum Cille]

That must be comforting CC

I suppose these must be the same people who are [not] bashing down my door and flooding my e-mail account with requests for new sets composed in a Scottish idiom!