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Views from the Choir Loft

“Hymn For Mary’s Assumption” (15 August) • By Saint Robert Southwell, Priest & Martyr

Jeff Ostrowski · July 15, 2022

F I TELL YOU my wife grows tons of strawberries in her garden, that doesn’t necessarily mean my wife does not grow raspberries, too. Similarly, if we have emphasized how accessible the hymn texts are in the Brébeuf hymnal, that doesn’t mean it excludes hymn texts which are intricate, cerebral, and “highbrow.” The Brébeuf hymnal contains those texts, as well. Below is an elegant text for the ASSUMPTION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. It was written by a Jesuit martyr, Father Robert Southwell (d. 1595), whose published poetry was admired by William Shakespeare. The melody was composed by Kevin Allen, one of today’s leading composers when it comes to authentic church music.

M Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #779.

Glum Reality: Most readers won’t click on the individual voice parts, and that makes me sad. When we post a “scandalous” liturgical video, we get 40,000 views. I wish we could get as many views for the rehearsal videos—we must revive authentic sacred music!

About This Series: This article has been “installment 3” in the new series called How Has Nobody Done This Before? This series features hundreds of rehearsal videos—for each individual voice part—of the world’s greatest hymns. The entire project can be accessed completely free of charge at this website (scroll towards the middle section). It’s so useful to be able to send your choir members to a website containing individual voice parts, while knowing the hymn texts (lyrics) and the hymn notes (harmonies) have not been tampered with.

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

Filed Under: Articles, Featured Tagged With: Assumption of Mary, August 15th Assumption, Composer Kevin Allen, Father Robert Southwell, How Has Nobody Done This, Saint Robert Southwell Last Updated: July 19, 2022

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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

    “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
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —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

“Come now,” they said, “Thou who wouldst destroy the temple and build it up in three days, rescue Thyself; come down from that cross, if Thou art the Son of God.”

— Gospel of St. Matthew 27:42

Recent Posts

  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)
  • “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)

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Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.

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