Views from the Choir Loft

Formed in Beauty Lectures

Fr. David Friel · January 27, 2019 ·

EDICATED to “beauty, evangelization, and the greater glory of God,” the Catholic Art Guild is a lay apostolate that seeks to restore the sacred in the visual arts. The Guild’s home is Chicago’s Church of St. John Cantius, well-known to many of our readers for its extraordinary commitment to sacred liturgy and the arts.

In each of the last two years, the Catholic Art Guild has hosted a “Formed in Beauty” conference and gala that has featured several eminent speakers. In 2017, Sir Roger Scruton, Duncan Stroik, and Denis McNamara were among the speakers, and the 2018 conference included Alexander Stoddart and Peter Kwasniewski.

For those of us who were not able to attend the conference in either year, the good news is that videos of the presentations have been posted online and are freely available.

Videos for the 2017 conference

Videos for the 2018 conference

Each of these presentations is well worth a listen.

The Catholic Art Guild is to be commended for organizing such interesting conferences and for making these rich lectures so easily accessible.

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served for five years 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 in Washington, D.C.

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