Archives for May 2011

Jeff Ostrowski · May 25, 2011

Modern Sacred Music

QUESTION: Are there any composers alive today writing truly great Sacred music?

“Music List” • Feast of the Epiphany

Some have expressed interest in perusing the “ORDER OF MUSIC” I prepared for the Feast of the Epiphany. If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The EPIPHANY SEASON according to the 1970 liturgical calendar is exceedingly brief and was placed underneath the Christmas season. That’s a real shame, because there are so many great Epiphany hymns…

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Entrance Chant” • Feast of the Epiphany

Download the ENTRANCE ANTIPHON in English for the Feast of the Lord’s Epiphany (5 January 2025). The authentic Gregorian version is famous and beloved, but many attempts to create English adaptations for it turn out rather stale and boring. I like this setting because it departs from Mode ii. Corresponding to the vocalist score is this free organ accompaniment. If you’re someone who enjoys rehearsal videos, this morning I attempted to sing it while simultaneously accompanying my voice on the pipe organ.

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF Download • 129 Pages!

As of a few hours ago, you can download The Trapp Family Book of Christmas Songs, arranged by their priest-conductor (Father Franz Wasner) by clicking this link. Some of their arrangements are clever and unique. This entire collection—all 129 pages of it!—is now available as a PDF file.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Lessons and Carols”

Seen online! Dr. Samuel Backman conducted a “Lessons and Carols” service with his choir, and someone produced this lovely vignette.

—Corpus Christi Watershed

Epiphany Proclamation 2025

Each year, without fail, someone asks me to typeset the Epiphany Proclamation, an announcement of moveable feasts chanted each year on the feast of the Epiphany. As a result, you may now find an archive of 23 such proclamations in PDF ready to print HERE.

—Veronica Brandt

The Breviary in the Life of the Laity

Recently I have been enjoying looking through the inaugural (1927) edition of a 20th-century liturgical magazine called Orate Fratres. The July 1927 issue included an excellent article by a Chicago laywoman named Ellen Gates Starr entitled “The Delights of the Breviary: From the Point of View of a Lay Woman.” As we in the 21st century have recently undergone a (blessed!) re-translation of the missal into English, and as we await with joyful hope (please God, before Jesus comes back!) a similar re-translation of the breviary, the opening of her article reminded me of that old saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Nearly a hundred years ago, she penned words that could just as easily have been written today: “It is indeed a privilege to be allowed any participation, however slight, in the liturgical movement in the Church – the movement to bring back the classics of devotion, the Missal and the Breviary, into general use by the laity. The wonder is that they should ever have fallen into disuse. Nothing can take the place of these great universal prayers of the Church, the prayers of the Mass and the divine Office. One has only to know them to find them indispensable. And alas, how few of the laity know them!” I know that I have been tremendously nourished by regular praying of the breviary as of late, and my wish is that you and I, dear reader, may continue to nourish our interior lives with the official prayer of the Church, which present to us (in the Mass) and extend (in the Office) the fullness of Christ’s greatest gift to us – the gift of Himself – in the Most Holy Eucharist.

—Daniel Tucker