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Views from the Choir Loft

Music Conference in Rome (September 2018)

Fr. David Friel · July 7, 2018

HE VATICAN’S Pontifical Council for Culture (PCC) has announced that it is organizing another conference on sacred music this fall, in collaboration with the Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’Anselmo and the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. The PCC, which also organized a conference in March 2017, will host this event at Lumsa University in Rome.

The upcoming conference, scheduled for 13–15 September 2018, is entitled Church and Composers, Words and Sounds. The stated objective of this gathering is to consider the role of the composer in the life of the Church.

The announced program presents a wide range of speakers and topics, including:

“You heard the sound of words but saw no form:
there was only a voice (Dt 4:12)”

— Gianfranco Cardinal Ravasi
(President of the Pontifical Council for Culture)

“Historical Excursus: The Composing Style
of the Sistine Chapel for Papal Celebrations”

— Msgr. Massimo Palombella
(Director, Cappella Musicale Pontificia “Sistina”)

“Translations, Music and Composition”
— Archbishop Arthur Roche (Secretary, CDW)

“Composing for Christian Communities Today”
— John Rutter (Composer)

“Music and Philology”
— Thomas Forest Kelly
(Morton B. Knafel Research Professor of Music, Harvard University)

“Music and Formation” — Msgr. Vincenzo De Gregorio
(Head, Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music)

“‘I saw and heard the voices of many
around the throne’: the Pipe Organ”

— Simon Johnson
(Organist, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London)

“‘Praise him with the harp and . . . with the tambourine . . . ’
(Ps 150:3): Liturgical Inculturation and Musical Instruments”

— Fr. Olivier-Marie Sarr, OSB
(Liturgist, Pontifical Athenaeum Sant’Anselmo)

These proceedings are principally aimed at representatives of episcopal conferences and religious orders, musicians, curators of liturgical music, associations, and movements.

The three-day event will conclude with a concert in the Basilica Superiore at Assisi, within the context of the Francesco Siciliani Prize, an international competition for sacred music composition.

The March 2017 PCC conference was entitled Music and Church: Cult and Culture 50 Years after Musicam Sacram and included such speakers as Cardinal Ravasi, Michele Dall’Ongaro, Paul Inwood, Fr. Fergus Ryan, OP, and Fr. Jordi-A. Piqué, OSB. The acta of this conference have been published (Musica e Chiesa a 50 anni dalla Musicam Sacram) and are available here.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Pontifical Institute Sacred Music Rome Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Fr. David Friel

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at St. Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America.—(Read full biography).

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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

“The free space which the new order of Mass gives to creativity it must be admitted, is often excessively enlarged. The difference between the liturgy with the new liturgical books, as it is actually practiced and celebrated in various places is often much greater than the difference between the old and new liturgies when celebrated according to the rubrics of the liturgical books.”

— Cardinal Ratzinger (1998)

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