WHY ALL the surprise at the disappointing results of the Papal Mass Competition? How can flat, ugly, rhythmless language possibly take wing and become music'?
The great liturgical music of the past — now discarded and despised — was merely airborne prayer. The melody and rhythm of the best plainsong grew naturally from the melody and rhythm of words too heaven-bent to stay grounded in speech.
Anyone worthy of the title of composer surely winces at the outset at the opening blast of "And also with You", let alone at the prospect of trying to turn it into music.
The other linguistic horrors which follow are too numerous to list here, and only those totalfy insensitive to the sound of language are sufficiently deaf to them as to believe they can be set to music.
Is there an , English Franz Schubert among us? Miracles can happen. as he proved by his trarsformation of the doggerel of Rellstab's In Der Ferne. (I am listening to it as I write.) Mary Cox West Sussex