Old Stuff

Our folk songs

St. Blog's choir director has linked to an article in Crisis: Twelve Latin Chants Every Catholic Should Know. I'm pleasantly surprised to find that many of them are in our repertoire at home:

• Ave Maria - we sing this during our nightly prayers with the kids. The article's comments on the melody are right on the money; I'd add that it lends itself well to improvised embellishments.
• Adoro Te Devote - I haven't a clue about this one.
• Regina Caeli - we sang this a lot during our last pregnancy, so it's our youngest child's song. It's a short little song, so it's nice to pause for a moment when things are getting out of hand and calm everyone down by praying to the Queen of Heaven.
• Ave Verum Corpus - haven't a clue
• Pange Lingua Gloriosi - there are two tunes for this, aren't there? I have the impression we use the simpler of the two, the one that starts C-D-E-C, D-E-F-E. I used to make up silly verses about the kids to this tune. One of our former parish priests used to claim that this tune was a marching cadence for the ancient Roman army. Come to think of it, that would be a striking sight: a Catholic army using the text and melody of Pange Lingua as a marching cadence!
• Parce Domine - eh?
• Asperges - hey, you could use that as a penitential song!
• Ubi Caritas - don't know it, but it's in the various chant books
• Attende Domine - ditto
• Veni Creator Spiritus - what a magnificent song! I've taught it to the kids by having them complete a bit more of each line over the months. Our oldest daughter used to sing it "Come O Father of the porch...". See this blog entry for Fr. John Mason Neale's masterly translation that preserves many aesthetic elements of the original Latin.
• Jesu, Dulcis Memoria - don't know it
• Salve Regina - our nighttime anthem as we climb the stairs to go to bed. When I crank this one up, even the 17-month-old knows it's time to grab his blanket and head upstairs. This is also Helen's song - we sang it to her as she lay dying just after her birth and baptism.

When the kids are older I hope to introduce them to Thomas Tallis, Tomas Luis de Victoria and all those other old polyphony guys. With 6 voices (or more) we should be able to do pretty well. Meanwhile, our 6-year-old has discovered the Beatles. I was quite a bit older when I discovered them, and I still remember the moment I realized I could buy Beatles records and heck, even play them over and over! I think my first purchase was Sgt. Pepper's. This being Trivial Tuesday, I'll also note that the first time I listened to the CD version of Sgt. Pepper's, the dog whistle nearly knocked me out of my chair it was so painful. I doubt I could hear it nowadays, but I don't dare try again.