Papal Liturgies – Day 4 & 5 of the Papal Visit

Andrew Leung · September 26, 2015 ·

The Holy Father celebrated two Masses on his fourth and fifth day of his apostolic visit. A few traditional hymnodies were sung at both Masses.

Holy Mass: 17:10

This Mass was celebrated at the Madison Square Garden in New York City yesterday. It’s still disappointing to see the dependence on the cantor. But we see the use of more Latin in this Mass. The Eucharistic Prayer was in Latin, so as some of the Ordinary. This is also the only Mass, so far, that a Gregorian tone Propers is sung. A schola chanted the Communion Antiphon and verses in Latin.

Reception of the Holy Father: 0:00
Holy Mass: 12:15

The second Mass was celebrated this morning at the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul. One thing I noticed is that all the concelebrants wore full vestments, including the chasuble. The Roman Canon was said in Latin. Our own Fr. David Friel was one of the Masters of Ceremonies, I guess he was the MC for the altar servers, at this Mass. Maybe he can tell us more about it!

About Andrew Leung

Andrew Leung currently serves the music director of Vox Antiqua, conductor of the Cecilian Singers and music director at Our Lady of China Church. He is also an artist and vocal coach at the Paul Phoenix Academy.

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