Make a cross on your abdomen,
When in Rome do like a Roman,
Ave Maria,
Gee it's great to see ya,
Doin' the Vatican Rag!
Posted on 05/17/2010 3:15:53 PM PDT by markomalley
A ghastly discovery today: plans to subject Pope Benedict XVI to trendy musical tripe when he celebrates the Beatification Mass for Cardinal Newman at Coventry Airport on September 19. According to Nick Baty, a supporter of the little gang of composers who have liturgical commissions sewn up in this country, the music for the Mass will include:
• Eucharistic acclamations by Fr Peter Jones, who wrote the tiresome Coventry Gloria for John Paul II’s visit in 1982. Yes, he’s still going strong;
• Christ be our Light by Bernadette Farrell, one of the inner circle of old trendies whose work is forced on Massgoers by cloth-eared PPs every week;
• Salisbury Alleluia by Christopher Walker, another of the inner circle;
• A Gloria by Alan Smith and a psalm by Paul Wellicome, who according to this document are both members of the relevant Birmingham diocesan committee;
• One of the most hideous of all folk hymns, Make Me a Channel of Your Peace;
• Some Taizé. You would have thought we’d heard enough Taizé over the years, but apparently not.
Oh, and there’s a brief motet by Elgar and a couple of rousing Newman-based hymns; but basically it’s game set and match to the Society of St Gregory (SSG), the mafia of the mediocre who ensure that most music at Mass in most dioceses reeks of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. This stuff didn’t sound either beautiful or cutting-edge when it was performed for Pope John Paul; how will it sound to the ears of a genuine music lover, Pope Benedict XVI? And young Catholics, especially, loathe it.
I’m confused. I thought that the Bishops of England and Wales had helped to commission the setting of the Mass by James MacMillan that will be heard at the papal ceremony in Glasgow.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
Tired, trendy, dated music:
Are they going to do “Sailing” by Christopher Cross?
Make a cross on your abdomen,
When in Rome do like a Roman,
Ave Maria,
Gee it's great to see ya,
Doin' the Vatican Rag!
It could be worse, they could have used “Let There Be Peace on Earth” or any of the sets of lyrics to the tune of “Morning Has Broken” that our organist loves.
“I would do something that the other girls wouldn’t do...”
Could be worse...
“The Simpsons - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PyBWLALFLQ&feature=related
Just as an aside, from the choir perspective, papal visits are rarely planned more than twelve weeks in advance. Choir directors or music directors have to go with what their choir either knows or can learn in twelve weeks. (I hear tell that the director at the National Shrine lost all the blood in his face when he heard that a papal visit was on the horizon.) The choir in which I sing learned a Magnificat in the parking lot before the evening service of a Papal visit, but we're a lot like studio musicians in that sight reading is a requirement to be in the choir. Not everyone can do this and twelve weeks, for many choirs, is not long enough to learn Bruckner caliber of music. Sad, but true. It's yet another testament of how low the value of musicianship has sunk in the Church.
There are very few sacred songs written after 1934 that I like, with some notable exceptions such as Mansions of the Lord (2002).
...Or even worse: The Wrong Idea--Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra (1939)
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