Society of Saint Gregory

Find them something interesting and meaningful to play.

How disappointing. The Council fathers reminded the Church that Gregorian chant "is specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services." This general rule has been confirmed by Popes Paul VI, John Paul II and...

Fascinating. Do continue.

I read an interesting article today by Damian Thompson (editor-in-chief of the Catholic Herald), in which he suggests that "after a quiet and cautious start" to Benedict's papacy, "major reforms are on their way", especially in relation to the liturgy. The article can be found on...

The Lassus "Jubilate Deo" is excellent where a short, joyful polyphonic motet is required. I sang it today, and it went very well. However, it was an away game (evensong), so I'm very I'm pleased to hear of it being sung in a Catholic parish church. Why should the Devil have all the best m...

The logical operator is not XOR, but AND :-). That is, the Exhortation has breadth and depth in its exploration of the significance, form and context of the Eucharistic liturgy. It covers the issues in an integrated way from all sorts of angles: spiritual, liturgical, theological, aesthetic, histori...

Presbyter wrote: Yes! Personally I should like to see (hear) composers of the calibre of MacMillan and Panufnik writing more for the liturgy as a whole and not just setting "a Mass" (Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, Agnus). Why is it that the just about the only Mass that ever seems to be se...

John, As Benedict has observed, we need to break out of the spurious opposition of old and new that mars discussion of the liturgy and its music. The endless, unresolved round of statement and counter-statement puts me in mind of the film 'Groundhog Day'!. Picking over the minutiae of Sacramentum Ca...

One to watch is 'Canorus', an open-source score editor that has grown out of the NoteEdit project. It's at an early stage of development, but is designed to be cross-platform: there are versions for Linux, Mac and Windows.

See canorus.berlios.de

The English translation of the Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis has been revised. The original translation, much discussed here and elsewhere, said in paragraph 62 that international liturgies 'could be' in Latin. The revision reads: 'it is fitting that such liturgies be celebrated in Lat...

I think there are two issues here: execution, and judgement over time. I generally avoid masses with music these days, because so much of what's offered is badly done. As a result, most of my singing is done away from home, in places where the trouble is taken to do things well (silence is golden, s...

Perhaps it's the way plainsong was taught to young papists in the UK in the 1950s and 60s. I'm a convert who discovered it as a young man in the early 1980s, and have loved it ever since. And no, I'm not the sort of convert who wants the return of the Tridentine mass in every parish. I just know a g...

... which brings us full circle to Chris's original posting.

John, 'Picky' is good! It encourages consideration and clarification. My suggestion that Benedict's views on liturgy and music 'deepen our understanding of interior, communal and representative activity' was a reference to his analysis of the relationship of individual, corporate and delegated activ...