Views from the Choir Loft

Free Folio of New Sacred Music for Parish Liturgies

Fr. David Friel · July 24, 2022

UMMER 2022 witnessed a gathering of some very talented sacred musicians at Saint Patrick Seminary in Menlo Park, CA. What brought them together was the second Choral Festival for Young Professional and Aspiring Church Musicians organized by The Catholic Sacred Music Project. Following immediately upon the Sacra Liturgia conference, the faculty for the Choral Festival included several notable Catholic musicians, including Martin Baker, Timothy McDonnell, and Benjamin LaPrairie.

During the Choral Festival, Baker served as conductor of a forty-voice choir that sang new works by several living, Catholic composers. With the help of the Benedict XVI Institute, an entire folio of new music, designed for parish choirs, is being made freely available.

* URL Download • New Sacred Music for Parish Liturgies
—Fourteen (14) Choral Compositions by Fourteen (14) Living Catholic Composers.

This folio features music from several artists who have either served as contributors to Views from the Choir Loft or been otherwise associated with Corpus Christi Watershed: Kevin Allen, Richard Clark, Peter Kwasniewski, and Christopher Mueller (who also served as general editor of this new collection).

Congratulations to all who were involved in the Choral Festival and in making this new music widely available. May it glorify God and contribute to the worthy celebration of the sacred liturgy!

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

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at Saint Anselm Church in Northeast Philly before earning a doctorate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America. He presently serves as Vocation Director for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.—(Read full biography).

For the Upcoming Choir Season!

Last week, I posted an SATB choral setting of the SANCTUS in a ‘contemporary’ style. You might want to consider this piece for two reasons: (1) It’s extremely brief; (2) Free rehearsal videos are available for each individual part. The piece is by Father Lhoumeau.

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF Download • “Sunday Vespers” (22 pages)

When an organist accompanies Vespers, there is no time to think. It’s one thing after another: Bam – Bam – Bam. And that’s what makes Vespers difficult to accompany; there’s hardly even time to check the key signature for each piece! Therefore, although it’s far from perfect, I’m releasing this 22-page booklet:

PDF Download • SUNDAY VESPERS ACCOMPANIMENT

As time goes on, I will explain why I believe this booklet is important, my hopes for it, and why I selected the official edition, directly from the Vesperale Romanum. In spite of its imperfections, creating this (draft) booklet required much more effort than I had anticipated.

—Jeff Ostrowski

11 July 2022 • FEEDBACK

Someone who heard the CCW plainsong recordings with NOH accompaniment says: “For years I have travelled the continents and crossed the oceans of Gregorian chant in search of a composition and interpretation as sublime as this. The text and the melody are interwoven in a game of mirrors with the interpreters, the singer and the instrumentalist, so as to confer delicacy on the jubilation. The organ is soft, humble. This is what we hear from the singer. These artists have come together to produce beauty. In 1903, Pope Pius X, by motu proprio, restored Gregorian chant in the Latin Church. In his words: Sacred music must possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, and notably the sanctity and delicacy of form, whence another characteristic spontaneously results, universality. I stress: the holiness and delicacy of forms result in universality, time and place. That is to say, sometimes the beauty of human hands gently caresses the face of the Eternal.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

“The introduction of the vernacular will certainly be a great sacrifice for those who know the beauty, the power and the expressive sacrality of Latin. We are parting with the speech of the Christian centuries; we are becoming like profane intruders in the literary preserve of sacred utterance. We will lose a great part of that stupendous and incomparable artistic and spiritual thing, the Gregorian chant. We have reason indeed for regret […] We are giving up something of priceless worth.”

— Pope Paul VI