Views from the Choir Loft

Funeral March for Jesus

Andrew Leung · March 25, 2016 ·

HE ROMAN CATHOLIC DIOCESE OF MACAU has a Good Friday tradition: a funeral procession through the streets with a statue of the dead body of Christ. The procession of this year was led by the new bishop of Macau, Bishop Stephen Lee. Bishop Lee who led the march wearing the traditional black vestment was a priest of the Personal Prelature of Opus Dei. He was my first spiritual director and was installed on the Feast of Candlemas this year. Here are two short videos of the procession accompanied by the band of the Macau Police Force.

I am not sure about the origin of this tradition. Maybe some of our readers can help me out and share with us more about this Good Friday custom on our Facebook page. Since Macau was a colony of Portugal, my guess is that this might be a Portuguese or Spanish custom. The procession begins right after the three o’clock Good Friday Service and it obviously symbolizes the burial of Christ. Anyway, I thought this procession is a very good devotion and a great way to evangelize.

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