Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • Booklet for St. Joseph (19 March)

Jeff Ostrowski · March 20, 2017 ·

OMETIMES OUR PARISH adds High Masses at the last second, and we usually use plainsong only. What is the quickest and best way to get starting pitches? Simply visit ccwatershed.org/nova and search for the first few words of the title in question. On Apple computers, “search” is COMMAND + F. For those using Windows, it’s CONTROL + F. Whatever you do, don’t sit there scrolling down—the search function is 100 billion times faster and better.

Here’s the booklet I put together for tonight, since the feast of Saint Joseph was transferred to 20 March this year:

* * PDF Download • Saint Joseph (19 March) During Lent

It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. I took starting pitches in the exact way I just described. You could also use the Liber Usualis in Modern Notation for this same purpose—but that takes a lot longer to search.

The hymn chosen for Offertory is lovely. I like this verse very much:

O happiest of the happy, abounding in excess of joy, he whom—in his last hour—Christ (and the Virgin watching by him) did assist with countenance serene.

Fr. Connelly translates that verse as follows:

How singularly fortunate and blessed he was, for at his last hour Christ and the Virgin stood side by side to watch over him, their faces full of peace and comfort.

About Jeff Ostrowski

A theorist, organist, and conductor, Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004), and did graduate work in Musicology. He serves as choirmaster for the new FSSP parish in Los Angeles, where he resides with his wife and children.

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