I attended a workshop at St Paul’s Woodridge on 26th of February at which some talented and patient musicians took us through the six settings recommended by the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. My comments are based on very different criteria to those used by the Bishops. I am concerned that we should have settings that can be played on a variety of very basic instruments, that is a guitar or piano, and having little reliance on organs and cantors, since we have neither. I am also interested in settings that are able to be sung by everyone in our church, preferably in our language, Australian English.
Composer: Richard Connolly
The presenters noted that this was a chant like setting that was lyrical and contemplative. It is in a minor key and suitable for reflective situations.
The Kyrie is in Greek and the refrain of the Gloria in Latin, which is praised at Canticanova as it avoids the “less-than-elegant” English translation. It relies on a cantor and much of the cantor’s part is quite high. The music is suited to organ.
2. Mass Shalom
This is a familiar mass by Colin Smith that has been rewritten by Paul Mason.
The presenters suggested that its familiarity might be useful at Christmas for occasional attenders who would remember the tune and not notice that the words had changed.
There is considerable discussion about whether revised masses are a good idea. We have the words and music locked together in our minds that we have sung for years and it has been suggested that changes will take hundreds of repetitions to become natural.
In this case the very extensive changes both to the tune and words of the Gloria would make learning the new version a very difficult task. It has always been a hard tune to play other than on organ in any case and we have used it less over the years locally.
3. Missa Magis
Composer: Fr Christopher Willcock sj
This was written for, but not used, at World Youth day 2008.
It was described as joyful and singable by the presenters and doesn’t go too high for the parishioners to be uncomfortable.
What we heard was often beautiful, especially the Kyrie.
There is considerable use of a cantor in the Gloria and the Agnes Dei.
The Gloria is probably unusable. The presenter called it a roller coaster! It is very long with 5 verses and repeated refrains. It involves changes in tempo and key in the verses and is dramatic and memorable and I seriously can’t see it being used.
It is not available to download from OCP yet.
It is a remarkable work but I can’t see it being feasible without a major revision to the Gloria, which of course would breach copyright.
Composer: Paul Taylor
This mass was described as accessible and easy to learn, but not particularly memorable – they said it had no “hooks”. I think it bored the musicians!
The parts of the mass were pleasant, if unexciting, but at least they are playable and singable and will have music for piano and guitar.
5. Mass of Christ the Redeemer
Composer: Bernard Kirkpatrick
This was suggested as suitable for ordinations and festive occasions. It is a piece for a cathedral and is completely unsuitable for use in a suburban parish.
If you hear it is being used in a cathedral I suggest you go to hear it, it should be a blast.
Composer: Paul Mason
This was described as “bright and cheerful” and having a “contemporary feel”. I have heard it said that it has a “rock” feel and contains some syncopation. This could only really be said in comparison to the other settings as it could hardly be described as even close to rock music. It is however an interesting and memorable work and has potential for use in the suburbs.
The Gloria has some fiddly melody bits that will take some learning and the Holy Holy has some tricky timings, but I think this is a piece that will reward some effort.
Summary
The six pieces chosen had to cover circumstances from the Cathedral to the suburbs and obviously no one mass is going to be able to accommodate every setting.
There is a bias towards organ music, cantoring and extravagant Cathedral pieces that may reflect the fact that it was coming from the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference. There is also the problem that professional church musicians rarely have the gift of understanding the abilities of weekend warriors who have to play their pieces in real masses.
Of the six only the Mass of St Francis and the Mass of Glory and Praise are really likely candidates for a church in the suburbs with basic resources.
Hi – this is the first time i have come across your webiste which i have only just begun to explore. It is great to see some impartial advice on the six mass settings – our Diocese recommended the Paul Taylor – which we find very uninspiring. The Missa Magis was recommended to me by my parents who heard it on holidays – but i doubt they heard the Gloria – it is a real challenge! I think i will follow your recommendation on the Mass of Glory and Praise.
I met Paul Taylor at the APMN meeting in June and he was a lovely modest man who at least understands that music shouldn’t be so challenging as to require extreme talent. On the other hand a lot of people think he went too far and it is too bland. I still prefer Paul Mason’s Mass of Glory and Praise and after 2 months of the revised Mass of Creation, we are doing it for the first time tomorrow. In December will be doing the new version of Mass Shalom and I’m apprehensive about that, but I suppose we’ll cope. I wish people were blogging about their experiences with the new pieces, or at least putting something on the AOV facebook site. It will probably be years before we know what really resonates with our assemblies. I’ll be looking at some more masses soon but I was pleasantly surprised by the Rivers masses.
I agree with the comments about the Missa Magis – while there are some lovely bits in it, the Gloria is not only dramatic (the syncopation would hide a few uncharted reefs for many of our small parish organists…), but it seemed in the middle bits to owe a lot to the Tango, or possibly betray a slight Ginastera influence???
I suspect Paul Taylor’s ‘Mass of St Francis’ will become the Leo Watt ‘Mass of San Francesco’ of the new translation… but it is at least an easy place to start. I have known Paul for many years, and I esteem him as a humble, talented and realistic musician who understands that we don’t all live in a cathedral with its resources on tap!
We used the revised Shalom Mass recently for 1st Communion, which worked well – the choir intoned the Gloria’s refrain & sang the verses, to which the marginally churched crowd of rels & friends responded well.
Again, in a small rural parish with 4 mass centres, we are lucky to have a couple of organists in 2 of the centres; but others only have a guitarist (fairly basic), or melody instruments (violin, clarinet, flute)… While ‘Sacrosanctum Concilium’ might accord pride of place to the pipe organ, they just don’t survive the heat in most of our parishes – and certainly the expertise to even play one to its potential is not present. Many of our people think ‘Yamaha’ if they hear ‘organ’… we DO need to think in a wider musical base (without throwing out the beauty of our tradition where we can still manage it!)
Thanks for your comments, Tim. I hadn’t thought of the effect of heat on pipe organs, perhaps a note to Rome is in order.
I’m glad to hear the revised shalom goes well, we start it in December and I always found it tricky enough to lead on guitar in its original form.
St Peters Rochedale is doing Paul Taylor’s mass and as that is the next parish along from us at Daisy Hill, I’m hoping to hear it done by a live assembly. Perhaps professional musicians don’t get a simple mass setting. I was lucky enough to meet Paul at the APMN meeting and he came across just as you describe him.
I hope the APMN portal works this time to get us all communicating.
I still love the Mass of San Francesco. I grew up with it. I know every note still.
We’ve been using Bernard Kirkpatrick’s Mass of Christ the Redeemer for over a year now, and it’s worked well. One Mass uses the organ, another piano, and another the OCP recording. When I first heard it (I’m not a musician), I thought there was a bit too much going on for the congregation to pick up the Gloria, but I was wrong, and people don’t seem to be bored with it yet. I think the key to getting it across was originally using the response version (where the congregation only sings certain parts), and then when they were familiar with the melody, singing the lot.
I’m impressed. I’ve been waiting for someone to call me out on my opinions.
How do you reckon it would go with just a guitar?
I’d rather a backing was made than a recording, because you can edit a backing to the tempo, key, and length you want and the recordings tend to be performance pieces that discourage participation, but as always I’m delighted to be proven wrong!
You should never EVER use recorded music in church. Sing acapella or don’t sing. But don’t use a recording. EVER!
The OCP recording is easy to sing with as its a demonstration recording (synthesiser and vocalist), but the parish priest complains about its length compared to the basic arrangement used by the keyboard players. Personally, I like it! (Despite Sunday Masses typically only lasting 50 minutes, which is the shortest at anywhere I’ve been, some people find the loss of a minute or two of their lives due to the music as calamitous!) The sound system is being sorted out at the moment and we hope to eventually record the organist for use at the Vigil Mass.
Not being a musician, I can’t really say how it would work on guitar. My gut feeling is that it wouldn’t, because it’s not really rhythmic.
I should have pointed out that our church is in the city, but is not a cathedral and feels more like a suburban church. We typically have 50 at the Vigil Mass, 150 at the 9:30 Mass and 100 at the 11:00 Mass, so we’re relatively small. I should have also mentioned that the piano is augmented by a violin.
I look after the music at the Vigil Mass and we use recordings. You’re right about commercial recordings being performance pieces and difficult to sing with, but I find that demonstration recordings are good. For example, GIA’s “Singing Our Faith” for school children has easily singable versions of many adult hymns (various combinations of piano, guitar, flute, two adult voices and a children’s choir). OCP’s Journeysongs also has quite a few specially recorded pieces using simple choir and organ arrangements. YouTube can be helpful, but as you would be aware, many recordings made at Mass are of a very poor quality because they are rarely made directly from the sound system, and there’s lots of the usual congregation noises!
That’s why I was so disappointed about you having to clean up this site – having only recently found it, I thought it was going to be very helpful to me with accompaniment downloads!!!! Nevertheless, I shall still be coming back here regularly because liturgical music is a passion for me (despite not being a musician!) and I like knowing what other people are doing. I feel quite happy with both chant (I almost always use the St. Noel Chabanel Responsorial Psalm) and syncopated stuff (I chose Rory Cooney’s “We Will Serve the Lord” for this evening’s recessional).