Views from the Choir Loft

Peter Kwasniewski: Sacred Choral Works

Corpus Christi Watershed · March 9, 2014

ORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED was asked to let others know about the following collection by Peter Kwasniewski, who teaches at Wyoming Catholic College. This book contains twenty years’ worth of sacred compositions for the Catholic liturgy:

* * Table of Contents & Preface

* * Sample Score • Snapshot • Composer Bio

Purchase this Collection — 273 pages

* * Paperback ($19.95)

* * Spiral Bound ($24.95)

To take advantage of the bulk rate ($14.95 for ten copies or more), please send an email here.

* * Audio Sample Track • O Clarissima Mater

* * Audio Sample Track • My Jesus, Mercy

* * Audio Sample Track • Good Friday Reproaches B

* * Audio Sample Track • David’s Town

* * Audio Sample Track • Mandatum Antiphon IV

* * Audio Sample Track • Miserere a 3 (SAB)

* * Audio Sample Track • Tantum Ergo II

COMPACT DISC SET

This publication is complemented by three full-length CDs containing recordings of nearly every piece, performed by Matthew Curtis of ChoralTracks. Such recordings are intended primarily as aids in repertoire selection and to assist in the learning of the pieces. To purchase the CDs, click on the thumbnails below.

* * Complete Track Listings

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

20 October 2020 • “What we can’t share”

Almighty God has given to us the example of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. Of course, along with those eight martyrs we honor their associates, e.g Father François Bressani. I can’t share with you the torments Father Bressani underwent at the hands of Iroquois: it is too brutal. It would tear your heart out. But I will share what Bressani’s Superior said, after receiving a letter from him: “The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger left on his right hand, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds—which are still open—from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth.” If you have the stomach for it, read what Father Bressani (d. 1672) underwent for Jesus Christ. Let his example help us never fall into sins of impurity, avarice, ingratitude, or envy.

—Jeff Ostrowski

13 October 2020 • Chopin talks Bach

My “pianist pedigree” goes from my teacher through Wiktor Łabuński through Felix Blumenfeld, who studied with Anton Rubinstein. I always considered myself part of the “Bach-Mozart-Chopin school” as opposed to the “Handel-Beethoven-Liszt school.” (Needless to say, there’s great overlap between these schools.) Before giving a concert, Frédéric Chopin would always shut himself up in a room and play through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The year Chopin died, he spent considerable time with the painter, Eugène Delacroix (d. 1863), who recounts hearing Chopin launch into a monologue on the transcendence of J.S. Bach, insisting that “the fugue is like pure logic in music,” and that “to know fugue deeply is to be acquainted with the element of all reason and all consistency in music.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

12 October 2020 • True Story

Before a Low Mass, the priest ascends the Altar to place the Chalice, check the altar Missal, and do other “preparing” tasks. The organist must be prepared to play here, and—depending upon the priest—this can be of surprising length! For certain priests, I can easily play all six verses of a hymn while he’s doing these tasks. In the Ordinary Form, I believe too many have abandoned the preparation time before Mass (vesting, praying, keeping silence, and so on). I remember waiting for a priest to arrive in Corpus Christi, so I could ask him about the music. He never did arrive, because he had gotten into his vehicle wearing his chasuble, parked, hopped out of his truck (fully vested), and literally “processed” in as he entered the Church…true story.

—Jeff Ostrowski