Views from the Choir Loft

New Details on Dunwoodie Chant Conference

Fr. David Friel · January 1, 2017

HIS MARCH, St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie) in Yonkers will host a chant conference entitled, “Gregorian Chant in Pastoral Ministry and Religious Education.” We announced the preliminary details of this gathering back in September (here), but a number of new pieces of information have recently been released.

First, I am pleased to say that I will be among the presenters at this conference. My topic will be Is Beauty Subjective? Identifying the Criteria of Beauty. In this presentation, I hope to explore the notion of beauty as a Transcendental property with an objective basis.

The three keynote speakers will include Fr. Robert Skeris, Fr. Christopher Smith, and Mark Langley. A full list of speakers, topics, biographies, and lecture abstracts is now available via the conference website.

The format of conference will further include panel discussions, concerts, and liturgies featuring distinguished children’s and parish choirs.

Registration is now open for this event, to be held Friday and Saturday, March 10 & 11, 2017. Plan to participate in this pastoral summit on Gregorian chant!

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served 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.—(Read full biography).

Surprising Popularity!

One of our most popular downloads has proven to be the organ accompaniment to “The Monastery Hymnal” (131 pages). This book was compiled, arranged, and edited by Achille P. Bragers, who studied at the Lemmensinstituut (Belgium) about thirty years before that school produced the NOH. Bragers might be considered an example of Belgium “Stile Antico” whereas Flor Peeters and Jules Van Nuffel represented Belgium “Prima Pratica.” You can download the hymnal by Bragers at this link.

—Jeff Ostrowski

15 February 2021 • To Capitalize…?

In the Introit for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, there is a question regarding whether to capitalize the word “christi.” The Vulgata does not, because Psalm 27 is not specifically referring to Our Lord, but rather to God’s “anointed one.” However, Missals tend to capitalize it, such as the official 1962 Missal and also a book from 1777 called Missel de Paris. Something tells me Monsignor Knox would not capitalize it.

—Jeff Ostrowski

15 February 2021 • “Sung vs. Spoken”

We have spoken quite a bit about “sung vs. spoken” antiphons. We have also noted that the texts of the Graduale Romanum sometimes don’t match the Missal texts (in the Extraordinary Form) because the Mass Propers are older than Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, and sometimes came from the ITALA versions of Sacred Scripture. On occasion, the Missal itself doesn’t match the Vulgate—cf. the Introit “Esto Mihi.” The Vulgate has: “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in domum refúgii…” but the Missal and Graduale Romanum use “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in locum refúgii…” The 1970s “spoken propers” use the traditional version, as you can see.

—Jeff Ostrowski