Views from the Choir Loft

Repetition in the Roman Missal

Fr. David Friel · February 14, 2016 ·

T IS NO SECRET that I am an enthusiastic fan of the 2011 translation of the Roman Missal in English. It is not perfect, to be sure, but it is such an enormous improvement over the former Sacramentary that it warrants ongoing celebration.

One of the things I appreciate most about the new translation is the inclusion of some of the repetitions that are found in the Latin original. These repeated words and phrases were, it seems, not valued by those who crafted the 1970 Sacramentary. Their return is a wonderful thing, and I believe there is something particularly prayerful about them. (I have posted about the value of these repetitions once before).

Beyond the spiritual & liturgical value of repetition, one can also argue that repetition holds great literary significance. Christopher Carstens has made this very argument in a recent article in Adoremus Bulletin:

“All the fun’s in how you say a thing”—Repetition in the Roman Missal, by Christopher Carstens (Vol. XXL, No. 5 – January 2016, pages 4-5)

Carstens, who serves as Editor of Adoremus Bulletin, defines and points out liturgical occurances of such wonderful literary tools as anaphora, symploce, diacope, anadiplosis, palindrome, epanados, and chiasmus.

Not sure what some of those devices are? Neither was I. The article is well worth a read for any lover of the English language.

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served for five years as Parochial Vicar at St. Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

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

“We must say it plainly: the Roman rite as we knew it exists no more. It has gone. Some walls of the structure have fallen, others have been altered—we can look at it as a ruin or as the partial foundation of a new building. Think back, if you remember it, to the Latin sung High Mass with Gregorian chant. Compare it with the modern post-Vatican II Mass. It is not only the words, but also the tunes and even certain actions that are different. In fact it is a different liturgy of the Mass.”

— Fr. Joseph Gelineau (1978)