- Kevin Keegan's Waltz
- Kyrie
- Gloria
- Gospel Acclamation
- Lenten Gospel Acclamation
- Sanctus
- Mystery of Faith
- Doxology / Amen
- Lamb of God
- My God, my God
- My Burden is Light
- Indian Wedding Prayer
- Chanson Pour Martha
General Notes
This New Mass was primarily composed over two time periods. The Sanctus, with its original form and text, was the first piece written in 1983. Following soon after were the other acclamations of the Eucharistic prayer, written to sustain the style and motifs of the Sanctus. These formed the parts of the Mass which I sometimes used in parishes in Illinois where I directed choirs and music ministries over the next twenty-five years. I must credit NPM’s 2009 call to composers (for Mass settings for the new Roman Missal) for inspiring me to update the existing Mass parts and to add the Kyrie, Gloria, and Gospel Acclamations. These also continue the use of thematic elements from the earlier movements.
On the use of Latin in this setting:
One of the ways this New Mass stands apart is the unique use of Latin in select parts and optional choral descants. The English melodies may be used alone for a simple, straightforward singing of the Mass. But add in the Latin choral sections and many more dynamics come into play. It affirms our communion as Catholics, it roots us in our tradition, the assembly is learning and experiencing our prayers in their mother-tongue just by hearing them, and the choral sections contribute harmonies that lift the arrangements to new heights.
On the style of my piano scores: KIS!
Over the decades, I have had just three pianists who could respectably play Jeanne’s piano part for David’s Glory to God (a great score), and only one person who recognized that the arpeggiation on the CD was easier to play than that on the page. It seems the further one gets from the college towns and urban centers, the fewer piano-performance majors and organists there are to go around. Many of my student pianists and organ-playing volunteers over the years have needed music to be rearranged, something they did not all have the background and training to do. So, I have scored piano parts that are simple, yet communicate and support the spirit of the pieces. I welcome the Gary Nabors and Jeanne Cotters of the world to embellish and enrich our experience by not being bound to the notes on the page. I hope that these fundamental piano parts are suited to find life in the hands of the rest of us, including those with piano skills as meager as my own.
On the style of the guitar parts:
This is a different story, guitar being my area of experience and interest. There are few scores written for the guitarist who is a musician, as opposed to a person who has a guitar. We either expect our guitar players to have the chops to create their own wonderfully appropriate arrangements from just a chord chart, or we hope they know enough chords to hang in there and hang back enough to do no harm. Imagine the sound if you gathered students of oboe, violin and piano and just handed them a chord chart! Trained guitarists will find these parts easy to assimilate. Use them as-is or feel free to adapt them. Novice guitarists may be challenged but should still be able to benefit from taking the time to learn them. And, of course, there’s always just the chord chart!
Kevin Keegan’s Waltz
I did not write this!
I did, however, choose to begin the CD with a playing of it on Hammer Dulcimer by Gail May of Illinois.
It is a delicate and sensitively played piece which brings the listener into a quiet and prayerful place,
just as a meditation should. I thought it was an excellent way to prepare the listener for the New Mass
setting that follows.
Kyrie
Here is a prime example of the approach used in this Mass setting. The three sections are each four notes from the leader, echoed by the same four notes by the assembly. Very simple. The arrangement can then be enhanced by adding in the choral harmonies, or by choosing a string quartet (Vn, Va, Gtr, Bs) instead of the piano reduction. The basses sing the original Greek as an undertone to the English sung by everyone else, but this is optional, English from the basses also works. The guitar or any of the other string parts could be added alone with piano to enrich the tone of the piece. This guitar part is slightly more advanced, probably in the level of an intermediate classical player (or a good novice).
Gloria
This quickly became the most ambitious of all the pieces, largely due to its length and call for majesty. The opening two phrases alternate Latin and English, and recur twice later as a ‘refrain’. The rest of the text is sung by the cantor(s). The assembly sings the English portion of the ‘refrain’, as well as “have mercy on us” and “receive our prayer.” As is usually the case, over time these distinctions should likely blur as the assembly assimilates the cantor parts and opts to sing along. The Latin contribution to the ‘verses’ is in the form of a choral (SATB) descant, and is totally optional. There are times when sections of the choral parts return to English, and these harmonies could be sung whether or not you are doing the Latin. The choral descant section is designed for a competent ensemble, and is not as easy as the English sections for cantor or assembly. One more comment on the complex and changing meters in verse two: there are measures of 6/8 alternating with measures of 5/8 on a few occasions. This creates a deliberate sense of intensity and unrest (and a need for greater precision). However, the 5/8s could be broadened to 6/8s to make it easier. I’ll not have a real problem with some music directors choosing ease of performance over the slight difference in character.
Gospel Acclamation and Lenten Gospel Acclamation
These two pieces are nearly identical. The form and harmonies parallel each other, though the Alleluia is in a major key and the Lenten one is in a minor key. I do not include text for any verses. These are intended to be sung by laying in the verse of the day from the Lectionary. As an alternative to always using a solo cantor, SATB harmony is there for choirs adept at singing psalm tones together. To demonstrate some of the different possibilities, my recorded Gospel Alleluia features piano, bass, guitar, choir and cantor for the verse, while the Lenten Acclamation has organ and choir for the verse.
Sanctus
The call to compose this first piece included the desire for a ‘Holy’ that was easy to learn, easy to sing, lively and joyful. My full vocal setting of it uses cantor, unison choir, and optional SATB descant. The primary arrangement of it is uses the style of call and response: a cantor sings the phrases, which the unison choir and assembly repeat. This makes the teaching and learning of the piece a non-issue, enabling the assembly to participate and proclaim the prayer the first time they hear it, as they would with a responsorial psalm. This is great at times like Christmas and Easter, when many visitors are participating. Then, for groups that already know it, and for simpler celebrations like Ordinary Time in summer or weekday Mass, we sometimes remove the repeated phrases and just sing it straight through.
The cantor part contains a few opportunities for the cantor to sing a soaring descant line over the assembly singing. The way we did this was for the unison choir to handle leadership of the assembly each time they were to sing. The cantor would intone a phrase, and then back off to sing the descant while the director or a choir member would raise their arms and lead the assembly in their part. Also, the phrase “Hosanna in the highest” works in canon, where the cantor sings the first occurrence and the unison choir leads the assembly in the second. I only do this at the end of the song.
There is also an optional descant for the Sanctus. This is a very simple four-part, bell-like background layer that can be done in a variety of ways. A group of SATB can sing it in Latin, or it can be played by Handbells or a quartet of strings or other instruments. On the recording I combined all three, though the strings are hard to hear in our mix.
Mystery of Faith, Doxology and Amen
Both of these pieces continue the thread of melodic elements and piano motifs from the Sanctus. In a form that Catholics are already used to, both have a unison singing of the text followed by a harmonized repeat of it. Though not done so on the CD, those using Handbells will recognize that the bells parts from the Sanctus translate well to accompany the Amen. Since the music for these two pieces is essentially the same, you might say you could use the Handbells for the Mystery of Faith. I wouldn’t, I usually reserve them for the more joyful parts of the Mass.
Lamb of God
This setting of the Lamb of God will accommodate all the usual variations of use like changing the number of times it is sung through, varying the title by which we invoke the Lord in all but the first and last times, having a soloist open each repetition instead of the whole choir and assembly. I suggest to choir directors that many of their sopranos shift to join the melody in the alto line. The soprano part acts as a descant with its own rhythm and high notes which punch through plenty with only a few voices, and we want the melody to have prominence. This piece also has one of those nice little touches that may go unnoticed in the first few hearings: instead of a vocal part reminding us of the Latin text, hear the viola adapt the familiar melody of the chanted ‘Agnus Dei’ in counterpoint to the rest of this contemporary setting.
My God, my God
My being greatly moved by many of the readings and songs of Holy Week should come as no surprise, and so this setting of Psalm 22 for Palm Sunday was composed to enable others to share the experience of proclaiming this very special moment in our tradition. I have often put forth to my choirs that the Palm Sunday liturgy is unique to our entire calendar. Other Masses of the three year cycle each have a theme, a topic, a character consistent for the whole hour of prayer. But in the fifteen minutes from the blessing of the palms to the Liturgy of the Word on Palm Sunday, we are taken from the heights of jubilation to the depths of our darkest moments (and left there for a week). Emotionally the rug is pulled out from under us as we go from entering Jerusalem with Hosannas to crucifying our Lord. And the first volley in this transition is the psalmist’s prophetic vision of what the One sees from the cross.
Many years ago, in a session at the NPM convention, I heard points of view on the composing and proclaiming of responsorial psalms, and one thing really stuck with me all these years. The process of a composer is to choose text to set to music, and to make music that suits the text. This leads one to compose a sad theme for a sad text, a joyful theme for a happy text, etc. But the psalms set in the Lectionary sometimes have several verses of one nature, and end with a verse that is quite different in character. This led some composers in the ‘70s and ‘80’s to paraphrase the psalms, or to include only the verses that matched each other in temperament once they had written music to express it. But the editors of the Lectionary assembled the readings of our days, seasons and years to challenge and convey certain messages, and I was impressed with the need to include the whole psalm of the day.
And so, on Palm Sunday, we find so many subtle things going on. Although the emotional plunge of the liturgy has only begun with the first three verses of the psalm, the psalm itself goes on to a contrasting and triumphant verse four! I originally composed just the shift to a major key and new melody for the cantor as my expression of verse four. But this year Marilyn Robbins (a fine Pastoral Musician and liturgist here in Illinois, and a dear mentor) encouraged me to develop that section further and set it for SATB, greatly enhancing the distinction and power of the fourth verse. The first three verses are set without rhythm so that the cantor may expressively chant the phrases while the organist follows. Getting a choir to sing together on verse four was easier when I wrote out a specific rhythmic version. If other directors would like to express the rhythm differently, I welcome them to realize their own interpretation.
My Burden Is Light
Just three Sundays before NPM we heard a Gospel which included Matthew 11:28-30. The closing verse is the quote “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.” This is such a strong image to me that I am surprised more composers have not written for it. My somewhat cynical notion is that this reading occurs only in the summer months, and publishers can’t sell octavos to choirs who take the summer off. But the message is a striking one and certainly would be appropriate at many other times of the year. This is about the most fully-developed piano part that I have written in this collection. The vocal solos are, in one verse, the voice of God, and in another, the voice of man. The highlight comes later, when the two are voiced simultaneously in counterpoint with each other. A secular song that came to mind while composing this was Total Eclipse of the Heart, with the lyric “turn around, bright eyes”. In this setting, the Lord is basically saying “I am right here, I have been all along” while man is saying, “I should know that, yet I still have felt so hurt and alone.” Another inspiration for part of this song was the poem Footprints in the Sand, which led me to include a phrase of personal significance for me.
Indian Wedding Prayer
I had the great pleasure of surprising my wife, Jean, with this composition during the candle-lighting of our wedding Mass. It was sung then by the lovely voice of Cathy Hamilton, who sings it again on our CD. The text has become part of American traditional, but not without a little controversy. You may wish to look it up on Wikipedia, though what you find there may or may not deter you from enjoying its use. I should thank Deacon Neakrase and family of St. Pat’s in Washington, IL for introducing me to the NA Indian flute of Butch Hall, used in this recording.
Chanson Pour Martha
This instrumental is a meditation on the themes of joy evolving out of sadness. It is a duet for classical guitar and solo instrument. The classical guitar part may once again be accomplished by a player of intermediate skill. The Gospel inspiration was Luke 10:38-42, where Martha initially feels sadness but is later recognized by Christ for her service. In our music ministry we also had a woman named Martha who moved away and was greatly missed. That occasion also prompted the writing of this piece. The use of French to title the song is a nod for its similarity to the style of the Gymnopedies of Eric Satie, and I must also thank Noel Stookey for one of the most endearing chord progressions I have had the pleasure to use over the years.
Thank you for reading these notes, I hope they enhance your enjoyment and experience of the works the next time you listen to or perform them!
- Joseph Kriz
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