May Is Dedicated To Mary

Corpus Christi Watershed · May 11, 2017

The following announcement comes to us from Mr. Peter Meggison, a friend of CCWatershed.

Sunday, May 28 • A Hymn Fest for Our Lady, Needham, MA — St. Joseph Church, 1360 Highland Avenue, at 3 p.m.

Come and enjoy honoring Our Blessed Mother in her month of May through her song! Traditional Catholic hymns, including such favorites as “Bring Flowers of the Rarest,” “Mother, at Your Feet is Kneeling,” and “’Tis the Month of Our Mother” will be played on an extraordinary organ by Peter Krasinski. Those attending will be led in singing the hymns by an outstanding vocalist, Mark Nemeskal. Prior to the singing of each hymn, a brief background of its history and significance in Catholic devotional life will be presented by Peter Meggison.

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

19 May 2022 • “Trochee Trouble”

I’m still trying to decide how to visually present the “pure” Editio Vaticana scores, using what is (technically) the official rhythm of the Church. You can download my latest attempt, for this coming Sunday. Notice the “trochee trouble” as well as the old issue of neumes before the quilisma.

—Jeff Ostrowski

16 May 2022 • Harmonized Chant?

This year’s upcoming Sacred Music Symposium will demonstrate several ways to sing the CREDO at Mass. This is because—for many parishes—to sing a full-length polyphonic CREDO by Victoria or Palestrina is out of the question. Therefore, we show options that are halfway between plainsong and polyphony. You can hear my choir rehearsing a section that sounds like harmonized plainsong.

—Jeff Ostrowski

14 May 2022 • “Pure” Vatican Edition

As readers know, my choir has been singing from the “pure” Editio Vaticana. That is to say, the official rhythm which—technically—is the only rhythm allowed by the Church. I haven’t figured out how I want the scores to look, so in the meantime we’ve been using temporary scores that look like this. Stay tuned!

—Jeff Ostrowski

The representative Protestant collection, entitled “Hymns, Ancient and Modern”—in substance a compromise between the various sections of conflicting religious thought in the Establishment—is a typical instance. That collection is indebted to Catholic writers for a large fractional part of its contents. If the hymns be estimated which are taken from Catholic sources, directly or imitatively, the greater and more valuable part of its contents owes its origin to the Church.

— Orby Shipley (1884)

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