Views from the Choir Loft

(Live Recording) • Hymn by Richard J. Clark

Jeff Ostrowski · July 3, 2019

NE OF THE PRESENTERS at Sacred Music Symposium 2019 was Maestro Richard J. Clark, choirmaster at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross (Archdiocese of Boston). We will have much more to say about the wonderful things Maestro Clark and the other presenters accomplished in Los Angeles last week. Indeed, over the next few weeks, we will release numerous wonderful recordings from Sacred Music Symposium 2019—Stay tuned! One of the Symposium classes taught students to create “multi-track recordings”—and Maestro Clark’s hymn was chosen. (Very soon, the individual rehearsal videos will be released here.) It’s a hymn to the Sacred Heart with an English Translation by Monsignor Hugh T. Henry, who once taught Gregorian chant at St. Charles Seminary (Pennsylvania).

This same hymn (Auctor Beate Saeculi) was sung as an Entrance Hymn on the feast of the Sacred Heart, and here’s a live recording:

If you haven’t picked up a copy the Brébeuf Hymnal, what on earth are you waiting for? The choral scores are provided on DVD to any parish which purchases this hymnal, and the same harmonies are provided in the 3-volume Organ Accompaniment set, which you should purchase immediately—if you haven’t already done so.

Maestro Richard J. Clark maintains a weblog.

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