polyphony

Keven Smith · June 21, 2021

Hidden Gem: Tantum Ergo II (Kwasniewski)

If you enjoy juicy dissonances and hearing the sun dart in and out of the clouds, you’ll love this modern setting of an ancient text.

Follow the Discussion on Facebook

Keven Smith · March 22, 2021

Hidden Gem: Crux Fidelis (attr. King John IV of Portugal)

I don’t know who really wrote this motet, but I do know it’s a soothing and highly accessible selection for Holy Week.

Follow the Discussion on Facebook

Keven Smith · December 21, 2020

Hidden Gem: Alma Redemptoris Mater (Salazar)

Here’s a Spanish Baroque motet that will gradually, gently win your heart while giving your choir another good option for the entire Christmas cycle.

Follow the Discussion on Facebook

Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)

The organ accompaniment booklet (24 pages) which I created for the 4th Sunday of Lent (“Lætare Sunday”) may now be downloaded, for those who desire such a thing.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent

The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)

Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Only against this background, of the effective denial of the authority of Trent, can one understand the bitterness of the struggle against allowing the celebration of Mass according to the 1962 Missal after the liturgical reform. The possibility of so celebrating constitutes the strongest, and thus (for them) the most intolerable contradiction of the opinion of those who believe that the faith in the Eucharist, as formulated by Trent, has lost its validity.”

— Cardinal Ratzinger, 2001