Views from the Choir Loft

A Hymn That Just Keeps Popping Up

Jeff Ostrowski · November 16, 2017 ·

HE COMMITTEE on which I serve continues to make progress on the St. Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal. We often provide multiple tunes for a single hymn text, because congregations appreciate this. Besides, singing the same text to a “new” tune can make one appreciate different aspects of the text which, after all, is a prayer.

One tune that keeps popping up is INNSBRUCK, often paired with O Esca Viatorum (link)—a traditional Eucharistic hymn. After finishing editing one of the texts for INNSBRUCK, I was driving down the road listening to a marvelous recording of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion…

…and what should I hear?

* * Mp3 • Excerpt from Bach’s St. Matthew Passion

J.S. Bach “recycled” many works, but in the Brébeuf hymnal we stop short of going as far as he does. For example, Bach used the PASSION CHORALE in many places, including his Christmas Oratorio! That’s pretty bold, folks.

I did not tell my choir this in advance, but during Mass last Sunday, I suddenly felt inspired to sing INNSBRUCK. I asked them to pull it out, and they sang it very well:

Someone in the pews recorded the entire Mass, which you can view on YouTube.

Albert Schweitzer—speaking specifically of Bach’s incomparable and magnificent Art of the Fugue—wrote that Bach’s music inhabits a “still and serious world…deserted and rigid, without color, without light, without motion; it does not gladden, does not distract; yet we cannot break away from it.” Believe it or not, that’s actually a compliment!

(Those who love Bach will understand.)

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