Views from the Choir Loft

Amazing Opportunity for Los Angeles Catholics

Jeff Ostrowski · April 23, 2015 ·

O YOU LIVE near Los Angeles? Would you enjoy attending a Latin Mass? Would you like to join a parish where the Extraordinary Form is offered exclusively? I have good news!

Mass in the Extraordinary Form
Saint Victor Church • 7:00pm Each Sunday
8634 Holloway Drive
West Hollywood, CA 90069

We’re a brand new community, but already have established numerous functions, parish organizations, altar server meetings, and so forth. We have a wonderful choir—100% volunteer—which sings the High Mass each week. Listen to this sample recording.

Catholics in Los Angeles can’t attend the Traditional Mass if they don’t realize it’s available each week! Please help spread the word. And parents with small children will love our cry room—right next to the Sanctuary, behind a glass window—which provides a remarkable view.

FR. JOHN BERG, Superior General of the Fraternity, will be visiting our parish—all the way from Switzerland! He will celebrate Mass with us on Pentecost Sunday, 24 May 2015, and attend a dinner immediately after Mass. This will be an unprecedented opportunity for you to speak with him, asking about the Traditional Mass, the FSSP seminaries, and so forth. An especially good opportunity, perhaps, for those considering a vocation to the priesthood.

Our Chaplain, Fr. James Fryar, sends you this brief video greeting.

To learn more, please visit: FSSP.la

Special to thanks to Msgr. Murphy who has allowed us to worship at
St. Victor Church until the Fraternity can obtain a permanent location.

About Jeff Ostrowski

A theorist, organist, and conductor, Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004), and did graduate work in Musicology. He serves as choirmaster for the new FSSP parish in Los Angeles, where he resides with his wife and children.

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