Views from the Choir Loft

Colin Mawby & Annibale Bugnini

Corpus Christi Watershed · August 27, 2013 ·

From a 1976 article by Colin Mawby, formerly Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral:

T IS INTERESTING to compare these statements with the following quotation from an article in Notitiae (December 1970) by Father (now Archbishop) A. Bugnini, secretary of the Congregation for the Divine Cult and one of the chief architects of the recent reform. Describing the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales, he wrote of the plainchant Alleluia sung by the boys of the Westminster Cathedral Choir: “The triple Alleluia powerfully sung by all, wonderfully framed the chaste melody of the versicle Nisi granum frumenti sunt, performed in a manner quite perfect and, I would say, angelic by the choirboys of the schola. Thus we heard under the vaults of the Vatican Basilica chant in its ever stimulating freshness.”

It may well be unusual to find the names of Jacques Maritain and Evelyn Waugh on the same petition, but it is even more unusual to find Archbishop Bugnini and the late Evelyn Waugh in unspoken agreement on any aspect of liturgy.

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski