Sunday, April 20, 2008

Lend Me a Tenor

The music of today's Papal Mass here in NYC seemed to this observer to be superior to that of Thursday's in D.C. The use of How Lovely is Thou Dwelling Place from that Protestant Brahms' German Requiem at Communion was, well, lovely. So was Panis Angelicus, sung by tenor Marcello Giordani, on loan from the Metropolitan Opera (how handy to have it nearby); the Holy Father appeared to be quite moved by it.

It occurs to your Bloviator one giant and easy step the Church could take to improve her music would be to eliminate the soloist blasting along into a microphone during the hymns. The logic how this is supposed to encourage the faithful in the pews to sing escapes me and, I will speculate, may even discourage them. The Anglicans have no need for "hymn leaders" (or whatever they are called) and neither does the Holy Catholic Church.

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