Views from the Choir Loft

Summer Sacred Music Workshop 2016

Andrew Leung · May 19, 2016 ·

UILDING ON THE SUCCESS of the 2015 workshop held at Our Lady of the Mountains Church in Jasper, Ga, Southeastern Sacred Music invites you to join them again for the 2016 workshop in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Southeastern Sacred Music is the newly founded chapter of the Church Music Association of America for church musicians in the southeast region of the country.

This year’s workshop is extended to one-and-a-half day long from July 22 to July 23. Participants will have to opportunity the study Gregorian chant and polyphony under the directions of Dr. Jennifer Donelson and other faculty members. The workshop, including a Solemn Vespers and a Novus Ordo Solemn Mass, will be held at the historical and beautiful Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul in Chattanooga, TN.

REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN! The registration fee is $60 per person which includes all materials, access to the full program, lunch, and snacks. The cost will rise to $75 for late registration after June 30. The discounted price for full-time students and seminarians is $25. Dormitory rooms at the nearby University of Tennessee at Chattanooga campus will be available, as will lodging in hotels.

Full details will be available soon. For more information, visit the Southeastern Sacred Music website, or contact Maria Rist at music@stspeterandpaulbasilica.com | 865-335-0588.

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