Views from the Choir Loft

Jeff Ostrowski • Article Archive

A theorist, organist, and conductor, Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He completed studies in Education and Musicology at the graduate level. Having worked as a church musician in Los Angeles for ten years, in 2024 he accepted a position as choirmaster for Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Michigan, where he resides with his wife and children. —Read full biography (with photographs).

Jeff Ostrowski · May 2, 2016

What Modern Man Cannot Ever Accept: SILENCE

“I believe that more and more people will start to come to this, if nothing else because they wish to find a way in their world to carve out quiet time.”

Jeff Ostrowski · May 1, 2016

Musical Resources • St. Joseph the Worker (1 May)

“Grant, O Lord, that what we have received may—by the intercession of blessed Joseph—crown our work and confirm our reward…”

Jeff Ostrowski · April 27, 2016

Propers for St. Joseph the Worker

This Sunday falls on May 1st, so the EF feast is “St. Joseph the Workman.”

Jeff Ostrowski · April 25, 2016

Rehearsal videos • “Veni Creator Spiritus” (Fauxbourdon)

Modern ears don’t always enjoy the sound of extremely ancient music—do you?

Jeff Ostrowski · April 24, 2016

Our Lady’s Royal Ancestry • Gregorian Chant

“Richer than I you can never be—I had a Mother who read to me.”

Jeff Ostrowski · April 24, 2016

Musical Resources • Fourth Sunday after Easter (Extraordinary Form)

“…grant Thy peoples that they may love what Thou commandest and desire what Thou dost promise…”

Jeff Ostrowski · April 23, 2016

Dazzling Canon • “Adoremus in Aeternum”

John Paul II: “For compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the general rule of St. Pius X…”

Jeff Ostrowski · April 22, 2016

Shocking Parallels By Guerrero

I’ve seen similar passages by Orlando Lassus.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 20, 2016

Benedictus & Hosanna • “Missa Beata Mater”

My friend was in charge of picking music for papal Masses under Pope St. John Paul II.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 19, 2016

“Catholic Choirmaster” • Fascinating Photo Taken 29 August 1964

CMAA was formed the same year “Inter Oecumenici” was issued by the Vatican.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 18, 2016

In Memoriam • Sister Clare Crockett

She passed away when the community’s house collapsed during the earthquake that hit the Ecuadorian coast on 16 April 2016.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 18, 2016

“No Time For Cowardice” • A Letter To Liturgy Columnists

Too many columnists focus endlessly on minutiae while leaving untouched a crucial issue.

Jeff Ostrowski · April 16, 2016

Feeding Our Children Liturgical “Garbage”

Some of you know I’ve been extremely ill for more than two years…

Jeff Ostrowski · April 16, 2016

Musical Resources • Third Sunday after Easter (Extraordinary Form)

“O God, Who dost show the light of Thy truth to them that go astray…”

Jeff Ostrowski · April 15, 2016

Picture • Pope Pius XII in St. Peter’s (Low Mass)

With a lovely chasuble!

“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

Proof Which All Can Immediately See!

“A little knowledge is a dangerous thing,” as the famous maxim goes. Over the years, I’ve observed malicious attacks on the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal. Rather than scoring a ‘hit’ on the Brébeuf Hymnal, its attackers often reveal profound ignorance. I’ve been advised never to reply … but I break that rule today. Certain voices online assert that the Brébeuf Hymnal is “untraditional” because it includes both the Urbanite and pre-Urbanite versions of the hymns. But if only they would glance at a copy of the 1913 VESPERALE (printed by order of Pope Saint Pius X) they would see how mistaken such statements are.

—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

“I am now old but I was young when I was received into the Church. I was not at all attracted by the splendour of her great ceremonies—which the Protestants could well counterfeit. Of the extraneous attractions of the Church which most drew me was the spectacle of the priest and his server at Low Mass, stumping up to the altar without a glance to discover how many or how few he had in his congregation; a craftsman and his apprentice; a man with a job which he alone was qualified to do.”

— Evelyn Waugh (7 August 1964)