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Views from the Choir Loft

Repeating Repertoire? • Christopher Mueller

Christopher Mueller · March 30, 2020

I find myself against and for it.

N the “against” column is the experience of my first position as a director of church music: I succeeded a beloved but often ill choirmaster who in his last two years was more ill than well, the result of which was that the choir would often show up to sing a Sunday Mass and discover they had no choirmaster that day. They had a modest number of pieces on standby for just such a situation, pieces which got repeated airplay during that time. When I took over, the singers were ready to move on from that handful of somewhat overused motets and try their hand at new repertory. To my everlasting good fortune, there was a musicologist who had been singing in the choir for awhile and who took it upon himself to plan the music for my first couple of years, with the self-prescribed rubric of never repeating a piece during the choral season. The singers took well to this unending variety, I enjoyed the challenge of preparing new pieces each week and discovering the immense variety of musical options, and I came to the conclusion that as there are no repeated liturgies during the year, there should thus be no repeated choral motets. That is, every liturgy has its own unique set of proper texts (both musical, e.g. Introit, Offertory, etc., and priestly, e.g. the Collect, the Super-Oblata, etc.), as well as the readings designated in the Lectionary, and so care should be exercised in choosing repertory that reflects or extends the liturgical texts already provided by the church; since those texts vary from one Mass to the next, so too should the music vary from one Mass to the next.

Further in the “against” column is the ever-growing supply of choral repertory available for free online, mostly older music in the public domain. There is so much lovely and liturgically appropriate material that it seems a shame to repeat a piece when there is something else of equal beauty and fittingness available. Not only do I try not to repeat music during the choral year, but I also try to repeat very little music from one year to the next, which wouldn’t be possible without the plethora of online resources.

One might even marshall a theological argument in the “against” column, in that St. Augustine described the beauty of the divine as “ever ancient, ever new.” The liturgy is a great gift which is supposed to both reflect and direct us to the beauty of God, and so employing the music of centuries past may well qualify as “ancient,” while an ongoing exploration of unfamiliar repertory satisfies the criterion of “new.” (If a piece has never been heard at the parish before, it’s “new” no matter how ancient it is.)

I decided this year to carry this practice over into my organ repertory, as well, playing a different piece as postlude each Sunday, dating back to the start of Advent. (Of course, this is slightly more manageable due to the six-week break during Lent, where there are no organ postludes; but then it’ll be offset during the summer when the choir takes a couple months off, while the organ—and attendant postludes—will still be required!)


N the other hand, the “for” column is not bereft: there are a few times of year when there are lots of different liturgies in a short amount of time—e.g. the four different Christmas Masses in under 24 hours’ time, or the liturgies of the Triduum and Easter Day, comprising four (or more) unique liturgies in just four days. There is much choral music that could be used at more than one Christmas liturgy; this makes rehearsal time extra-efficient, when a piece rehearsed once is to be sung twice or more. Contrarily, there’s not much musical overlap from one to the next of the Triduum liturgies, but the sheer quantity of music to be sung recommends that there might at least be some repertory repeated year to year, so that the choir (which does not have an infinite amount of rehearsal time!) may be well-prepared for all the music it needs to sing during that stressful (but so wondrously rewarding) marathon. Hurrah for institutional memory!

Additionally, and I’m sure I’m not the only one to feel this way: certain celebrations don’t feel right without “that piece.” Christmas seems imperfectly celebrated without Victoria’s O magnum mysterium, for example, nor Easter without Lyra Davidica’s Easter Hymn (“Jesus Christ is Ris’n Today”). Whenever I have the forces, I do Lhéritier’s stunning, hauntingly beautiful Surrexit pastor bonus for Easter IV (Good Shepherd Sunday), and I know of more than one church that repeats the Fauré Requiem each year at the Mass of All Souls’ Day. There is certainly room for the choir’s favorite pieces, or the parish’s.  (I also repeat a handful of my own compositions year-to-year.)

So I find myself mostly against repetition, but not dogmatically so. I try to vary the music throughout the choral season—and it’s always wonderful to discover new and beautiful liturgical music—but there is definitely prudence in recycling some choral repertory from one year to the next. Strike whatever balance best serves you and your singers and whoever else (if anyone—pastor? liturgical committee?) has a voice in shaping your parish’s music, while not neglecting the opening of Psalms 96 & 98: sing a new song unto the Lord!

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

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Repeating Repertoire Last Updated: March 30, 2020

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About Christopher Mueller

Christopher Mueller is a conductor and composer who aims to write beautiful music out of gratitude to God, Author of all beauty.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

14 May 2022 • “Pure” Vatican Edition

As readers know, my choir has been singing from the “pure” Editio Vaticana. That is to say, the official rhythm which—technically—is the only rhythm allowed by the Church. I haven’t figured out how I want the scores to look, so in the meantime we’ve been using temporary scores that look like this. Stay tuned!

—Jeff Ostrowski
14 May 2022 • Gorgeous Book

If there is a more beautiful book than Abbat Pothier’s 1888 Processionale Monasticum, I don’t know what it might be. This gorgeous tome was today added to the Saint John Lalande Online Library. I wish I owned a physical copy.

—Jeff Ostrowski
Sound Familiar?

1 June 1579: “The chapter passes a rule that anyone ascending to the new organ without official permission shall be fined a month’s pay.”

26 October 1579: “The altar boys remain always separate and distinct from choirboys—the one group learning only plainchant and assisting at the altar, the other living with the chapel-master and studying counterpoint and polyphony as well. Father Francisco Guerrero postpones his departure for Rome and instead spends the entire year in Seville making ready for the trip. In the meantime he neglects his choirboys. On 16 November, after considerable complaint against their unruliness and ignorance, he engages an assistant, Bartolomé Farfán.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Tournemire could be charming or he could bite your head off. One day I could not replace him at St. Clotilde because I had a wedding to play at another church. Tournemire played on Sunday, period—that was all. He did not play weddings and so forth. (He put all that on my back.) So I went to Tournemire’s house to tell him, “Master, I am sorry but, for once, I cannot replace you. I have another obligation to fulfill.” He said, “Get out of here!” I left for good.

— Testimony of Maurice Duruflé

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