Views from the Choir Loft

Can’t Decide Which Hymn Tune To Use?

Jeff Ostrowski · May 14, 2020

OWERFUL INNOVATION will always conjure critics. For example, when the Editio Vaticana was released—because it was so “newfangled”—it was the recipient of brazen attacks by people who knew little about authentic plainsong. It was, therefore, not surprising that efforts were made (by various cadres) to attack the Brébeuf hymnal when it appeared. Some didn’t understand the various options provided for important texts—and those people should read this article, paying special attention to the examples.

The Brébeuf hymnal also came under attack for supposedly using the “wrong” tune for a particular hymn. The attackers didn’t realize there is no “correct” tune for many hymns. ¹

The Graduale de Tempore et de Sanctis (1871) found an interesting solution for the Good Friday Pange Lingua—mixing two hymn tunes together!

What That Graduale Did:

For the “verses,” they took the melody from Pange Lingua by Saint Thomas Aquinas:

For the “refrain,” they took the melody for the Pange Lingua by Bishop Fortunatus:

Sigh…there’s so much to learn at the Saint Jean Lalande Online Library.

NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1 When some people say the “correct” tune, they really mean “the one I know”—and that’s quite a different thing. Hymn texts frequently have multiple “correct” melodies to which they can be married. It’s similar to the word mean. That word has multiple definitions: (1) “signify” [flashing lights mean the road is blocked]; (2) “intend” [Susie didn’t mean to hurt you]; (3) “unkind” [you’re being mean to me]; (4) “lowly” [in spite of their mean origins]; (4) “average” [the year’s mean temperature]; (5) a particular tuning system [referring to mean-tone temperament]; and so forth. To sum it up, mean can mean a bunch of stuff! Only a fool would claim there’s only one “correct” meaning for that word.

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

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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).

20 October 2020 • “What we can’t share”

Almighty God has given to us the example of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. Of course, along with those eight martyrs we honor their associates, e.g Father François Bressani. I can’t share with you the torments Father Bressani underwent at the hands of Iroquois: it is too brutal. It would tear your heart out. But I will share what Bressani’s Superior said, after receiving a letter from him: “The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger left on his right hand, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds—which are still open—from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth.” If you have the stomach for it, read what Father Bressani (d. 1672) underwent for Jesus Christ. Let his example help us never fall into sins of impurity, avarice, ingratitude, or envy.

—Jeff Ostrowski

13 October 2020 • Chopin talks Bach

My “pianist pedigree” goes from my teacher through Wiktor Łabuński through Felix Blumenfeld, who studied with Anton Rubinstein. I always considered myself part of the “Bach-Mozart-Chopin school” as opposed to the “Handel-Beethoven-Liszt school.” (Needless to say, there’s great overlap between these schools.) Before giving a concert, Frédéric Chopin would always shut himself up in a room and play through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The year Chopin died, he spent considerable time with the painter, Eugène Delacroix (d. 1863), who recounts hearing Chopin launch into a monologue on the transcendence of J.S. Bach, insisting that “the fugue is like pure logic in music,” and that “to know fugue deeply is to be acquainted with the element of all reason and all consistency in music.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

12 October 2020 • True Story

Before a Low Mass, the priest ascends the Altar to place the Chalice, check the altar Missal, and do other “preparing” tasks. The organist must be prepared to play here, and—depending upon the priest—this can be of surprising length! For certain priests, I can easily play all six verses of a hymn while he’s doing these tasks. In the Ordinary Form, I believe too many have abandoned the preparation time before Mass (vesting, praying, keeping silence, and so on). I remember waiting for a priest to arrive in Corpus Christi, so I could ask him about the music. He never did arrive, because he had gotten into his vehicle wearing his chasuble, parked, hopped out of his truck (fully vested), and literally “processed” in as he entered the Church…true story.

—Jeff Ostrowski