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Views from the Choir Loft

Recorded Music At Mass?

Jeff Ostrowski · June 12, 2020

HAVE frequently been asked some variation of this question: “Jeff, you often pontificate about Josef Hofmann, insisting—along with Sergei Rachmaninov—that no other pianist comes anywhere near him; but why exactly is this?” Of course I don’t have an answer, but I believe part of the answer has to do with the fact that Josef Hofmann came to prominence before there was such a thing as recorded music. Later on, Thomas Edison changed all that with his phonograph. (By the way, Josef Hofmann as a teenager assisted Edison with his invention!) Hofmann was trained in an era during which all music was ‘live’—and I believe we can never return to such a situation…or comprehend what it was like.

Consider that in 1900 the world contained approximately 1.6 billion people; currently, there are 7.5 billion people. Certainly we have child prodigies today, but not on the level we used to. Research the young Camille Saint-Saëns, the young Josef Hofmann, or the young Felix Mendelssohn. For that matter, research the early career of Lorin Maazel, who was conducting major orchestras at the tender age of eight! I would submit that today’s virtuosi cannot match those of 100+ years ago. Music, in general, has changed so much. Something else to ponder: in 1923 Vladimir Horowitz (with violinist Nathan Milstein) premiered violin concerti by Karol Szymanowski (d. 1937) and Sergei Prokofiev (d. 1953). That was possible because in those days it was 100% common—and fully accepted—for violinists to play concerti accompanied by the piano! Time haves changed.1

Recorded Music At Mass?

These days, people often ask: “Why can’t we have recorded music at Mass?”

I think the best answer was given by Father Peter Gee, FSSP, close to three decades ago. When I asked him why we can’t play records at Mass, he instantly replied: “Because the Mass is something living.”

P.S.

For the record, our contributor (Mr. Keven Smith) attended the school founded by Josef Hofmann: The Curtis Institute. I hope he will (eventually) find time to share some stories with us!

 


NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   Speaking of Vladimir Horowitz, before 1953 he was quite fantastic. He had numerous operas memorized, plus tons of chamber music and concerti, to say nothing of his solo repertoire, which was massive: Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Rachmaninov, Bach-Busoni, Mussorgsky, Beethoven, Scriabin, Haydn, Mussorgsky, Schumann, and so forth. To give just one example, early in his career Horowitz accompanied (singer) Zoya Lodaya in Schubert’s Winterreise cycle, and Horowitz played the entire piano part from memory—a feat worthy of Friedman or Hofmann! By the way, after 1953, Horowitz’s playing deteriorated in a huge way, although he was paid massive amounts of money to perform until the day he died; again, a strange paradox which is not unrelated to what I’ve been talking about, in terms of our society’s appreciation for serious music. Times have changed; and so has music.

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

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Josef Hofmann Pianist Extraordinaire Last Updated: June 13, 2020

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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 Michigan. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“It is the same Church which has introduced the vernacular into the sacred liturgy for pastoral reasons, that is, for the sake of people who do not know Latin, which gives you the mandate of preserving the age-old solemnity, beauty and dignity of the choral office, in regard both to language, and to the chant.”

— Pope Saint Paul VI (15 August 1966)

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension

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