Views from the Choir Loft

PDF • “Veni Veni Emmanuel” (2 Voices + Organ)

Jeff Ostrowski · December 10, 2019 ·

ITHIN THE NEXT TWO WEEKS, the Choral Supplement for the Brébeuf hymnal will become available for purchase. The book is astounding: 1,202 pages! Its size (7.5 × 9.7) is slightly larger than the pew edition. This book will revolutionize what it means to direct music in the Catholic Church. At last we will have a choral edition which can receive unstinted praise from intellectually honest church musicians! We must remember, though: the emphasis of the Brébeuf hymnal is on English hymnody, because Latin hymnody is already available in so many places: the Liber Usualis, Cantus Selecti (1928), the Parish Book of Chant (CMAA), the Liber Hymnarius, Cantus Varii (1928), the Liber Antiphonarius, Mass and Vespers (Solesmes, 1957), Cantus Varii (1902), Cantus Mariales (Dom Pothier), Manuale Missae et Officiorum (1902), and so forth.

My choirs sing for the EF Mass, meaning we need Latin hymns, too.¹ I often take inspiration from the settings in the Brébeuf hymnal, and change them into Latin. Here is an example, which was a huge success on Sunday:

REHEARSAL VIDEOS for each individual voice and PDF score await you at #2002.

Most people won’t click that link—depriving themselves of the PDF Download (4 pages). That makes me sad.

NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1 This is not to imply that Brébeuf contains no Latin hymnody. Indeed, it contains more Latin than any hymnal published in the last 300 years!

REMINDER: My “personal additions” were created for my choirs; they are NOT officially part of the Brébeuf hymnal. From now on, whenever I “Latin-ize” a hymn from Brébeuf, I will post it—because others might want to use such pieces.

About Jeff Ostrowski

A theorist, organist, and conductor, Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004), and did graduate work in Musicology. He serves as choirmaster for the new FSSP parish in Los Angeles, where he resides with his wife and children.

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

“Church officials frequently asked Tomás Luis de Victoria for his opinion on cathedral appointments because of his fame and knowledge. He was faithful to his position as convent organist even after his professional debut as an organist, and never accepted any extra pay for being a chapelmaster. Held in great esteem, his contract allowed him frequent travel away from the convent, and he attended Palestrina’s funeral (in Rome) in 1594.”

— ‘Dr. Robert Stevenson, 1961 (mod.)’