Church Music

This is by the prolific Michael Forster.

The text is on the second page of this bulletin.

CWB II sets it to FRANCONIA.

We have switched back to the Mass of St Francis.

Entrance: We Are Many Parts  (Haugen) AOV 1/86

Psalm 68 (McKenna)

Turn to the Lord in your need and you will live.

Gifts: As A Fire Is Meant For Burning  (Duck) GA 881

Communion: One Bread , One Body  (Foley) AOV 1/129

Thanksgiving: Be Merciful (Haugen)

Recessional: O Sacred Flame (Marshall)

This is a very nice chant setting of the Beatitudes (Matt 5:3-12). It is Richard Proulx’s adaption from the Russian Orthodox liturgy (KONTAKION).

O blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

O blessed are those who mourn,

for they shall be comforted.

O blessed are the meek,

for they shall inherit the earth.

O blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness,

for they shall be satisfied

O blessed are the merciful,

for they shall obtain mercy.

O blessed are the pure in heart,

for they shall see God.

O blessed are the peacemakers,

for they will be called children of God.

O blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

O blessed are you the world reviles you and persecutes you

and utters all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad,

for great is your reward in heaven.

This is a recessional hymn with a worthy text by Fred Kaan. The lyrics are here.

Hymnary suggests several other settings but CWB II uses WINCHESTER NEW.

This is a gathering song of unity and journey by Delores Duffner, set to KOMT NU MET ZANG (Dutch c17, not a Kraftwerk track).

Hymnary have some details here but I can’t find the text anywhere on the internet – it is a GIA copyright but there is no sign of it there. So grab your copy of CWB II and sing along to learn it.

The title is the antiphon and the verse text is here (click 32).

The tune for the response is by J. Robert Carroll.

The verses are a Psalm Tone by Joseph Gelineau SJ. BIAB can’t do chant.

A prayer for unity in hymn form with a text by Olive W Spearman, who died last year aged 102 or so. According to CWB II it is based on Phillipians 2:1-18, but I can’t see any relationship. Other sources suggest Acts 10:34-35, which fits better.

The text is here, although CWB II only has the first three verses (the fourth and fifth verses appear harmless enough to me and I’m not sure of the reason for their excision) and a variant text for the 3rd and 4th lines of the first verse:

to see each mortal as I ought, my kindred, whom you love has bought.

It gets rid of a “thee”, but is clumsy as all hell. Godsongs goes through other textual variants.

It is set to various tunes in the references overseas but never to DANIEL as used by CWB II.

Amanda McKenna’s popular psalm antiphon settings are quite accessible to the average parish, and have been designed to be used with spoken verses.  The verses can, however, easily be sung by using chant tones, and it’s much easier than using contemporary style settings with all the variations normally found between verses.  They maintain the simplicity of Amanda’s compositions.

A good starting point are the popular St Meinrad Archabbey psalm tones which are legally free to use (non-commercially) and can be found at
https://www.saintmeinrad.org/the-monastery/liturgical-music/downloads/
Go down near the bottom to number 5 in the “Other” section.  There you will find music for the eight Gregorian modes, so there are only eight tunes to choose from for the verses.  The one to use depends on mood and matching the key to that of Amanda’s antiphon, which may require some compromise.  The tunes to use depend on the emotion of the text; from Kevin Vogel’s YouTube examples:  1 – serious; 2 – sad; 3 – vehement; 4 – harmonious; 5 – happy; 6 – devout; 7 – angelic; 8 – very happy.

I’ve attached an example of how to use them from the 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time where the Psalm is 65 (66) and the response is “Let all the earth cry out to God with joy.” 

The music for the psalm verses is attached without the antiphon for copyright reasons.  For the audio, please note that for some reason Amanda left out “all”, so I added a two beat C at the beginning to correct this and also raised the melody a step.  There is a file with music alone, and another file where I’ve added vocals which are not great.  I believe the tones work well with Amanda’s score, are not boring or stodgy, and are pleasing to the ear even if my vocals aren’t!

Chant is sung speech, so the goal is to make the diction sound natural with the exception of the last syllable in each phrase, which is hung on to a little bit.  This means, however, that it’s impossible to create an audio backing file with the right timings of the notes for the verses.  There are plenty of examples on YouTube of well-sung “parish-style” chant psalms, and any of Chris Brunelle’s weekly guitar-led responsorial psalm demos are a great starting point.

Readings: Isaiah 66:10-14

Galatians 6:14-18

Luke 10:1-12,17-20

We only need talk of peace when there is none. Paul talking about his only boast, is in contrast to those who will boast that they made people submit to their way of practicing religion. He wishes peace because he finds discord rather than accepting love.

The peace of the reign of God is indeed very near when you can go into the world knowing that you will find that acceptance in community as in Luke’s gospel. Yet, as always with the Kingdom, it is near but not yet, and so living as if it is a reality remains a challenge.

Isaiah is writing to a community struggling after returning from exile. The peace described is a maybe in the future – or maybe not – but if it is at least conceivable then rejoice.

Entrance: Gather As One (McKenna) AOV NG 48

Psalm 65 (McKenna)

Let the earth cry out to God with joy.

Gifts: Isaiah 49(Landry) AOV 1/89

Communion: In the Breaking of the Bread (Hurd) AOV 1/58

Thanksgiving: Prayer for Peace  (Haas) AOV 1/91

Recessional: We Are Called (Haas) AOV 2/60

I’m working through Catholic Worship Book II’s hymn section and finding I have blogged most of them already, so I’m really just picking up scraps of repertoire.

Still Christopher Willcock is always a thrill and a challenge. His setting of Psalm 122 sounded familiar because I had blogged the antiphon when it was used as a response locally some years ago. The text is here (click on 122).

The music is an OCP copyright but it is not on their website, probably because they have umpteen other settings. I got the chords from Gather Australia, but CWB II didn’t bother. The cantor has the usual fun with Willcock’s key and signature changes but if yours is up for that, why not?