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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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Jeff Ostrowski

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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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

Surprising Popularity!

One of our most popular downloads has proven to be the organ accompaniment to “The Monastery Hymnal” (131 pages). This book was compiled, arranged, and edited by Achille P. Bragers, who studied at the Lemmensinstituut (Belgium) about thirty years before that school produced the NOH. Bragers might be considered an example of Belgium “Stile Antico” whereas Flor Peeters and Jules Van Nuffel represented Belgium “Prima Pratica.” You can download the hymnal by Bragers at this link.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • To Capitalize…?

In the Introit for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, there is a question regarding whether to capitalize the word “christi.” The Vulgata does not, because Psalm 27 is not specifically referring to Our Lord, but rather to God’s “anointed one.” However, Missals tend to capitalize it, such as the official 1962 Missal and also a book from 1777 called Missel de Paris. Something tells me Monsignor Knox would not capitalize it.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • “Sung vs. Spoken”

We have spoken quite a bit about “sung vs. spoken” antiphons. We have also noted that the texts of the Graduale Romanum sometimes don’t match the Missal texts (in the Extraordinary Form) because the Mass Propers are older than Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, and sometimes came from the ITALA versions of Sacred Scripture. On occasion, the Missal itself doesn’t match the Vulgate—cf. the Introit “Esto Mihi.” The Vulgate has: “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in domum refúgii…” but the Missal and Graduale Romanum use “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in locum refúgii…” The 1970s “spoken propers” use the traditional version, as you can see.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

When you consider that the greatest hymns ever written—the plainchant hymns—are pushing the age of eight hundred and that the noble chorale hymn tunes of Bach date from the early eighteenth century, then what is the significance of the word “old” applied to “Mother at Thy Feet Is Kneeling”? Most of the old St. Basil hymns date from the Victorian era, particularly the 1870s and 1880s.

— Paul Hume (1956)

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