Views from the Choir Loft

Getting More Mileage out of a Polyphonic Requiem

Patrick Williams · January 15, 2023

HILE IT IS PRAISEWORTHY for every Catholic choir to have a polyphonic setting of the Missa pro defunctis in its repertory, Requiems are of little practical use in comparison with other polyphonic Masses. Funeral Masses are often scheduled for weekday mornings, when it may be difficult to have an SATB quartet present, let alone full choir. Many choirs only have the opportunity to sing a choral Requiem Mass liturgically on All Souls’ Day—and some parishes don’t even offer that. At Mater Misericordiae in Phoenix, we have a Requiem High Mass annually for the repose of the soul of Fr. Kenneth Walker, FSSP, who was murdered here in 2014 at the age of 28. Requiescat in pace! Other than those two Masses in June and November, most of our Requiems are actual funeral Masses sung in Gregorian chant by the men’s schola alone, or sometimes by only a couple of cantors.

The Kyrie, Sanctus, and Benedictus of the Requiem Mass can be sung any day of the year. The Requiem Mass lacks Gloria and Credo, but it has an Agnus Dei with a different text than usual. Fortunately, dona eis requiem has only one more syllable than miserere nobis or dona nobis pacem; either text can easily be substituted in most settings. The final dona eis requiem would require a more thorough reworking, but that is unnecessary with the addition of a chant setting for one of the invocations. For my choir’s use during Lent this year, I adapted the Missa pro defunctis of Giovanni Francesco Anerio (1569–1630) as a Missa brevis. See what you think. I welcome reader feedback before I finalize this edition and upload it to CPDL. Feel free to sing, study, duplicate, record, rearrange, or imitate! I hope to be able to share a rehearsal recording in the coming weeks, perhaps with a comparison of my choir’s first rough read-through (about a quarter of the choir is new since November!) and a more polished version ready for Mass. In the meantime, you may be interested in the recording by the Westminster Cathedral Choir under the direction of James O’Donnell.

* PDF Download • MISSA BREVIS adapted from MISSA PRO DEFUNCTIS by G.F. ANERIO (6 Pages)
—for SATB choir, a cappella

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

“Common” Responsorial Psalm?

I try to avoid arguing about liturgical legislation (even with Catholic priests) because it seems like many folks hold certain views—and nothing will persuade them to believe differently. You can show them 100 church documents, but it matters not. They won’t budge. Sometimes I’m confronted by people who insist that “there’s no such thing” as a COMMON RESPONSORIAL PSALM. When that happens, I show them a copy of the official legislation in Latin. I have occasionally prevailed by means of this method.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” • 5th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 5th Sunday of Easter (18 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The Communion Antiphon was ‘restored’ the 1970 Missale Romanum (a.k.a. MISSALE RECENS) from an obscure martyr’s feast. Our choir is on break this Sunday, so the selections are relatively simple in nature.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Communion Chant (5th Sunday of Easter)

This coming Sunday—18 May 2025—is the 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C (MISSALE RECENS). The COMMUNION ANTIPHON “Ego Sum Vitis Vera” assigned by the Church is rather interesting, because it comes from a rare martyr’s feast: viz. Saint Vitalis of Milan. It was never part of the EDITIO VATICANA, which is the still the Church’s official edition. As a result, the musical notation had to be printed in the Ordo Cantus Missae, which appeared in 1970.

—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