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Catholic Composer Toils In Obscurity For Half A Generation…


CantemusDomino

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[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' date='21 August 2009 - 08:31 AM' timestamp='1250865116' post='1953785']
I like it.
But it's female voices, so he's apparently not old school. :mellow:
[/quote]

I don't think choirs have ever been required to be male. Monasteries of nuns for hundreds of years have provided the music for their conventual masses.

That is a beautiful piece... it would be awesome if more composers were producing that type of music! Very suitable for the liturgy! Elevates the mind and heart to God, very beautiful for the great mystery of the Holy Eucharist...

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Vincent Vega

[quote name='zunshynn' date='21 August 2009 - 10:40 AM' timestamp='1250865613' post='1953788']
I don't think choirs have ever been required to be male. Monasteries of nuns for hundreds of years have provided the music for their conventual masses.
[/quote]
See: Sacred Music, pre-Renaissance.
The singing of females was not allowed in sacred capacities for at least the first millenium. While at one point prior to the Renaissance, nuns were indeed permitted to sing in the convent, this was virtually the only place, and liturgical music was still considered a clerical duty (unless I'm mistaken on that last point). Also, there was no mixing of females and males permitted in liturgical music until the last [i]century[/i] (ref. [i]Tra le Sollecitudini[/i], motu proprio of Pope St. Pius X, 1903).

Edited by USAirwaysIHS
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[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' date='21 August 2009 - 08:47 AM' timestamp='1250866043' post='1953791']
See: Sacred Music, pre-Renaissance.
[/quote]

well, I googled it... I'm not sure what you wanted me to see. I didn't see anything about all-male choirs, and I saw quite a few examples that included women.

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Vincent Vega

[quote name='zunshynn' date='21 August 2009 - 10:52 AM' timestamp='1250866369' post='1953793']
well, I googled it... I'm not sure what you wanted me to see. I didn't see anything about all-male choirs, and I saw quite a few examples that included women.
[/quote]
I don't have any of my music history books on hand, so I can't give you an accurate citation about when female singers began to be accepted by the Church to be used for the purposes of the Liturgy, but I am certain that for many years, it was a (for all intents and purposes) men-only role. I'll let you know when I can get to one of them for a source.

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VeniteAdoremus

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' date='21 August 2009 - 05:47 PM' timestamp='1250866043' post='1953791']
See: Sacred Music, pre-Renaissance.
The singing of females was not allowed in sacred capacities for at least the first millenium. While at one point prior to the Renaissance, nuns were indeed permitted to sing in the convent, this was virtually the only place, and liturgical music was still considered a clerical duty (unless I'm mistaken on that last point). Also, there was no mixing of females and males permitted in liturgical music until the last [i]century[/i] (ref. [i]Tra le Sollecitudini[/i], motu proprio of Pope St. Pius X, 1903).
[/quote]

:yes:

There is still officially a preference for boy-male mixed, only boy or only male if you can't have both, and if neither will work... well... okay, females. :) The 1958 Instructio de Musica sacra et sacra liturgia still speaks of boy choirs, the 1963 constitutio mentions that singers, "especially if they are boys", should get a true liturgical formation. It certainly implies "boys" as the alternative to "men", and women aren't mentioned anywhere.

My cathedral choir school went co-ed in the year I entered there, which was 1993.

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CantemusDomino

[quote name='Brigid' date='21 August 2009 - 07:52 PM' timestamp='1250895129' post='1954033']
:love:
and look at the lyrics!!
:love:

*happy sigh*
[/quote]

The lyrics (anonymous source) were never set to music until this effort. Which makes this setting a definitive one almost by default. They're intense, aren't they? The lines about worthy reception of the Eucharist are especially so — and so necessary today.

I think this would be excellent for an offertory motet or, perhaps even better, a Holy Hour.

When I saw his list of works I was astounded at the output: 140+, mostly sacred/devotional.

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