Scientia Linguæ Latinæ Voluptatem Et Gaudium Affert!
Unfortunately my avocation of church musician doesn’t allow me to sidestep the Latin vs. vernacular issue any more than a house painter is able to avoid paint.
An Unpleasant Task
I realize it is hard, but perhaps this is the balance we are called to live—truth in charity.
Recruiting and Auditioning Choristers
The audition itself is very straight forward and usually takes about 10 minutes, although I know within the first minute if I plan to accept the child into the choir.
Ten “Ave Maria” Settings from Different Lands
Live recordings—music in honor of Our Lady of Fatima.
A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words
If the Holy Mass really is the unbloody sacrifice of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, then the music we use will be radically affected.
Take 2 Voice Lessons and Call Me in the Morning
I watched in fascination as one of the tenors strained to reach notes obviously out of his range. I had never heard the chest voice *forced* so high in the male register.
Chorister Training • Regensburg Cathedral Choir School
Here we see the result of so much hard work, one of the great Cathedral Choirs of the world!
Family Life and the Sacred Liturgy
I can’t imagine my family playing such an intimate role in the ceremonies of Holy Week, but it surely made an awesome impression on the von Trapps.
The Fully Sung Mass
if St. Augustine was right and “singing belongs to the one who loves,” then it behooves us to once again learn to love and thereby take up the Church’s eternal hymn of praise.
Do we need hymns, when we already have Psalms?
The Psalter, as Esolen notes, is the prayer book of the Church and the Psalms constitute the “foundational poems of Christian praise.”
Let Everything That Hath Breath Praise the Lord!
Point us once again to God Who is Beauty Itself!
Music and the Imagination
Along the “via pulchritudinis” (the way of beauty) they will come to know Him Who is Beauty itself.
Singing for Cardinal Burke’s Pontifical Low Mass
I told Cardinal Burke that is was a blessing for us to sing for the Mass and assured him of our prayers.
Beauty, Music and the Sacred Liturgy
Beauty will return to the Sacred Liturgy when we once again turn our hearts to the Lord.
Chorister Pitfalls
A misguided belief states that the quality of our liturgical music should be sacrificed on the altar of good intentions.