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Views from the Choir Loft

Hidden Gem: Salve Regina (Barkoskie)

Keven Smith · August 24, 2021

ACEBOOK IS MOSTLY A WASTE OF TIME. But if you use it judiciously—seeking to make meaningful connections rather than win superficial affirmations or avoid your real work—it can be a helpful tool. Many church musicians have leaned on Facebook as a way to stay in touch, swap ideas and resources, and lift each other’s spirits during the COVID church lockdowns.

I don’t participate much in the various musician groups on Facebook, but I’ll occasionally see something interesting. Sometimes it’s a good motet by a composer whose work I haven’t previously encountered.

One such motet is the Salve Regina by one Alvez Barkoskie IV. I found it in late July and liked it immediately. My choir learned it for the Feast of the Assumption, which fell on a Sunday this year. Mr. Barkoskie’s composition alternates bars of the simple-tone Salve Regina chant with bars of original polyphony:

What to Look and Listen for

What I love about this piece:

  • The chant melody is already familiar. This gives the choir confidence right out of the gate.
  • The polyphony sounds a bit like an alma mater. I haven’t heard that many college alma maters, but they always strike me as buoyant and hopeful with excellent voice leading. This motet strikes me the same way—and who couldn’t use some optimism these days?
  • Something weird happens. The bar at “Et Jesum” will catch singers and congregation by surprise. It was a brilliant stroke by Mr. Barkoskie to add a bit of tartness amidst the sweetness.
  • The composer has a great name. All things being equal, it’s a little more fun than if we were singing a composition by some guy named Smith. Doesn’t “Alvez Barkoskie” sound like he should be lining up in the slot for an SEC school in the Orange Bowl?


A few tips:

  • Be prepared for congregation members to join in. Many longtime attendees of the traditional Latin Mass can sing the simple-tone Salve Regina by heart. When they hear your choir start singing it, they may instinctively try to sing along, though they’ll probably stop as soon as they hear the first polyphonic section. Consider warning your choir about this so that they won’t be distracted if it does happen.
  • Don’t let the chant bars drag. My choir knows that I don’t like draggy chant in any context. “It shouldn’t sound rushed, but there should be direction in every phrase,” I often remind them. I think it’s even more important in a piece like this to keep the chant moving. If it drags, you’ll be forced to take the polyphonic sections extremely slowly, too. I think it’s much more effective to let the chant glide along and then take a bit more time with the polyphony, letting these satisfying chords wash over singers and congregation alike.
  • Don’t be put off by all those flats. The piece is in D-flat major. So what? If you use solfege, your singers will be able to navigate this (or any) key just fine. I like to mark initials for the solfege syllables of every note in any motet I hand out (you’ve no doubt seen this approach in the many free scores available here at Corpus Christi Watershed). That way, singers won’t be tripping over syllables and can focus on the real purpose of solfege: ear training.
  • Spend most of your rehearsal time on “Et Jesum…” You can tell from the recording that the “Et Jesum” bar is the one harmonic outlier. But if you’re using solfege, you can remind everyone that the preceding chant bar ends on DO and then challenge them to find their notes from there. Alto and bass go one step down, and soprano goes one step up. Tenor leaps by a fourth, but in the typical church choir, that’s only about two guys anyway! Once everyone is comfortable finding their first notes at “Et Jesum,” it will be constructive to walk through parts on solfege syllables. My choir learned this bar surprisingly quickly.
  • Consider having alternating groups sing the chant bars. If you have a large choir like mine, you may want to have low voices sing some of the chant bars and high voices sing the others. But it can certainly sound lovely with everyone singing everything.

Salve Regina season lasts until Advent. You still have plenty of time to learn this simple, tasty piece. To contact the composer and learn more about his scores, visit his Facebook page.

See? Facebook isn’t totally useless.

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

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Easy Polyphony For Amateurs, motets, salve regina Last Updated: August 24, 2021

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About Keven Smith

Keven Smith, music director at St. Stephen the First Martyr, lives in Sacramento with his wife and five musical children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Luis Martínez Must Go!
    Sevilla Cathedral (entry dated 13 December 1564): The chapter orders Luis Martínez, a cathedral chaplain, to stay away from the choirbook-stand when the rest of the singers gather around it to sing polyphony—the reason being that “he throws the others out of tune.” [Excerpt from “The Life of Father Francisco Guerrero.”]
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
    A few days ago, the president of Corpus Christi Watershed posted this urgent appeal for funds. Please help us make sure we’re never forced to place our content behind a paywall. We feel it’s crucial that 100% of our content remains free to everyone. We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity, entirely dependent upon the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment and no major donors. We run no advertisements and have no savings. We beg you to consider donating $4.00 per month. Thank you!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “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

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    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

Random Quote

“I have devoted myself too much, I think, to Bach, to Mozart and to Liszt. I wish now that I could emancipate myself from them. Schumann is no use to me any more, Beethoven only with an effort and strict selection. Chopin has attracted and repelled me all my life; and I have heard his music too often—prostituted, profaned, vulgarized … I do not know what to choose for a new repertory!”

— Ferruccio Busoni (to a colleague in 1922, when he was 56 years old)

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