Views from the Choir Loft

Chant, Mighty Pipe Organs • Two Sundays, Two Cathedrals

Richard J. Clark · January 10, 2020 ·

WO CATHEDRALS — two Sundays. Gregorian Chant and mighty pipe organs will be front and center at two concerts: Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross (Sunday 1.12.2020 @2pm) and Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, New York City. (Sunday, 1.19.2020 @ 3:15pm)

On the program is the seven-movement organ suite Gregorian Impressions. Published by The Sacred Music Press/The Lorenz Corporation, it is based on familiar and beloved plainchants. The American Organist magazine praises Gregorian Impressions for its “engaging developments.”

The Boston Archdiocesan Schola will assist singing the chants prior to each movement. Several noted liturgical musicians from New York will join members of the Boston Schola in New York.

HE TWO ORGANS: BOSTON — Sunday, January 12 @2pm: Built in 1875, the 101-rank E. & G. G. Hook and Hastings, Opus 801 contains 5,318 pipes. This instrument is highly unique in that it is nearly original in its tonal design. Clothed in stone and marble (since the recent renovation) this organ is breathing new life into the Cathedral!

• Click here for concert program and specifications of the 101-rank E. & G. G. Hook & Hastings Organ, Opus 801

• A tour of the newly renovated Holy Cross Cathedral will immediately follow the concert.

NEW YORK — Sunday, January 19th @3:15pm: five-manuals, 206 stops, 150 ranks, and 10 divisions, the Kilgen Organs were rebuilt by the Peragallo Pipe Organ Company in the 1990s.

This concert will be live-streamed here.

Both concerts are free and open to the public. See you there!

About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. He is also Chapel Organist (Saint Mary’s Chapel) at Boston College. His compositions have been performed worldwide.

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

“Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another… It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. […] Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither.”

— Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman (May of 1879)