Views from the Choir Loft

Liturgical Abuse

Priests as Ordinary Ministers of Holy Communion

Fr. David Friel · May 29, 2016 ·

A Duty That Is Not Ours to Surrender

Should the Liturgy Be Televised?

Fr. David Friel · November 15, 2015 ·

Introducing a New Book by Fr. Uwe Michael Lang

Pastoral Difficulties with Recently Ordained Priests

Fr. David Friel · February 8, 2015 ·

A Response to a Post at “Pray Tell”

Pope Francis & Mike Rowe Are in Agreement

Fr. David Friel · October 5, 2014 ·

Tell People What They Need to Hear

The “Children’s Liturgy of the Word”

Fr. David Friel · July 13, 2014 ·

Are We Past This Yet?

Rebellion in the Liturgy

Richard J. Clark · June 6, 2014 ·

Here is a truth of human nature: When we can’t have something we want it. When something is forced upon us, we often reject it.

Liturgical Abuse and Abuse of Minors

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · January 16, 2014 ·

The decades-long abuse of the sacred liturgy—and therefore, of faithful Catholics who have a right to the sacred liturgy in its fullness—constitutes the first and fundamental form of clerical abuse of the laity, of which sexual abuse is a particular and more demented moral variety.

Could Pope St. Pius X Sing?

“On 12 March 1908, the complete publication of the Roman Gradual was issued by the Vatican Press. On that very day, Dom Pothier solemnly presented the first copy to the Holy Father. A witness of the audience says that Pius X wished to be the first to see the new book; he opened it at random, at page 128 of the supplement pro aliquibus locis—it was the Introit of the new Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Pope sang it with perfect taste to the last note.” (Catholic Choirmaster, February 1915)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Julius Bas Accompaniment

A very prolific harmonizer of Gregorian chant in the early 20th century was Mr. Julius Bas. He often uses a very strange technique, wherein he employs rests to eliminate the Alto, Tenor, and Bass voices. Consider what he did with “Lumen ad revelationem” here:

* JPEG • Lumen ad revelationem

It seems quite lazy, and I’ve never seen anyone else use such a technique, although Dr. Peter Wagner often switched to parallel octaves when he ran out of ideas… (Yuck!)

—Jeff Ostrowski

Hitting wrong notes

Fr. Valentine Young, OFM, used to say: “The organist can play 1,000 correct notes and one wrong note—and the only thing people will care about is the wrong note.” Last Sunday I hit some wrong notes, and felt bad. Then I remembered a story about Rudolf Serkin and started to chuckle. Charles Rosen (or was it Leon Fleisher?) told the story of Serkin playing a Beethoven Sonata in front of a large audience. The theme is all in octaves; but Serkin hit some wrong notes, and played parallel 7ths instead. This so unnerved him that every time the theme returned, he played the entire thing in parallel 7ths! We must remember that even the greatest hit wrong notes. Alfred Cortot, Vladimir Horowitz, Wilhelm Backhaus, Edwin Fischer, Sviatoslav Richter, Egon Petri—they all hit wrong notes, which we can hear on recordings. (Josef Hofmann was an exception, but he was super-human so he doesn’t count!)

—Jeff Ostrowski