Views from the Choir Loft

Charles Weaver • Article Archive

Charles Weaver is on the faculty of the Juilliard School, and serves as organist and director of music at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk, Connecticut. His research interests include the history of music theory and the theory of plainchant rhythm. He lives in Connecticut with his wife and four children.—Read full biography (with photographs).

Charles Weaver · October 10, 2020

“Arranging Polyphony for One Voice” • (Live Rec.)

When faced with restrictions on the size of the choir, history suggests that we can adapt music for smaller groups, including groups with only one singer.

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Charles Weaver · September 2, 2020

(Installment #4) “Catholic Hymnals” • Charles Weaver

On how tunes change over time, with a reflection on the sacred duty of hymn editors.

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Charles Weaver · August 20, 2020

Biography • Charles Weaver

Charles Weaver is on the faculty of the Juilliard School…

Charles Weaver · August 11, 2020

“Plainchant in Two Parts” • (Guest Article by a Julliard Faculty Member)

Polyphonic settings from a thirteenth-century Italian convent teach us how we might add a second part to a piece of plainchant.

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20 October 2020 • “What we can’t share”

Almighty God has given to us the example of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. Of course, along with those eight martyrs we honor their associates, e.g Father François Bressani. I can’t share with you the torments Father Bressani underwent at the hands of Iroquois: it is too brutal. It would tear your heart out. But I will share what Bressani’s Superior said, after receiving a letter from him: “The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger left on his right hand, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds—which are still open—from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth.” If you have the stomach for it, read what Father Bressani (d. 1672) underwent for Jesus Christ. Let his example help us never fall into sins of impurity, avarice, ingratitude, or envy.

—Jeff Ostrowski

13 October 2020 • Chopin talks Bach

My “pianist pedigree” goes from my teacher through Wiktor Łabuński through Felix Blumenfeld, who studied with Anton Rubinstein. I always considered myself part of the “Bach-Mozart-Chopin school” as opposed to the “Handel-Beethoven-Liszt school.” (Needless to say, there’s great overlap between these schools.) Before giving a concert, Frédéric Chopin would always shut himself up in a room and play through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The year Chopin died, he spent considerable time with the painter, Eugène Delacroix (d. 1863), who recounts hearing Chopin launch into a monologue on the transcendence of J.S. Bach, insisting that “the fugue is like pure logic in music,” and that “to know fugue deeply is to be acquainted with the element of all reason and all consistency in music.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

12 October 2020 • True Story

Before a Low Mass, the priest ascends the Altar to place the Chalice, check the altar Missal, and do other “preparing” tasks. The organist must be prepared to play here, and—depending upon the priest—this can be of surprising length! For certain priests, I can easily play all six verses of a hymn while he’s doing these tasks. In the Ordinary Form, I believe too many have abandoned the preparation time before Mass (vesting, praying, keeping silence, and so on). I remember waiting for a priest to arrive in Corpus Christi, so I could ask him about the music. He never did arrive, because he had gotten into his vehicle wearing his chasuble, parked, hopped out of his truck (fully vested), and literally “processed” in as he entered the Church…true story.

—Jeff Ostrowski