OR THE PAST two years, I’ve been helping a group of 20 seminarians during their weekly one-hour choir practices at the Saint Francis Xavier Major Seminary. Each year, two seminarians are appointed by the RECTOR to take on the role as choir leaders to their fellow seminarians, and they help to run through the hymns that the seminarians choose for their daily masses and the divine office. I step in occasionally when they need some help to learn their hymns. I will have more to say about this below.
Four Pieces • Excellent repertoire is crucial to one’s success as a choir director. Today, I share with our readers four (4) compositions I consider highly worthy of consideration for the fledgling men’s schola cantorum. I suspect each could be transposed up an octave and used for women’s scholae.
* PDF • QUIGNARD TANTUM ERGO—3 Equal Voices
* PDF • “Holy Joseph, Intercessor”—For 2 voices
—Arrangement for two voices of Hymn #792, by Father Christopher G. Phillips.
* PDF • ‘Ave Maria’ (Oreste Ravanello)—3 Equal Voices
—This 1997 arrangement may be sung at a higher or lower key.
* PDF • LAETAMINI IN DOMINO (Nanino)—3 Equal Voices
—The last name of this associate of Palestrina can be spelled “Nanini” or “Nanino”.
My Methods • I mentioned how I only get an hour with the seminarians. The hour goes by really quickly, and I get (perhaps) 20 solid minutes each week to help the seminarians polish up their hymns and learn new compositions. It isn’t much time in the context of choir rehearsal, but those 20 minutes are precious and rewarding. For example, just today, we finally finished a piece that we’ve been nibbling at over the course of the past half a year, Thomas Tallis’ If Ye Love Me, scored for TTBB. For a group of seminarians used to singing most of their repertoire in unison, you should have seen the smiles on their faces today when they realized that they had finally managed to sing through the complete the piece in 4-part harmony … and for a polyphonic piece, no less! I was thrilled for them because they could now understand and feel the beauty of that piece of sacred music.
(1 of 2) Hymn to Saint Joseph • I noticed that quite a number of the seminarians love to sing hymns in harmony, because they will make up their own harmonies to the melodies of hymns. Seeing that the hymns in the beloved Brébeuf Hymnal are scored for SATB choirs—and not so much for a men’s chorus—I asked my colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, for suggestions in this area. He suggested Father Du Peron’s 2-voice arrangement of STUTTGART (see above) and kindly placed underneath it the text of ‘Holy Joseph Intercessor’. I chose that particular hymn (#792) since Saint Joseph is PATRON OF THE UNIVERSAL CHURCH. Moreover, in the Litany of Saint Joseph, he’s named as ‘Protector of the Holy Church’ and ‘Foster Father of the Son of God’. For the future priests, Saint Joseph will be their strong ally as they seek to be spiritual fathers for their flock. I figured it will be a good hymn, particularly for the seminarians to learn.
(2 of 2) Hymn to Saint Joseph • The arrangement by Father Du Peron pivots between unison and two-part harmonization, in a key comfortable for men. It’s a good skill to know how to switch between singing the melody in unison with everyone else, and then switching to a two-part harmony. As I tell my choristers, singing in a choir is mostly about learning how to listen to each other, and it might be the most important thing one learns to do in a choir, and even more so, in life. Recently,* I’ve also started to work with a group of 10 young men in high school (in addition to the large church choir I direct each week) with the goal of forming a small choir to sing for their school Masses. This harmonization of ‘Holy Joseph Intercessor’ will be most useful for teaching them, too.
Ave Maria • The ‘Ave Maria’ for three voices was composed by ORESTE RAVANELLO (d. 1938), who served as organist for the famous Basilica di San Marco in Venice. Jeff (who taught alongside me at last summer’s Sacred Music Symposium) was kind enough to provide a recording his Schola Cantorum made in 2004:
Laetamini in Domino • You can hear a recording of Nanino’s Laetámini in Dómino sung by seminarians at the Wigratzbad Seminary run by the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP). The wonderful text from Psalm 31 is used as an OFFERTORY frequently throughout the liturgical year, and is often associated with martyrs. It’s also the OFFERTORY when a Votive Mass of All Saints is offered.
Conclusion • If you find any of these repertoire recommendations helpful—and especially if you perform any of them—I hope you will let me know!
* Jeff Ostrowski often chides me for taking on so many choral projects. He says: ‘You’re a wife, a mother, you direct numerous choirs, you teach at the seminary, you train assistant directors, and you work with emerging organists, in addition to your singing career—slow down!’ I can only respond to Jeff that God has done done so much for me, I’m glad to give something back.
