Views from the Choir Loft

Rehearsal Videos • Guerrero “Agnus Dei” (SSATB)

Jeff Ostrowski · May 17, 2017

NE OF THE MANY things participants will learn at the upcoming Sacred Music Symposium is how to produce rehearsal videos. Below you’ll find Guerrero’s AGNUS DEI (“Missa Iste Sanctus”) for which I recorded all the voices, including both Soprano lines. I usually apologize for my Soprano notes (I’m a Baritone), and there are two Soprano lines. But I’m not going to apologize twice—do you understand why?

* * PDF Download • AGNUS DEI (“Iste Sanctus”)

REHEARSAL VIDEOS for each individual voice await you at #5512.

The internet has damaged the attention span of many people, and this can be a source of frustration to those of us who blog. I have frequently indicated a special website where you can sing along with each individual voice—yet many still do not realize what’s available there. So I will keep repeating it, and hopefully everyone will eventually bookmark that website.

By the way, that website also contains Mp3 files. YouTube compresses the audio files, making them sound horrible. The Mp3 versions sound much nicer.

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

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 Michigan. —(Read full biography).

“Gloria in Spanish” • Free Accompaniment

Several people have requested an organ accompaniment for the GLORY TO GOD which prints the Spanish words right above the chords. The Spanish adaptation—Gloria a Dios en el cielo—as printed in Roman Misal, tercera edición is based on the “Glória in excélsis” from Mass XV (DOMINATOR DEUS). This morning, I created this harmonization and dedicated it to my colleague, Corrinne May. You may download it for free. Please let me know if you enjoy it!

—Jeff Ostrowski

How Well Does ICEL Know Latin?

This year, the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June 2025) will fall on a Sunday. It’s not necessary to be an eminent Latin scholar to be horrified by examples like this, which have been in place since 1970. For the last 55 years, anyone who’s attempted to correct such errors has been threatened with legal action. It is simply unbelievable that the (mandatory) texts of the Holy Mass began being sold for a profit in the 1970s. How much longer will this gruesome situation last?

—Jeff Ostrowski

Is the USCCB trolling us?

I realize I’m going to come across as a “Negative Nancy” … but I can’t help myself. This kind of stuff is beyond ridiculous. There are already way too many options in the MISSALE RECENS. Adding more will simply confuse the faithful even more. We seriously need to band together and start creating a “REFORM OF THE REFORM” Missale Romanum so it will be ready when the time comes.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Antiphons Don’t Match?

A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).

—Corpus Christi Watershed

When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962

There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop

—Veronica Brandt

The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum

Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.

—Daniel Tucker