Liturgical Music

Convener: Heather Josselyn-Cranson, OSL, ThD, Sister Margaret William McCarthy Endowed Chair of Music, Regis College, Weston, MA

Members in Attendance: Deborah Appler, Mary Fran Fleischaker, Chad Fothergill, Phil Ganir, Rawn Harbor, Kim Harris, Alan Hommerding, Martin Jean, Heather Josselyn-Cranson, Jason McFarland, Mike McMahon, Jonathan Ottaway, Anthony Ruff OSB, Daniel Schlorff, Jonathan Tan, John Weit, Cynthia Wilson

Description of Work: The Liturgical Musical Seminar began its work in 2020 with Jason McFarland facilitating a consideration of the creation of a joint project or publication. There was great interest expressed in this idea, and members of the seminar will continue to sharpen the focus of this work over the coming year.

On Friday afternoon, our seminar met jointly with the Advent Project Seminar. To the members of both groups, Heather Josselyn-Cranson presented a study entitled “The Sounds of Advent: Musical Means Behind a Seasonal Aesthetic.” This study explored the musical differences between Advent hymn tunes and hymn tunes used with non-Advent hymn texts, including differences of texture, key, mode, and date of composition.

Members of both seminars then held a singing session to explore new Advent texts and music written by David Bjorlin, Alan J. Hommerding, Heather Josselyn-Cranson, and Jonathan Kohrs.

Advent Project Seminar founder William H. Petersen presented a paper entitled “Hidden Treasures: Discovering Unusual Advent Music.” In the paper, Petersen conducted an analysis of three hymn texts that are not usually included in the Advent sections of hymnals: “O Day of God Drawn Nigh,” “Lord Christ When First you Came to Earth,” and “Joy to the World.”

At our next session, Jason McFarland led members of the Liturgical Music Seminar in a discussion of chapter seven of Kevin Irwin’s revised Context and Text that includes substantial attention to the role of music within the liturgy. The discussion considered the use of antiphons rather than hymns in the mass, the growing multicultural reality of the church, and Irwin’s liturgical-theological method as demonstrated in his study of the antiphons for the season of Lent.

On Saturday, we shared one of our sessions with the Medieval Liturgy Seminar. Anthony Ruff led a practicum on singing medieval chant. Following this experience, Ruff, Christopher Hodkinson, and Rebecca Maloy contributed to a panel discussion on the question of the extent to which plainchant can be understood to express emotion, and the possibility of modern chant performers being able to understand the emotion that plainchant conveyed to its earlier singers.

Kim Harris presented the final paper to the seminar, entitled “The Emergence of Black Roman Catholic Liturgical Music: A Transnational Conversation.” In her paper she explored the history of Black Catholic music in the United States, including early twentieth-century performance of plainchant in Latin at St. Augustine’s in Washington D.C., Catholic roots within the Negro Spiritual tradition, and the groundbreaking compositions of Fr. Clarence Joseph Rivers.

Other Work and Plans for the Future: The Seminar will continue to work on a joint project or publication.