William Mahrt Gregorian Chant

Fr. David Friel · October 12, 2020

Sacred Music Boot Camp 2020

Three days of practical chant instruction and immersion in the treasury of Catholic sacred music

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Fr. David Friel · June 11, 2020

Virtual Sacred Music Colloquium 2020

The CMAA will offer a virtual version of its annual, week-long workshop.

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Fr. David Friel · September 8, 2019

PDF Download • Chant Notation—Nuptial Blessing (EF)

With permission from the CDF, the nuptial blessing at a sung EF Mass may be chanted according to this melody.

Fr. David Friel · August 30, 2015

Society for Catholic Liturgy Conference 2015

Featuring Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, Dr. William Mahrt, and Fr. Uwe Michael Lang

Jeff Ostrowski · February 4, 2015

Exclusive Interview With Dr. William Mahrt

Towards the end I ask the CMAA president a loaded question … and he answers!

PDF Download • Vespers for the Dead

Mr. Albert Bloomfield kindly sent me “Vespers for the Dead”—which does not fulfill a priest’s obligation to pray the Divine Office, yet is often prayed when a loved one dies. Here is formatting A, and here it is again with formatting B.

—Jeff Ostrowski

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