which I wasn't (or was, depending on the order you're reading the posts), but there's no better time for a seque...Choral music, and church music particularly, is on my mind because SWMBO has been unable to get a replacement for our pianist who can't come to Mass this weekend. Changes will have to be made (or perhaps, in my case, endured). So, I've been doing some searching on the web for stuff on church choir music...
Here's a couple of people critical of newer music in the church. They do have some valid criticisms, and, in some cases, they're just wearing their cassocks too tight...
Ritus Narcissus: Why Do We Sing Ourselves and Celebrate Ourselves?
Bad Poetry, Bad Theology: The Curse of Bad Liturgical Music (Part Two)
2 comments:
so what do we sing? Oobla dee Oobla dah life goes on....etc.
I try to choose scriptural hymns and some of them are phrased in the first person....I doubt if anyone in the congregation is confusing our frail, human choir for the persona of Jesus .. indeed when we all sing (which is the intent afterall) is it not the voice of God within that we are intoning and inferring ?
I don't think you're supposed to sing that song in church. :-)
I've always considered something between Gregorian Chant and 'Puff the Magic Dragon' to be fine (and I've done both of those in choirs during the Liturgy if you can believe it!) I lean toward chant, realizing taht there was darn little of it done in most parishes pre-Vatican II, so the young reformers who want to go back to the 1950s aren't going to hear it in their parishes anyway.
I struggle with those who think that the liturgy reached it's epitome at Trent and can't be changed, but I do realize that some things just don't make great liturgical sense.
But then I'm an old curmudgeon...
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