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Views from the Choir Loft

“Contemporary” Catholic Music • Is it truly dead?

Jeff Ostrowski · April 12, 2017

HOSE ATTENDING this year’s Sacred Music Symposium will experience a marvelous surprise, which we today announce. All participants will be given an opportunity to meet composer Kevin Allen! Here’s a snippet from 2011 DVD which features Mr. Allen’s music and conducting:


Kevin Allen’s compositions are truly inspired, by which I mean they are hauntingly beautiful but utilize a contemporary harmonic language.

ERIOUS COMPOSERS like Kevin Allen—and many do still exist—remind us that authentic contemporary church music is not dead. The Symposium is proud to be promoting what is positive and wholesome and healthy and holy. For the record, that’s also why I’m thrilled to be part of the Brébeuf Hymnal project, which uses a ton of newly-composed texts and melodies. Mr. Allen will deliver a presentation about living composers who compose serious church music.

Examining what’s being published in too many of today’s Catholic hymnals can be quite discouraging. The following comes from a 2013 (!!!) GIA hymnal, and I find its syncopation and grammar inappropriate for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass:

242 GIA Publications


Is this really sacred (“set apart”) music, building upon the vast treasury of traditional Roman Catholic music? Or is this a goofy attempt to insert 1 into the Catholic liturgy styles which don’t belong? And was the bizarre grammar (“angels sang when baby born”) maintained in the Spanish translation? I’m afraid I don’t know Spanish well enough to know.

By the way, GIA has been pushing similar stuff for decades. Consider the following piece from GIA’s WORSHIP II HYMNAL, with accompaniment by Robert J. Batastini:

241 GIA Publications


What was so unacceptable about the assigned texts, which come directly from sacred scripture? Why was it necessary to abandon them, in favor of stuff like this? And what’s going on here? Is this a story about the Nativity?

No, we haven’t got a manger.
No, we haven’t got a stable.
We are Christian men and women,
Always willing, never able.

But how can that be? How could people be “Christian” at the time of Christ’s birth? And what does this stanza mean?

Jesus Christ has gone to heaven;
One day he’ll be coming back, sir.
In this house he will be welcome,
But we hope he won’t be black, sir.

When I was growing up in the 1990s, we sang songs like this in our Catholic school. Only through secular pursuits—performing works by Chopin, Liszt, Medtner, Glazunov, Brahms, Debussy, Mozart, Bach, Rachmaninov, and others—did I eventually discover the glorious Roman Catholic heritage which had been so carefully hidden from me.

My wife and I have decided never to allow our children to be poisoned by music like what is contained in those “Catholic” GIA hymnals.



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   The other day, we spoke of seminary professor who wants more secular styles at Mass, such as jazz and “commercial pop music.” He seems unaware that people have been struggling mightily to insert secular styles into the Holy Mass for many years.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Heretical GIA Hymns Last Updated: March 24, 2021

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    26 January 2023 • FEEDBACK
    “Jeff, I wanted to personally thank you for your spiritual witness at the Symposium & often blogs that you write too. Praying that prayer in the mornings My God, my Father and my all (by Cardinal Merry Del Val), mentioning saints’ stories of Brébeuf, Jogues, John Vianney, monks who fought in WWII, their hard work in spite of terrible conditions, their relentless zeal for the faith, their genuine love for the laypeople they served, etc. Overall though—more than anything concrete I can point to that you did or said—it was your demeanor at the Symposium. I could tell you really absolutely love and believe the Catholic Faith. You don’t get that everywhere, even in Church circles. And your humility is what then makes that shine even brighter. It is super inspiring! God is working through you probably way more than you know.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Symposium Draft Schedule Released!
    Those who head over to the Symposium Website will notice the tentative schedule for 2023 has been released. This is all very exciting! Very soon, we will begin accepting applications, so please make sure you have subscribed to our mailing list. If you are subscribed, that means you'll hear announcements before anyone else. (It’s incredibly easy to subscribe to our mailing list; just scroll to the bottom of any blog article and enter your email address.)
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Good Friday Polyphony by L. Senfl
    The editor of the Sacred Music Magazine recently made available to the public this splendid article by our own Charles Weaver. It includes an edition of polyphony for the GOOD FRIDAY “Reproaches.” Renaissance composers often set the various offices of Holy Week; e.g. readers will probably be familiar with the beautiful TENEBRAE setting by Father Tomás Luis de Victoria (d. 1611). From what I can tell, Ludwig Senfl (d. 1543) was originally a Catholic priest, but eventually was seduced by Luther and ended up abandoning the sacred priesthood.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

At papal Masses, the regulations against tardiness were more stringent than at Masses celebrated by cardinals or bishops. Giovanni Maria Nanino records that any singer who is not in his place—and in his vestments—by the end of the repetition of the “Introit” will be fined eight vinti. At papal Vespers, the singer who is not present at the “Gloria Patri” of the first psalm pays a fine of fifty balocchi.

— Giovanni M. Nanino (d. 1607), Papal “Maestro di Cappella”

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