On Sun, 29 Nov 1998, Matthew Westphal wrote:
>
>
> Rob Howe wrote:
>
>
> [snip]
>
> > So I posit an additional question:
> >
> >Which Ensemble Organum recordings/interpretations would you find most
> >affective/effective for real liturgy?
>
>
>
> Wait a minute... Which recordings fulfill their liturgical role best?
>
> Are Peres' recordings being used for actual worship in actual celebrations
> of the liturgy in churches in the place of live church musicians? This
> seems unlikely.
Sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that the recordings themselves be used for
liturgical purposes. I was referring to the interpretations themselves as
given to us in the recordings.(Each recording does tend to provide a new
slant on interpretation). I was wondering if Peres is trying to 'reform'
chant or liturgical music in some theological way. I was wondering if he
is trying to teach church musicians a 'new way'.
> [cut]
> Liturgical music and its text may be theoretically inseparable (as would be
> the case in most sung Western art music); this is, of course, why Peres and
> others (though not enough of them!) perform a polyphonic Mass Ordinary along
> with chant propers, for example.
But plainsomng text-music relations are closer than in most Western art
music. A chant is not a 'setting of a text to music' if we believe that
chant began as a form of heightened speech. In the very early writings
(eg. Augustine) the distinction between melody and text is not clearly
made; they are reagrded as really the same thing.
> But Peres isn't performing and recording
> the music -- and we, as a rule, aren't buying and listening to his
> records -- for use in a liturgy. (If so, Peres would presumably be a
> working church musician rather than the scholar and concert performer he
> is.)
>
> Matthew Westphal
> [log in to unmask]
>
I don't know what Peres does when not involved in commercial music
(recording and concerts). His interview gives the strong impression
that he speaks from within the Roman Catholic Church. In any case, Peres
works at the _Abbey_ at Royaumant. If he is not a church musician, what is
he doing there? Is he involved in the liturgy at the Abbey, as would seem
likely?
Rob Howe.
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