Views from the Choir Loft

(captured by iPhone) • Rehearsing for the Symposium

Jeff Ostrowski · April 10, 2019

O ME A HUGE FAVOR and don’t show this video to Dr. Calabrese or Maestro Clark. When they come to Los Angeles to conduct at Sacred Music Symposium 2019, I don’t want them to know we’ve been practicing the music. The theme this year is “everything to do with hymnody,” and the Mass by Palestrina is based on a marvelous ancient hymn tune. ¹

Somebody placed an iPhone on a pew during rehearsal, and here’s what it captured:

So let this be our little secret!

Because I want the conductors to be surprised at how well the Los Angeles singers know their music—and I will respond: “Well, you know…we work on sight-reading a lot.”

If you haven’t signed up for the Symposium, what are you waiting for? There are still openings in some of the voice parts.

NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1 The melody itself has been used for many texts over the last thousand years. Here’s an organ accompaniment I composed for when it we sing it here in Los Angeles.

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

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).

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