You may have taken Latin in college, but unless you were around in preconciliar days or are privileged to attend a Latin Novus Ordo Mass on a regular basis, chances are you could use some brushing up on your liturgical Latin.

Author Marion Smedberg offers a new book and accompanying audio CD, Understanding the Latin Mass: Hear and Learn the words of the Novus Ordo, that will help you delve into a fuller and more prayerful understanding of the language spoken and sung ever more frequently at Mass in your parish.

Recommended by clergy:

Marion Smedberg's book, Understanding the Latin Mass, is exceptional. We used her materials to instruct my parishioners in the basics of the Latin liturgy, enabling them to fully participate in the Latin Mass as Vatican II intended.

Father Franklyn M. McAfee, D.D.
Pastor, St. John the Beloved Catholic Church, McLean, VA

Read more here

---

Singers should always do their best to convey joy within the chant tradition when it is appropriate to do so—not in the same earth-bound way that contemporary pop music does but in a manner that points to transcendent joy, infused with the mysterious awe that comes from reflection on the final victory over death.

Thus this weekend's communio: Laetabimur



It begins with rejoicing in long and melismatic phrase. Economy is given up in favor of extended exuberance. The schola joins by picking the phrase and taking it to its highest point in the middle of the word salvation. The name of the Lord follows with two successive affirmations of the Trinity. We end with the phrase on "magnificabimur" in which the last syllable seems to wait and wait until the last possible moment. The "mur" here recalls the initial "mur" in laetabimur.

Joy and pride in our God!

Different chants require subtle changes in tempo but this one should be sung on the faster end of the metronome. We are attempting about 184 beats per minute for the punctum—which is quite fast, faster the adult heart pulses during strenuous exercise but on the upper end of a child's pulse after play. The same sense is conveyed here in a contained and upward looking way. This is the song of salvation. Learn it for Sunday and you will carry it in your heart all week.

Here is a version you can print and learn, with Psalms.

---

Colleague and crusader Greg Plese of California reports on this past weekend's chant workshop in Reno, Nevada:

This past Friday and Saturday, October 20 and 21, Professor William Mahrt [of Stanford University and president of the Church Music Association of America] conducted a chant workshop at St. Thomas Aquinas Cathedral in Reno, NV. About 26 people from Nevada, California, and Idaho attended.

Professor Mahrt began the workshop by commenting that, for hundreds of years, people learned chant by listening and memorizing, since notation had not been developed. So, for the first hour, we learned several chants without any musical notation. Fortunately for us participants, this was not the rule for the entire workshop, but we did see an obvious difference when we went from singing by imitation to singing from notation: where initially we were singing a melody, and making the subtle changes in rhythm and intonation characteristic of a song, when we picked up the notated version, we immediately stated "singing the notes", that is, focusing on each individual neume rather than the phrasing of the verse as a whole. It was an illuminating experience.

Professor Mahrt spoke at length about beauty: not only are the chants beautiful, but they bring beauty to the liturgy. In explaining some of the definitions of beauty that have come to us from St. Thomas and others, he showed how the use of chant not only elucidates the text of the verse, but its setting and employment at different parts of the liturgy can vary according to its liturgical function. Using the Psalm text "Justus ut palma florebit: sicut cedrus Libani multiplicabitur", he showed how different types of melodies allowed the same verse to be used as an Introit, an Offertory, a Gradual, an Alleluia, and as a regular Psalm verse. The differences in the melody and the use of melisma point up the different functions the verse is playing in the liturgy at that point: accompanying a procession of ministers, the incensing of the altar and the congregation, or as a call to mediation and attentiveness to the readings.

The beauty of chant, when properly employed, brings us back to the sacred, and makes the liturgy more sacred. Chant is recognizable as 'sacred' music, even to those who do not know what it is, because of it "aims at something beyond", which Professor Mahrt explained was a phrase that a colleague of his always used.

He also told many anecdotes in the course of the two days. One concerned monastic rules for pausing between the two 'halves' of a Psalm verse sung to a Psalm tone: some abbeys suggested the silent recitation of "Ave" between the two parts; others, "Ave Maria". A friend of his found the instruction, at St. Alban's, of saying "Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum", which she was sure was a mistake, but on attending a service in that cathedral, found that the reverberation of the space required just that amount of silence between the verses. He also told a personal story of his background, and mentioned that growing up he never realized that anything except the "4 hymn sandwich" existed as a model for the liturgy until, as a music major in graduate school, he was told to learn all the chants for Holy Week to assist in the liturgies. This was the first time he had ever heard chant, and he remembers the occasion and the beauties of the chants to this day.

The workshop concluded with the attendees singing for the Saturday evening Mass at the Cathedral. The propers for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time were sung for the Introit ("Ego clamavi"), Offertory ("Meditabor"), and Communion ("Domine Dominus Noster") from the Gregorian Missal, and the Ordinary for Mass XI (Orbis Factor) was used, with the substitution of the Gloria from Mass VIII (De Angelis).

---

The schola is thrilled that Michael Lawrence of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, wrote a piece for us to sing, and also agreed to make it available for free download. It is here: Pater Noster.

The piece is written in 3/4 but the barlines are merely a convention. It is sung as more of a recitation, very slowly. We've been liberally minded in adding pauses, phrases, and dynamics as needed, since Michael deliberately provided none to allow for interpretation to take its own course.

Motet settings of the Pater Noster are rare, because the text itself was reserved to the celebrant in the Ordo Antiquus.

The harmonies in this piece are "modern" in the sense that he uses long stretches of 7th chords but the sensibility borrows from the Golden Age of polyphony. Our schola agreed that Lawrence has written a true love song here.

We will it for postcommunion, this Sunday. Thank you so much, our dear friend Michael Lawrence, especially for your generosity in making this freely available.

---

There is a marvelous story behind the Ut Queant Laxis, the hymn to St. John the Baptist that the Schola is singing as a prelude this Sunday, the 28th in Ordinary Time. Its origins date to the 8th century.

Each phrase in the stanza moves up the hexachord step by step. And note the sylables: Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La. Replace the Ut with a Do, and you have the basis of the De Re Mi system called solfege that most scholas use to navigate their way through the pitches in chant notation. This system was also made famous in the movie "The Sound of Music" and is taught in the Ward Method of musical pedagogy.

It is not only a charming melody, it is also very beautiful. Here is the download.

---

For Advent, the Solemn version of this incredible piece of music has not appeared on line, until now.

---