www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy History of the RDL

This sounds more like my understanding of what Met. Procyk had wanted...What a shame this has been hijacked...

Chris

Indeed, this should have been the plan that was implemented. That is disturbing.

____________________
Glory be to Thee, O Lover of Mankind

I am, too, specifically interested in the history of changing the music. I wondered if it started when Judson was Metropolitan. From the discussion, it sounds like, "no". I have some recordings of some of his sermons on change, and he never mentioned that being a necessity.

I am trying to figure out how J. Michael Thompson came into the picture. I know he spoke at an ecumenical Catholic and Orthodox �symposium� was held at St. Basil�s College, Stamford, Connecticut from June 17 through 20, 1998. Father Petras was also in attendance. Is this where they met? When was he (Thompson) appointed to our seminary? Was Thompson secretly helping the liturgy commission prior to this? Who discerned he was a subcarpathian music expert? I know Thompson was involved with the National Pastoral Musicians Conferences, maybe starting around 1999.

Finally, why is this all a big secret? The people making these decisions shouldn't be hiding. They should be able to stand up for their decisions and be able to explain them with confidence.

To summarize, I am very curious to find out when Thompson came into the picture, and who decided he was an expert.

Marie F--welcome to the board and thanks for your questions. That's one of the reasons I started this thread--there were so many things that I didn't understand and just didn't make sense.

The problem is that the questions you have asked are the same questions many of us have asked. And we have gotten no response whatsover. People have posted questions on this thread, sent private e-mails and some have mentioned sending return receipt request mail to the Arch Eparch. All have gone ananswered and unacknowledged. Which is rude, if nothing else. At least the courtesy of a form letter means people are aware of your concerns. But we dont get that. If I lived closer to Pittsburgh I would consider camping out at the Seminary or the Eparch's offices. I don't know if it would do any good, but I would have a clean conscious and know I did everything I could.

Good luck and keep asking questions!

Tim

Dear Marie,

The Cantor's Companion [metropolitancantorinstitute.org] has a short history of the work on the music revisions, which it describes as starting before 1995. I do know that in 1998/99 at the revived Cantor School in Pittsburgh we were hearing about upcoming music changes, but without much detail.

Professor Thompson had been working with prostopinije and samoilka for at least fifteen years before that that I know of; he had prepared Vespers books in the mid-1980's for ACROD that were given to me by my (Orthodox) prostopinije teacher, who was on the faculty of the seminary in Johnstown. My teacher pointed out that, unlike most of the music in circulation, in these settings the English text was correctly accented when sung.

In April 1998, Dan Brown (formerly a poster here) mentioned on CANTOR-L some "absolutely beautiful" music that had been recorded by the Schola Cantorum of Chicago, as well as Forgiveness Vespers in Muncie, IND, at which the Schola had led the singing of the entire service and its propers in prostopinije.

Here's my trip report on CANTOR-L from September 21, 1998:


Note the mention of revisions to the text AND music of the Divine Liturgy; on a restoration of the use of sung recitative; on the tension between local variation and use of published versions, etc.

Michael Thompson joined the CANTOR-L list in January 1999, where he was warmly welcomed by occasional byzcath poster Sharon Mech (who had met him in CT the year before, when she had pointed out to the conference attendees the crying need for BOOKS WITH MUSIC) and Brother Maximos of Holy Transfiguration (who had also met him in CT, and who had invited him out to the monastery to give presentations on chant). Shortly thereafter, Michael had convinced the NPM to open an Eastern Catholic Division, with a track at the NPM convention that included Fr. Peter Galadza and Orthodox musicologist and conductor Vladimir Morosan. At the time, he was working in Chicago, conducting a schola that sang a variety of music but specialized in Eastern chant, and was a member of an old calendar Ukrainian parish in Chicago.

Although Michael Thompson was a frequent contributor on the forums (and contributed to the work on Matins music that eventually gained Metropolitan Nicholas' blessing), he was not involved directly with our church until he came to teach at the Seminary just before the untimely death of Metropolitan Judson, who had hired him. He did prove to be an invaluable resource on CANTOR-L, not only for finding obscure melodies or printed sources, but also because of his wide knowledge of liturgics and cantorial practice across the various Rusyn and Ukrainian churches.

After he came to Pittsburgh, we finally received the permission we had been looking for to prepare Vespers and Matins books. (Brother Maximos had been very firm that we should not proceed without a bishop's blessing.) The books prepared under Professor Thompson's guidance were a fantastic improvement over what we had, and could be used by both our cantors and ACROD musicians with little confusion. He certainly served on the Music Commission afterward, but he wasn't the only member, and the others were, as I recall, all "cradle" Rusyns (unlike Professor Thompson, who originally went to a Ukrainian seminary). In fact, I have heard complaints about "Thompson's music" where the version being complained about is NOT what Professor Thompson did in the early MCI settings - and when I asked about it, all he would say was, "The Commission decided to do it this way." Like any committee, this happens; but that alone shows to me that it was nothing like a "private project."

The CANTOR-L archives [metropolitancantorinstitute.org] are still on the MCI website; they are illuminating for cantorial issues in the mid-1990's.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Father David said in 1998 that �the Council of Hierarchs felt not much of the music should be changed, because the people have become accustomed to the texts that are actually sung.� My pastor states that even in early 2001 Metropolitan Judson said that our church would make only those changes to the texts that were absolutely necessary (and he was talking 2 or 3 word changes). Something happened after Thompson was hired at the seminary and the bishops agreed to these major changes to words and music. My pastor says that when Archbishop Procyk died Father Petras hijacked the liturgical commission and pushed through a lot of changes. And the people at the seminary insisted that because Thompson was a paid professional he could do a better job with music then our own cantors. The new music shows the people at the seminary were wrong.

NJ Cantor wrote: "My pastor says that when Archbishop Procyk died Father Petras hijacked the liturgical commission and pushed through a lot of changes."

Certainly through the years, there was a development in policy. Archbishop Judson, however, was always in support of the Inter-Eparchial Liturgy Commission. To state that when he died, I took the occasion to push through reforms that were not possible before is completely and totally a figment of someone's hyperactive imagination. The basic liturgical text as we have it today had already been submitted to, received by and approved by Rome before Archbishop Judson's death, and he was certainly in favor of what we had done, as per my consultation with him two weeks before his untimely death.

How could +Metropolitan Judson, who was all for married clergy, and a return to our roots, approve of inclusive language?

It just doesn't sound like something he would have wanted for the Metropolia.

I wonder if his grave at Mount St. Macrina is rumbling now that the RDL is in place. I'll find out on labor day weekend.

So...if the translation is bad...the music would follow suit.

OY!!!

The circular logic is astounding here!

Have you actually looked at Bokshai, Ratsin or Papp and compared the MUSIC to the RDL music?

In order to stay charitable, I will not go into detail regarding my specific opinions of the music. I have some problems with it--but it is the translation that has scandalized my conscience most. If you are at peace with this mandate, them I am happy for you.

Peace and blessings,
R

Steve,

Slava Isusu Christu!

I disagree that the RDL music is best for our church or appropriate for the English lanuage(our Admin has in the past posted excellent posts on this, I can dig for them if you want).

But even if I agreed with you on this point, why are you so in favor of keeping tradition in regards to our chant but not in favor of keeping tradition regarding rubrics, antiphons, litanies, etc.????

I'm puzzled????


Monomakh

Okay, I'm not a theological expert, an historian or a musical expert. I don't understand some of what I am reading on these posts because it reminds me of academia, something I am very familiar with since I work at a Big Ten University. Can anyone, in simple, easy to understand language, explain to anyone like me, what people mean when they say things like:

"Have you actually looked at Bokshai, Ratsin or Papp and compared the MUSIC to the RDL music?"

I am not disagreeing or agreeing with the above statment. I can't since I don't understand it! As of this writing (3:45pm on Wed 7/18) there are 33 people registered, 42 anonymous users online and a total of 2,739 users. I would be my next month's mortgage payment (property rates in State College are higher than Pittsburgh and Philadelphia) that most of the people who are online, either registered or lurking, don't understand most of what you people are talking about!

Please, try to remember that we don't all know exactly what the 1942 version is, or the 1965 version is, or the 1970's or 1980's versions are. Maybe there's a quick, easy to understand thread somewhere that we can refe people to so they can have a basic understanding of the issues. There are new people joining on a regular basis, please be kind to us and phrase things so we can understand them. You might be surprised how many supporters you might gain, on both sides!

Tim

You drive home a very good point. The Ruthenian Catholic Church has a deep and rich history of confusion. There has always been an identity crisis. The RDL falls in line with that history.

God bless you.

Dear Tim,

When we sang the Divine Liturgy in Slavonic, the chant books we used were primarily the 1906 Prostopinije of Bokshai and Malinich, along with printed and handwritten variants of the same basic music. In the United States, a cantor in Scranton named Theodor Ratsin redid this book with additional material for the Fast and some extra melodies. In the 1950's, Father Andrew Sokol (Wall, PA, I think) reprinted the frequently used parts of Bokhai, but with Latin letters instead of Cyrillic. This is the "blue book" one still sees people carrying to Slavonic liturgies in Uniontown.

These books, along with local variations, formed a basis for our parish chant in Slavonic.

When English came into use, a committee of priests and cantors prepared VERY simplified melodies based on the prostopinije for the Divine Liturgy in English, using only one or two melodies for each hymn, and often changing the rhythms in startling ways. This collection was expanded in 1970 into a music book called Byzantine Liturgical Chant. (Our administrator mentioned recently that this too was the work of a committee, and its quality suffered as a result.) This book was recorded on cassette tape, with a note attached saying something like "For clarity, the singing on these recordings is much slower than they should actually be sung in church." Despite that, many DID learn to sing these slow, simplified and inconsistent settings in English.

In the meantime, MANY parishes with established cantors continued to sing English chant that was much closer to the older prostopinije. The Advanced Cantor School in Pittsburgh (1985-1992?) collected, taught and distributed many of these settings, which unlike the earlier ones often had melismas (several notes per syllable) and clearer rhythms.

The melodies in the new books are much closer to the Slavonic (Bokshai / Papp / Ratsin) and the Advanced Cantor School settings than to the "official" simplified music from the 1960's. It is sometimes a matter of effort to learn to lead the singing with these melodies, because some cantors are SO used to going on "auto-pilot" with the old ones - but they are beautiful, correctly accent the English (when properly sung; Western assumptions like "the high note should be sung loudly" can get i n the way) and make it EASY to learn the music for Vespers and Matins.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski