Views from the Choir Loft

Rebuild my Church

Veronica Brandt · June 27, 2015 ·

ODAY WAS THE LAUNCH OF THE Maternal Heart Building Fund Raffle. The aim is to restore the church of the only FSSP parish in Australia. There is much work to be done as the roof has been leaking for many years and only recently have conditions changed to make it possible to start carrying out the work required.

The church itself was the hospital chapel of the Little Company of Mary until 1988 when a Franciscan priest and a fledgling choir obtained use of the church for a Tridentine Rite Latin Mass every Sunday. From there the community has grown and become something of a hub for many apostolates.

I attended Mass at Maternal heart from about 1998 to 2007 and in that time I met my husband, married and had four children. It is a rather unique sort of community, which I didn’t really appreciate until we left. Many of my assumptions about Latin Mass Communities stem from a rosy nostalgia for Mass at Lewisham.

I will have to write more about that another day, as right now I have come home late from the pot luck dinner to launch the raffle, and Saturday is fast coming to a close here, although it is still Saturday morning on the computer which hosts this web page – that is a funny thought.

Click here for more about the Maternal Heart Community. Make sure you scroll down and listen to the recording of the Corsican Tantum Ergo – I heard them singing this after Communion. The celebrating priest afterwards said he happily kept the ablutions going a little longer to enjoy the music.

Click here to buy raffle tickets or make a donation. Hopefully they will soon post more images to show the extent of the repairs required. Some are quite urgent. Last time I attended Mass there some pews were cordoned off for fear of parts of the ceiling falling down.

About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. As editor, she has produced fine publications (as well as valuable reprints) dealing with Gregorian chant, hymnody, Latin, and other subjects. These publications are distinguished on account of their tastefulness. She lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Australia, with her husband Peter and six 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