I'd heard about this before, but never heard it.
Worse than advertised.
Perhaps in the top five worst pieces of claptrap I have ever been asked to sing at Mass. (I didn't, after the first 3/4 of a verse or so, but paged through the Broken Bread instead.)
Spoke with the cantor afterwords... large, prosperous Catholic parishes hereabouts, (or the pastors, thereof,) seem, as a rule, to think that professional musicians are something they can do without.
Seriously, nine Masses a weekend and no guiding hand in the music ministry? and Father takes no hand in it other than to sometimes say after the fact, "Don't do that again," or "no Latin" or, (this seems universal,) "too loud"?
One parish has sung Mass of Creation every Sunday for 4 years, and another, O Lord I Am Not Worthy at every Mass for at least a year and a half.
Another has an entirely volunteer cadre of cantors, self-selected, (vocal ability not being a prerequisite,) who decide on their own authority what songs to lead and/or solo on.
Their choices vary in aptness.
I am very discouraged about the move.... one of the draws of being no longer employed as a church musician for this NON-morning person was being able to forgo crack of dawn Masses -- but I STILL can't sleep in! Because the crack of dawn Masses are the only way to escape the music.
Universalis, your very own breviary in pixels...
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2 comments:
Geri,
Wow....sorry that you're going through so much turmoil.
I find the song in question actually to be one of DS's better efforts from the late 80's, and likely among the pinnacle (if one allows for such an entity) of the SLJ compendium albums.
Sure, there's a real "bathos" element in both music and the prose, but I don't think it would even occur to me to rank it among their top five worst.
Such is taste.
Take care, thinkin' on you.
The past 30-40 years have not been good ones for Catholic Church music. That's for sure. I'm still scratching my head over these liturgical language changes. As if things aren't confused enough!
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