Church Music

City of God (Schutte) AOV 1/57

I Have Loved You (Joncas) AOV 1/126

One Bread, One Body (Foley) AOV 1/129

Jesus Is Risen (O’Brien- Ogilvie) AOV NG 82

Selections from my previous parish in Queensland.

Jesus Is Risen (O’Brien- Ogilvie) AOV NG 82

Seek Ye First (Lafferty) AOV 1/48

Bread Broken, Wine Shared Bread  (Horner) AOV 2/155

All the Ends of the Earth (Dufford) AOV 1/76)

From Queensland:

My current parish sings Paul Taylor’s “Mass of St Francis”. This is fine, but other parishes I have played at knew two or three masses, which not only gave variety, but meant you could note changes of season by changing the mass you were using. I don’t know if anyone has recovered enough from the trauma of suddenly losing all their learned masses when the texts changed, to consider learning new masses again but there are a certainly a lot out there.

You would think though, that after more than ten years, we would now have a definitive stand out mass setting. Maybe the six settings recommended by the Bishops in Australia have just become the accepted standard and no further correspondence will be entered into. Has there been a mass that is so good, published since the changeover, that we all should embrace it?

Had we not cut back on masses for this week, I would have selected:

Jesus Is Risen (O’Brien- Ogilvie) AOV NG 82

Come To Me  (Norbet) AOV 1/37

Shepherd Me O God (Haugen) AOV 1/33

Like a Shepherd (Dufford) AOV 1/160

Ideas from St Peter’s Rochedale in Queensland:

Our priest is off for six weeks and all his plans for a locum fell through at the last minute, so we are down to one mass a week until June. Being sensible (and volunteer) church musicians we have organised things to spread the load, so I won’t be playing again until the fifth and sixth week of Easter. Nonetheless, and for my future reference, I’ll put up what I was going to play.

Jesus Is Risen (O’Brien- Ogilvie) AOV NG 82

Bread of Life (Farrell) AOV 1/164

The Summons  (Maule-Bell) AOV NG 149

Behold the Glory of God (O’Connor) AOV 1/156

This is very similar to my friends in Queensland – great minds think alike and all.

John Bell’s tunes sound traditional, which is not a criticism. When he doesn’t repurpose a folk song he just writes a better one, as in this song about the Christmas story in all its foolishness yet greatness.

Wild Goose sell the book, but GIA will sell you the individual sheet music (OK 10x$1.10 for download) and provide the text in their preview. The second half of each verse is in two parts and very suitable for a small choir.

Figuring out some sort of chord progression from the music provided did not go so well on Band In a Box. I don’t think he had a blues in mind.

This is what you are looking for:

The Saturday vigil mass I now play at locally has not had consistent live music for many years. The Sunday mass has a stalwart organist who has kept the flag flying for decades, but she can’t be everywhere. Getting us all used to singing again will take some time.

I will also have to look at song selections carefully. As with many Australian parishes who bought the hymn books and started using As One Voice in the 1990s the music repertoire stalled right there, likely due to the comprehensive nature of the collection. I will need to base music choices there and introduce new music slowly. Lent was an opportunity to use Alonso’s “Merciful God” for the whole season so hopefully in years to come there is a memory of the tune. For the fifty days of Pentecost, we can celebrate the joy of the Resurrection with O’Brien and Ogilvie’s “Jesus is Risen” every week and next year maybe add other new songs for the Easter season. I’ve already used “Blessed be Our God” several times for the “Procession of the Gifts” so hopefully it will get a foothold.

Glory and Praise to Our God (Schutte) AOV 1/16

We Walk By Faith (Haugen) AOV 1/63

Jesus Is Risen (O’Brien- Ogilvie) AOV NG 82

Be Not Afraid (Dufford) AOV 1/114

At my previous parish in Queensland they selected these songs:

This is another excellent song from the Iona Community that uses an old tune with fresh lyrics, from the collection Heaven Shall Not Wait. It is set to O WALY WALY and covers the life of Christ from birth all the way to coming again.

The outstanding text is here.

I made a new backing for this tune.

To recover from too many American hymns I’m going back to Heaven Shall Not Wait from the Iona Community by John Bell and Graham Maule. Bell’s texts are never bland and often surprising and illuminating. The book is for sale at Wild Goose.

I’m up to the section, “Jesus, One of Us”. The song “The Word of Life” takes us from Christmas to Easter in five verses. The text is here and is fresh and delightful. It is set to WILD MOUNTAIN THYME, which is a familiar tune. It can purchased as a single sheet at Presto music.

I have only done a selection of the songs from Never Too Young and I will finish up with this Ken Canedo prayer. It is a slow gospel song that’s sounds like “I Still Call Australia Home” in the introduction, but moves into a usable sung prayer. The verses are best for a cantor. I hope I’ve picked the songs that are useful for any age from this collection and once again there is nothing in this song that says it is only for young people.

The sheet music is for sale at OCP, who provide the text in their preview.

Nice though this is, I think I need a very long break from American music after all the OCP and GIA songs I have been looking at lately.

This is an old Shaker hymn by Mary Hazard that found it’s way in to Never Too Young. Their arrangement features prominent percussion including shaker, so I hope that wasn’t a misunderstanding.

You can hear their arrangement here. While you need this collection to get OCP’s arrangement, other arrangements are available and the tune is PD in any case.

I made a backing of the OCP arrangment.

OCP lyrics:

I will bow and be simple,
I will bow and be free,
I will bow and be simple,
Yea, bow like the willow tree.

I will bow and not be broken,
I will bear the easy yoke,
Yes I’ll bow this is my token,
Lean my back against the rock.

Original lyrics:

I will bow and be simple,
I will bow and be free,
I will bow and be humble,
Yea, bow like the willow tree.

I will bow, this is the token,
I will wear the easy yoke,
I will bow and will be broken,
Yea, I’ll fall upon the rock.