Views from the Choir Loft

New Release! • “Missa de Beata Virgine” (Kevin Allen)

Jeff Ostrowski · June 9, 2022

EVIN ALLEN has been highly regarded as a composer of opera, chamber and orchestral music. He has also developed a unique reputation as a composer of church music for the Roman Rite. Mr. Allen’s works, sacred and secular, have been performed in churches and concert halls throughout the United States and Europe.

Mass of the Blessed Virgin: Today, one of his most gorgeous Mass settings—Missa de Beata Virgine for SATB Chorus a cappella—has been released on Amazon:

Order your copy today!

* Amazon.com • “Missa de Beata Virgine” (SATB)
—Missa de Beata Virgine; SATB Chorus A Cappella; Kevin Allen.

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Rehearsal Videos • “Kyrie Eleison”

EQUAL VOICES : YouTube
FIRST SOPRANO : YouTube
SECOND SOPRANO : YouTube
ALTO : YouTube
TENOR : YouTube
FIRST BASS : YouTube
SECOND BASS : YouTube

Rehearsal Mp3 Files • “Agnus Dei”

Equal Voices • 1st Sop. • 2nd Sopr. • Alto • Tenor • 1st Bass • 2nd Bass

Weeping While Singing: Here’s a live recording of Dr. Horst Buchholz conducting the “Agnus Dei.” The melodies toward the end are so beautiful, many of the singers began weeping. Crying renders a person unable to sing properly—just like when you’re out of breath—but they couldn’t help themselves:

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

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).

“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

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