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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.)

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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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

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
14 May 2022 • Gorgeous Book

If there is a more beautiful book than Abbat Pothier’s 1888 Processionale Monasticum, I don’t know what it might be. This gorgeous tome was today added to the Saint John Lalande Online Library. I wish I owned a physical copy.

—Jeff Ostrowski
Sound Familiar?

1 June 1579: “The chapter passes a rule that anyone ascending to the new organ without official permission shall be fined a month’s pay.”

26 October 1579: “The altar boys remain always separate and distinct from choirboys—the one group learning only plainchant and assisting at the altar, the other living with the chapel-master and studying counterpoint and polyphony as well. Father Francisco Guerrero postpones his departure for Rome and instead spends the entire year in Seville making ready for the trip. In the meantime he neglects his choirboys. On 16 November, after considerable complaint against their unruliness and ignorance, he engages an assistant, Bartolomé Farfán.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Oh, what sighs I uttered, what tears I shed, to mingle with the waters of the torrent, while I chanted to Thee, O my God, the psalms of Holy Church in the Office of the Dead!

— ‘Isaac Jogues, upon finding Goupil’s corpse (1642)’

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