At The Colloquium: Vespers

The Friday Evening Vespers featured a style of sacred music not often heard today: Falsobordoni. Although it is, structurally, a very simple form of music, these settings are anything but simple!

The recording of the Vespers can be heard or downloaded HERE.

From The Colloquium: Haydn's Orgelmesse

The Mass this morning featured one of the Colloquium choirs singing the Haydn Orgelmesse... as well as the expected Chant and Polyphony!

The complete Mass can be heard or downloaded HERE.

At The Colloquium: Fr. Keyes Speaks Out

The Thursday Night "Mystery Speaker" was none other than Fr. Keyes...and he delivered an address filled with hope and practical suggestions for the implementation of the Church's sacred music at the parish level.

The entire address can be heard HERE.

I spoke with Fr. Keyes later that evening about some of what he talked about in this address...it is his feeling that the involvement of the school and teaching sacred music to young Catholics needs to be a central focus. He has posted the list of "required music" for school children at NLM (it may not be there yet though!).

Papal Mass for the Imposition of the Pallium

This Sunday, June 28th, Pope Benedict celebrates the Mass for the Imposition of the Pallium (there's probably a real name for this if someone could help me here). We have all watched the development of the Papal liturgies over the past several years. This is yet another step forward.

I'm not a big fan of worship aids, but you might find this one interesting.

Note particularly how the assembly participates, "despite" the use of chant throughout the Mass!

At The Colloquium: Extraordinary Form Mass

The Mass on Thursday Morning was an Extraordinary Form Solemn High Mass with the Canons of St. John Cantius in Chicago. The Mass Ordinary was sung by the Choir of St. John Cantius under the Direction of Fr. Scott Haynes. The Propers were variously sung by the Men's Intermediate Schola (Introit),Men's Advanced Schola (Gradual and Alleluia), the Women's Advanced Schola (Offertorium) and the Women's Intermediate Schola (Communion).

The audio recording may be listened to or downloaded HERE.

At The Colloquium: Two Lectures in One Night!

This evening's schedule was full with two lectures... back to back. The first was from William Mahrt on Sacred places....although the topic was a springboard for a much wider discussion about sacred music and the concept of "sacred"...

Dr. Mahrt's lecture can be heard HERE.

The second was from Fr. Phillips...from the Canons of St. John Cantius. His talk was much more pointed and critical of the status quo in Church music...ending with a very sten call to action for the restoration of truly sacred music.

Fr. Phillips' lecture can be heard HERE.

At The Colloquium: Rehearsal for Nos Autem Gloriosi

A beautiful motet by Palestrina which we're singing at Mass on Friday. The biggest challenges have been negotiating the tuning in what is a rather harmonically adventurous piece... for Plestrina at least!

THIS is an audio clip of the rehearsal run through during today's choir rehearsal.

At the colloquium: Mass with Cardinal George

Cardinal George celebrated the Ordinary Form Mas in Latin with the CMAA Colloquium this morning at 10:00AM in the Madonna Della Strada Chapel.

An audio recording of the Mass can be downloaded HERE.

The following selections were sung at today's Mass (the parenthesis indicate the point in the recording where you can hear the selection)

Ecce Sacerdos Magnus (7:10)

De Ventre (9:20)

Priusquam te Formarem (22:45)

Credo I (42:55)

Justus ut Palma -Chant (49:15)

Justus ut Palma- Motet (51:30)

Tu Puer (1:09:30)

Christi Fili Dei (1:18:00)

Ut Queant Laxis (1:24:40)

Organ Improvisation -Buchholz (1:27:30)

At The Colloquium: Chant Rehearsal (Advanced)

This morning's class with Wilko Brouwers (Advanced Men's Schola) was an hour of instruction on vocal techniques as well as interpretation of chant. The advanced Men's Schola has been charged with singing the more difficult Graduales and Alleluia settings for the sung Masses this week.

Today we worked on the Iustus ut Palma Florebit and Priusquam te Formarem from the Mass for the Nativity of John The Baptist (June 24th). The video below is of our rehearsal of the Priusquam Te Formarem.

At The Colloquium: Mass (OF in English)

One of the main components of the Sacred Music Colloquium is the Mass of the Day. These Masses are outstanding examples... the liturgy prepared in the way called for by the Second Vatican Council. Todays Mass was in the Ordinary Form (Novus Ordo Missale)English... the Mass that is celebrated in most parishes.

The Antiphons (Entrance, Offertory and Communion) are sung in English using adapted Gregorian melodies. This is the model that has most recently advocated in the USCCB Document "Sing To The Lord", and which has been incorporated into the new translation of the Missale. Also featured in this liturgy are the sung dialogues between the Priest and the assembly. This is an interesting example in that it is very much the liturgical form set out in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, and is very close to the liturgical form being proposed with the implementation of the new translation of the Missal.

You may listen to an audio recording of this Mass HERE.

At The Colloquium: Sung Morning Prayer

No rest for the weary... the day begins with sung Morning Prayer at 7:00AM. This is a simple and beautiful liturgy that could be easily done at any parish....OK, maybe a sung Evening Prayer would be more practical!

You can listen to our sung Morning Prayer HERE.

Into the Fire....

What with the traffic in Chicago and what I'm sure was a deliberate act of sabotage on the part of my Garmin, I'm finally in Chicago (via the scenic steel-works and shipyards of Gary IN). After arriving, it was immediately to dinner, and then to a brief opening address from Jeffrey Tucker and William Mahrt. Then on to rehearsals...

We divided into 5 polyphonic choirs...mine did an initial read-through of Palestrina's Iustus ut Palma Florebit. It's going to be a long week... right now, it's time to get some sleep. More on this tomorrow when I'm a little more awake...

On The Road- Somewhere in Indiana

This is the first chance I've had to get online since I left yesterday... parked by a Fairfield Inn just south of Indianapolis so I can get online. I also have to get the actual address of Loyola to program my Garmin to get me there! I used my driving time to learn the Credo III and the Missa Orbis Factor...

Blogging from the CMAA Colloquium

For the next week, I will be posting daily reports from the CMAA Colloquium. There will, no doubt, be a number of other sites doing so as well. Of particular interest to me, and hopefully to others as well, will be the insights on the new translation of the Missal and the accompanying "Music Project" that remains a bit of a mystery still at this time.

The Colloquium will also be a time to take stock of what has taken place in regards to the ROTR since this time last year. I know that there has been significant progress in liturgical practice and the progress on the liturgical music front has been far greater than anybody would have dreamed of only a few short years ago! But there is no better way to discover this than through the personal testimony of those "working in the vineyard" as it were.

My first task is to print out the Colloquium Packet...not a "sample" packet of music to be purchase, but actual full scores of the music we will be singing during the week...ours to bring back home and use without any further expense. That is just one of the beautiful aspects of Sacred Music...it is given as a gift to the Church by the Church.

Stay tuned...