The conference of the APMN in Perth last week has pointed me to lots of new songs.
Chris deSilva gave out a music book that has more of his excellent songs than he has put on his website. He said he was going to put them on there eventually, so I might wait until they are up before posting – I’ll see. I asked him to write a setting for the Exultet and he eventually thought he might – maybe for Easter 2019.
I met Br Michael Herry and had a nice chat. He gave us a song called “A Hymn of Healing for the Church” that I will get to eventually.
Davis Haas sang a lot of his newer material with us and they were an eye opener for me.
For many Australian Catholic parishes time stopped musically after the As One Voice compilations in the nineties. That is testament to the great editorial care that was taken at the time and usability of the resource, but it does mean that music is only renewed if there is local effort. Unlike Breaking Bread, for example, there is no structural renewal provided.
By the way, I don’t see CWBII as a force for renewal really. In my opinion it’s laudable aim of a common repertoire has been hamstrung by a lack of newer material, a relative lack of Australian material and the fact that 95% of Australian parishes use overheads and are unlikely to invest in hymn books ever again unless forced to – especially given the parlous state of finances in most parishes.
That all means that I know David Haas songs from AOV and I have have blogged all of his Table Songs (1991) collection, but I have not kept up with his more recent mature material.
The songs he demonstrated are all available to purchase at the GIA site, so I thought I’d respond to his presentation with a sampling of my own of his newer work. I’ve also found a whole lot I don’t know in my copy of Gather Comprehensive, so I could be doing Haas songs for a long time.
The song “I Will Live On” was composed by Haas for his mother’s funeral and is an impressive emotional piece. The refrain is for the assembly who continue the phrase “I will live on” under the cantor’s verses – and a cantor is needed here. It could be used in a mass other than a funeral, for “gifts”, for example or when the psalm comes up, but not replacing it.
The sheet music can be purchased at GIA, where you can read the challenging text based on Psalm 118 in their preview.
This is very like the presentation Haas gave to us in Perth about this song and is worth a look.