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A new series from the New York Catholic Chorale will guide audiences on a trip through time to prove that liturgical changes in the Church are nothing new.

The Regional Liturgical Composer Series launches this spring at Siena College in Loudonville and features the repertoires of well-known musicians from New York and New England.

Organizers plan to educate listeners on the struggles that have always accompanied music composition - especially regarding music used at liturgies - in anticipation of new English translations of the Roman Missal to be introduced at Masses this Advent.

"I hope [audiences will] take away from it a sense of the balancing act that composers are responsible for in coming up with music that is serviceable," said Dennis Coker, chairman of the choir's board.

The New York Catholic Chorale is a 20-member chamber choir based at Siena College that presents various styles of Church music. The first Mass the group will perform was composed by famed Albany musician Al Fedak in the late 1980s.

The group chose the piece for its staying power and because it doesn't overwhelm its setting, Mr. Coker said.

Minor key
Throughout history, composers of Church music have faced challenges. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his peers, for instance, wrote under the restrictions of "Missa brevis" - Latin for "short Mass" - and orders to restrain the complexity of pieces.

Composers were given more freedom in Ludwig van Beethoven's generation; however, his difficult, 80-minute "Missa Solemnis in D Major" is rarely heard today in the liturgical setting.

"In one sense, the best music is the music that you don't hear," Mr. Coker noted.

In 1903, Pope Pius X set standards for liturgical music that sometimes stifled creativity, said Tom Savoy, the Catholic Chorale's founder and the director of music at Albany's Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception.

The 1960s heralded music that was more succinct, focusing on function over meditation, and liturgy that was more linear - products of the Second Vatican Council and an earlier liturgical reform movement.

"It certainly had an effect on the proportion of music to the rest of the liturgy," Mr. Coker said. "Now, the music is not an add-on; it's an integral part of the process."

Clashing chords
But throughout the latter half of the 20th century, people often misinterpreted the Vatican Council's directives, said Mr. Savoy.

A baby boomer who began composing in his teens, he found "there was a lot of contradictory sentiment expressed in the [Vatican II] documents. People were so intent on [lay] people participating that they started to exclude the development of a choir."

Looking ahead to composing new pieces to reflect the new changes to the Mass, Mr. Savoy and others have their work cut out for them.

"The minute you start changing text, you change the rhythm of the text. You change the way you speak it," he said.

Coda
"How can you continually reawaken tradition and add to it as an artist?" he asks himself. "There's always a need to reinvigorate the faith - and art."

Fortunately, the new text may prove more reverential, formalized and poetic - all features attractive to a musician like Mr. Savoy. And since focus has returned in recent years to Gregorian chant and the Latin tradition of the Church, he's not too worried.

"This is nothing compared to the '60s," Mr. Savoy said. "This time, I think they're trying to take great pains [to provide] preparation and catechesis. The Church certainly will survive all of this."

The 15-year-old Catholic Chorale has redirected attention to the tradition of Catholicism in times when the Church has faced criticism and scandal.

"People have a hunger to be validated as Catholics," Mr. Savoy told The Evangelist. "There's so much good in the faith that when you hold it up against the lousy stuff, the good will prevail."

Music is "the biggest evangelical tool that the Church has," he stated. "The more that it's put out there for people to see, the more people are drawn to the spirituality it highlights."

The first Mass in the composer series will be May 1, 11:30 a.m., at the Siena College Chapel. See www.nycchorale.org.[[In-content Ad]]

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