Hymnography Unbound

Setting the tone

2009-07-01T16:41:00.004-04:00

Here's Scott Turkington's soft, brilliant improvisation on Bach's Schmuecke Dich, O Leibe Seele. What a lovely prelude, setting a quiet, attentive tone before the beginning of Mass.

A Pledge of Future Glory

2009-07-01T15:45:00.003-04:00

Every once in a while you hear a homily that takes its inspiration from a hymn. Here is one given a couple of weeks ago by a grad school professor of mine, Fr. Joseph Komonchak of the Archdiocese of New York, at the parish where he helps out on Sundays, Blessed Sacrament, in NW Washington DC.

..St. Augustine said that every eucharist is a celebration of the marriage between Christ and his Church, that is, between Christ and us. In any case, the Mass is not something that anyone of us is doing alone. We are here with others, enjoying what they enjoy, with the joy greater, not lesser, for being shared with others, receiving what they received...

Church Music Association of America Colloquium 2009

2009-06-29T21:39:00.006-04:00

I've just returned from a terrific musical and liturgical experience, the Church Music Association's annual Colloquium. The Colloquium is an immersion experience in chant and polyphony. Participants are organized ("sorted," in Harry Potter language) into working groups: chant choirs and polyphony choirs. Within a few days, each choir learns a substantial amount of music well enough to sing at Mass.

Here is a page of very well-done sound files to provide hours of listening pleasure. My favorite piece of all is the Gloria from Thursday's Mass, which was actually not sung by a Colloquium group but by a parish choir from St. John Cantius, in Chicago.

Tomorrow's polyphony at my parish

2009-06-06T12:50:00.001-04:00

Nice!

2009-05-10T12:35:00.002-04:00

We sang one of my favorite hymns today, I Know that My Redeemer Lives, and the choir ROCKED! They sing SATB hymnal arrangements very well to begin with. But the best part was the 4th verse. Our organist asked them to sing it in unison so that he could improvise on the organ, which he did, rather masterfully, and that was of course wonderful, but what really knocked your socks off was the LOUD, BLENDED, JOYOUS unison singing!

He lives, all glory to His name!
He lives, my Savior still the same!
What joy the blest assurance gives:
I know that my Redeemer lives!

Adoration, the Angelic Doctor, and Adoro Te Devote

2009-04-22T16:46:00.005-04:00

Here is one terrific homily, preached by my friend Fr. John Corbett, OP, a Dominican priest in Washington, DC.

It is on the one hand a reflection on St. Thomas Aquinas, on the occasion of his Feast Day, January 28. St. Thomas was a Dominican friar too, and the seminary/ graduate school where this homily was preached teaches with a special emphasis on the works of St. Thomas.

However, this homily is as much about praise as it is about theology. I think it's worth a listen!

2009-04-20T21:17:00.003-04:00

This is a passage from Pope Benedict's Easter Vigil homily. He spoke about two of the symbols of the Vigil, fire and water, and then about a different kind of symbol: song.

The third great symbol of the Easter Vigil is something rather different; it has to do with man himself. It is the singing of the new song – the alleluia. When a person experiences great joy, he cannot keep it to himself. He has to express it, to pass it on. But what happens when a person is touched by the light of the resurrection, and thus comes into contact with Life itself, with Truth and Love? He cannot merely speak about it. Speech is no longer adequate. He has to sing. The first reference to singing in the Bible comes after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has risen out of slavery. It has climbed up from the threatening depths of the sea. It is as it were reborn. It lives and it is free. The Bible describes the people’s reaction to this great event of salvation with the verse: "The people … believed in the Lord and in Moses his servant" (Ex 14:31). Then comes the second reaction which, with a kind of inner necessity, follows from the first one: "Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord …" At the Easter Vigil, year after year, we Christians intone this song after the third reading, we sing it as our song, because we too, through God’s power, have been drawn forth from the water and liberated for true life.

There is a surprising parallel to the story of Moses’ song after Israel’s liberation from Egypt upon emerging from the Red Sea, namely in the Book of Revelation of Saint John. Before the beginning of the seven last plagues imposed upon the earth, the seer has a vision of something "like a sea of glass mingled with fire; and those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb …" (Rev 15:2f.). This image describes the situation of the disciples of Jesus Christ in every age, the situation of the Church in the history of this world.

Humanly speaking, it is self-contradictory. On the one hand, the community is located at the Exodus, in the midst of the Red Sea, in a sea which is paradoxically ice and fire at the same time. And must not the Church, so to speak, always walk on the sea, through the fire and the cold? Humanly speaking, she ought to sink. But while she is still walking in the midst of this Red Sea, she sings – she intones the song of praise of the just: the song of Moses and of the Lamb, in which the Old and New Covenants blend into harmony. While, strictly speaking, she ought to be sinking, the Church sings the song of thanksgiving of the saved. She is standing on history’s waters of death and yet she has already risen. Singing, she grasps at the Lord’s hand, which holds her above the waters. And she knows that she is thereby raised outside the force of gravity of death and evil – a force from which otherwise there would be no way of escape – raised and drawn into the new gravitational force of God, of truth and of love. At present she is still between the two gravitational fields. But once Christ is risen, the gravitational pull of love is stronger than that of hatred; the force of gravity of life is stronger than that of death. Perhaps this is actually the situation of the Church in every age? It always seems as if she ought to be sinking, and yet she is always already saved. Saint Paul illustrated this situation with the words: "We are as dying, and behold we live" (2 Cor 6:9). The Lord’s saving hand holds us up, and thus we can already sing the song of the saved, the new song of the risen ones: alleluia! Amen.

2009-04-10T21:30:00.004-04:00

0 GOD, I love thee, I love thee-

Not out of hope of heaven for me

Nor fearing not to love and be

In the everlasting burning.

Thou, thou, my Jesus, after me

Didst reach thine arms out dying,

For my sake sufferedst nails, and lance,

Mocked and marred countenance,

Sorrows passing number,

Sweat and care and cumber,

Yea and death, and this for me,

And thou couldst see me sinning:

Then I, why should not I love thee,

Jesu, so much in love with me?

Not for heaven's sake;

not to be out of hell by loving thee;

Not for any gains I see;

But just the way that thou didst me

I do love and I will love thee:

What must I love thee, Lord, for then?

For being my king and God. Amen.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

2009-04-07T17:38:00.000-04:00

One of the hymnals has an Easter hymn set to Engelberg, and I thought I could do something similar but better. Or at least more to my own taste.

I may have forgotten a verse and if so I'll include it later.

If it's not too early to say so, Christ is risen!

Let Easter alleluias fill this place
for God has sanctified the human race,
fulfilling all the pledges of His grace,
Alleluia!

Why seek the Living One among the dead?
The Lord was raised in glory as He said.
That we might follow where our Master led,
Alleluia!

The path of glory shines before our eyes:
the Christian road that leads beyond the skies.
By crucifixion and by death we rise,
Alleluia!

Come quickly, Jesus, prove your promise true.
Bring all creation into life anew:
a living sacrifice of praise to You,
Alleluia!

c. Kathleen Pluth. This text may be used freely during Eastertide 2009. All other rights reserved.

2009-04-05T16:56:00.001-04:00

Today was the first Palm Sunday for the youth Schola that I began at my parish last summer, so it was the first time these children sang and processed about the children who sang and processed. Twenty-odd kids in red and white robes, dressed and ready to warmup at 8:15 in the blooming morning!

From morning prayer: "God grant that with the angels and the children we may be always faithful, and sing with them to the conqueror of death: Hosanna in the highest."

Hymns in honor of St. Paul

2009-03-31T21:12:00.004-04:00

I had thought that when the Holy Father annunced the Pauline Year, there would be a sudden flurry of hymn writing in St. Paul's honor. No such flurry has occurred to my knowledge, but I have been able to contribute a couple of hymns in honor of this inimitable Saint, one of the two pillars of our apostolic Church.

I've received a number of requests for use of these hymns--more from the UK, in fact, than from the States. An Anglican parish named St. Paul's, in Sheffield, for example, sang one at the anniversary service for their parish. And this morning my translation of Excelsam Pauli Gloriam was sung at Morning Prayer by Bishop D'Arcy and his priests in the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. I was delighted to be asked to contribute in this small way to their diocesan Lenten Day of Recollection for priests, and even more so in light of recent events.

One of the verses says:

The shining of the lamplight gleams
And drenches earth with heav'nly beams.
The dark of error's night is past.
The reign of truth has come at last.

So the Pope gets on a plane...

2009-03-27T19:51:00.007-04:00

Whenever you see a picture of Pope Benedict talking to people, he's got this shy smile thing going on. And yet, he's brilliant, and although welcoming of people, he's ruthless about ideas.

Actually, he's theologically much more welcoming than I am. For example, if I'm not mistaken he recently made a positive reference to Rene Girard, my theological arch-nemesis. Perhaps there is some good there that I just fail to see--but I digress. Regarding liturgy he can see nonsense claims coming from miles away--and then he devastates them.

A lot of electronic ink has been spilled over the Pope's recent plane ride TO Africa, mostly because his remarks had something to do with sex. But his remarks on the way back FROM Africa were much more dramatic. As I read them, I thought I heard the echoes of the old Bat Man comics' fight scenes.

Speaking of the Masses he celebrated in Cameroon and Angola, the Pope said,

"[I was] moved by the spirit of meditative absorption *POW!*
in liturgy, the powerful sense of the sacred *BIFF!*;
in the liturgies there was no self-presentation *BANG!*
of groups, no self-animation, *ZAP!*
but the presence of the sacred, of God Himself; even the movements were always movements of respect and awareness of the divine presence. *KAPOW!*

This multi-whammie, smiling pre-emptive measure undermines all future attempts to point to the African liturgies as a positive example of the multi-cultural fad in liturgy. Yet another ephemeral wave in the endless cycles of fads that have mainstreamed since the last Council, multiculturalism (like all the others) effectively downgrades the liturgy from the most intimate possible sharing of heavenly and earthly realities available to us on earth, to an anthropological celebration.

The most astonishingly candid expressions of the superficiality of multiculturalist liturgy are the various Dancing Puppet Liturgies, in which non-human, non-animate artifacts are dressed up to represent various colors and genders--which then "participate" in the liturgy.

I'm sure that we can all see the difference between Africans dancing at Mass vs. midwesterners, and their puppets, dancing at Mass. Yes? But the Pope wisely made a very public and clear distinction.

It's not wrong to express ourselves in the liturgy. But we must express ourselves liturgically, and in Christ. We are at Mass to open ourselves to God and to come into direct, real contact with the Father through Him--never losing the "sense of the sacred" and the "respect and awareness of the divine presence."

Via Media

2009-03-24T09:46:00.000-04:00

I've just added Amy Welborn's new Beliefnet blog Via Media ("the middle way") to my (very short) list of mobile favorites.

Amy is smart, super Catholic, and has a remarkable ability to think through things in publishable prose.

You can find Amy's blog here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/viamedia/

Missus Est

2009-03-16T19:22:00.001-04:00

With all the powers my poor Heart hath

2009-03-11T12:47:00.005-04:00

The Adoremus Hymnal contains an abbreviated version of Richard Crashaw's unusually free, unusually brilliant translation of St. Thomas Aquinas' hymn to the Eucharist, Adoro Te Devote.

With all the powers my poor Heart hath
Of humble love and loyal Faith,
Thus low (my hidden life!) I bow to Thee
Whom too much love hath bowed more low for me.
Down down, proud sense! Discourses die!
Keep close, my soul’s inquiring eye!
Nor touch nor taste must look for more
But each sit still in his own Door.

Your ports are all superfluous here,
Save that which lets in faith, the ear.
Faith is my skill. Faith can believe
As fast as love new laws can give.
Faith is my force. Faith strength affords
To keep pace with those powerful words.
And words more sure, more sweet, than they,
Love could not think, truth could not say.

O let Thy wretch find that relief
Thou didst afford the faithful thief.
Plead for me, love! Allege and show
That faith has farther, here, to go,
And less to lean on. Because then
Though hid as GOD, wounds writ Thee man.
Thomas might touch; none but might see
At least the suffering side of Thee;
And that too was Thy self which Thee did cover,
But here even that’s hid too which hides the other.

Sweet, consider then, that I
Though allowed nor hand nor eye
To reach at Thy loved face; nor can
Taste Thee GOD, or touch Thee MAN,
Both yet believe; and witness Thee
My LORD too and my GOD, as loud as He.
Help, Lord, my faith, my hope increase;
And fill my portion in Thy peace.
Give love for life; nor let my days
Grow, but in new powers to Thy name and praise.

O dear memorial of that death
Which lives still, and allows us breath!
Rich, royal food! Bountiful BREAD!
Whose use denies us to the dead;
Whose vital gust [taste] alone can give
The same leave both to eat and live;
Live ever Bread of loves, and be
My life, my soul, my surer self to me.

O soft self-wounding Pelican!
Whose breast weeps Balm for wounded man.
Ah this way bend Thy benign flood
To a bleeding Heart that gasps for blood:
That blood, whose least drops sovereign be
To wash my worlds of sins from me.

Come love! Come LORD! and that long day
For which I languish, come away;
When this dry soul those eyes shall see,
And drink the unsealed source of Thee,
When glory’s sun faith’s shades shall chase,
And for Thy veil give me Thy FACE. Amen.

Found among the excellent hymns here.

I'm a St. Justin Martyr!

2009-02-15T18:43:00.003-05:00

You’re St. Justin Martyr!

You have a positive and hopeful attitude toward the world. You think that nature, history, and even the pagan philosophers were often guided by God in preparation for the Advent of the Christ. You find “seeds of the Word” in unexpected places. You’re patient and willing to explain the faith to unbelievers.

Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers!

And as they tune it, fall

2009-02-06T14:48:00.001-05:00

All hail the power of Jesus’ Name! Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all.
Bring forth the royal diadem, and crown Him Lord of all.

Let highborn seraphs tune the lyre, and as they tune it, fall
Before His face Who tunes their choir, and crown Him Lord of all.
Before His face Who tunes their choir, and crown Him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye morning stars of light, who fixed this floating ball;
Now hail the strength of Israel’s might, and crown Him Lord of all.
Now hail the strength of Israel’s might, and crown Him Lord of all.

Crown Him, ye martyrs of your God, who from His altar call;
Extol the Stem of Jesse’s Rod, and crown Him Lord of all.
Extol the Stem of Jesse’s Rod, and crown Him Lord of all.

Ye seed of Israel’s chosen race, ye ransomed from the fall,
Hail Him Who saves you by His grace, and crown Him Lord of all.
Hail Him Who saves you by His grace, and crown Him Lord of all.

Hail Him, ye heirs of David’s line, whom David Lord did call,
The God incarnate, Man divine, and crown Him Lord of all,
The God incarnate, Man divine, and crown Him Lord of all.

Sinners, whose love can ne’er forget the wormwood and the gall,
Go spread your trophies at His feet, and crown Him Lord of all.
Go spread your trophies at His feet, and crown Him Lord of all.

Let every tribe and every tongue before Him prostrate fall
And shout in universal song the crownèd Lord of all.
And shout in universal song the crownèd Lord of all.

O that, with yonder sacred throng, we at His feet may fall,
Join in the everlasting song, and crown Him Lord of all,
Join in the everlasting song, and crown Him Lord of all!

New Music Blog

2009-02-02T14:29:00.003-05:00

My friend and sometime collaborator Michael Lawrence has FINALLY begun a new music blog.

His always welcome, often correct opinions may be found here. Enjoy!!

Ave Maria--Biebl

2009-01-30T14:21:00.001-05:00

Musica Sacra

2009-01-28T09:52:00.003-05:00

Just took a look at the sidebar links here and noticed to my amazement and embarassment that the Church Music Association of America's website Musica Sacra was not there. This oversight is now remedied. You can find the CMAA under "Chant."

As I've mentioned previously, the CMAA hosts several national events each year for Church musicians, focusing on Gregorian chant and/ or polyphony. Their faculty is excellent and the atmosphere at these events is exceedingly joyful.

I'm posting their ad for the upcoming Colloquium--an annual gathering in Chicago every June. In the audio clips, if you hear a Victoria Sanctus and wonder why one of the altos is hitting a wrong note, that would be me! But I'm learning, and that is exactly what the Colloquium is all about.

New to the Sidebar

2009-01-22T11:28:00.003-05:00

I'm adding a link to an online book, Early Latin Hymns by A. S. Walpole. It's an interesting and learned book, summing up the intense hymnological scholarship of the time. It can be found here.

Stop. The. Madness.

2009-01-22T07:12:00.006-05:00

May this year be the last.
"Breathe for me," they haunt my prayer
with infant dreams of drawing air.
I shrink from sharp and sudden fear.
I shrink because the knife is near.
I feel a light initial blow--
but to the death my dreams don't go.

If you could only hear and see
the interest group that lobbies me--
whose privacy is not a right,
whose lives will end before tonight--
how quickly you would mark the ruse:
a woman's right to plan and choose.

A century beyond our own
will marvel at the evil done:
the terror and the salt and blood
in clean suburban neighborhoods;
the killing of one child in five
while you and I were here, alive.

How I spend my winter vacation, Part II

2009-01-18T20:10:00.003-05:00

A week--a very full week--is impossible to put into words. But perhaps a picture will help:

Still not clear? Maybe some dialogue, then:

-Did you ever ask your choir to draw glasses on their score? Like this. That means, Look at the director.
-Excuse me, but that looks like a rabbit.
-An imaginary rabbit, maybe.
-Wait, what was his name?

If you don't think that's funny, then you probably weren't in the room at the time. It wasn't just funny, it was fast. It was benevolent. And there were many other things going on at the same time, most of them having to do with beautiful, beautiful music.

If I had to sum it all up in one word, it would be "joy."

The other day I had the opportunity to talk with a young man who wants to be a leader in liturgical music. He already is, actually, and he's so young, and so personable and talented, that the sky is the limit. I said to him what I've said to a couple of other people: According to the Bible, we will spend all eternity singing the praises of God. Isn't it a privilege, then, to have as your job!! the responsibility of teaching people to do what they will do forever and ever, before the throne of almighty God and the Lamb?

A Hymn for Candlemas: Adorna, Sion, Thalamum

2009-01-17T14:34:00.008-05:00

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

According to the Roman Missal the celebrant after Terce, in stole and cope of purple colour, standing at the epistle side of the altar, blesses the candles (which must be of beeswax). Having sung or recited the five orations prescribed, he sprinkles and incenses the candles. Then he distributes them to the clergy and laity, whilst the choir sings the canticle of Simeon, "Nunc dimittis". The antiphon "Lumen ad revelationem gentium et gloriam plebis tuæ Israel" is repeated after every verse, according to the medieval custom of singing the antiphons. During the procession which now follows, and at which all the partakers carry lighted candles in their hands, the choir sings the antiphon "Adorna thalamum tuum, Sion", composed by St. John of Damascus, one of the few pieces which, text and music, have been borrowed by the Roman Church from the Greeks.

Here is my translation of Adorna, Sion, Thalamum:

Let Zion's bridal-room be clothed:
He comes, her Lord and her Betrothed.
Let bride and Bridegroom, by faith's light,
A vigil keep throughout the night.

Saint Simeon, go forth in joy.
Exult to see the baby Boy:
Make known to all the Light divine
That soon on ev'ry land shall shine.

His parents to the temple bring
The Temple as an offering
The righteousness of law He chose
Though to the law He nothing owes.

So, Mary, bring this little one,
Yours and the Father's only Son
Through whom our offering is made
By whom our ransom price is paid.

And forward, royal Virgin, go
And let rejoicing overflow
With gifts bring forth your newborn Son
Who comes to rescue everyone.

Lord Jesus Christ, the Glory bright
Who guides the nations into light
Be praised, and for eternity
Be glorified, O Trinity. Amen.

Translation c. 2009 Kathleen Pluth. Permission is granted for parish use Feb. 2, 2009. All other rights reserved.

Adorna, Sion, thalamum,
quæ præstolaris Dominum;
sponsum et sponsam suscipe
vigil fidei lumine.

Beate senex, propera,
promissa comple gaudia
et revelandum gentibus
revela lumen omnibus.

Parentes Christum deferunt,
in templo templum offerunt;
legi parere voluit
qui legi nihil debuit.

Offer, beata, parvulum,
tuum et Patris unicum;
offer per quem offerimur,
pretium quo redimimur.

Procede, virgo regia,
profer Natum cum hostia;
monet omnes ad gaudium
qui venit salus omnium.

Iesu, tibi sit gloria,

qui te revelas gentibus,

cum Patre et almo Spiritu,

in sempiterna saecula. Amen.

Abedecerian (Latin for Alphabetical)

2009-01-14T18:15:00.004-05:00

Whilst perusing the Christmas section of the Liber Hymnarius, with a view towards translating its ancient hymns, I discovered the beautiful A solis ortus cardine. It is an acrostic hymn, so that each verse begins with a successive letter of the alphabet: a, b, c.

Now this may seem like a frivolous organizing principle for a venerable hymn, but the practice has roots in an even more venerable hymn form: the Psalm. Psalms 119 and 145, for example, are acrostic Psalms.

Turns out that the hymn, which ends at I for Iesu, is actually only the first part of the hymn that continues on H for Herod, and is the Epiphany hymn Hostis Herdodes Impie.