Catholic Traditional/Classical Music (LONG)

Date: 17 Jun 2003 14:34:04 -0700
Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican.american
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I am a non-Spanish-speaking music minister at a Church that
has a large Mexican population.
I direct an English speaking choir.
Someone else does the Spanich-speaking choir.
Recently there was a funeral for a Mexican woman and I was
asked (by the Mexican preist,)to take care of the music.
It turned out they had no program for these funerals, he
expected I would just do what they do at English funerals.
Instead, I got on the internet, got the Spanish words to the
Funeral Mass, a translation of the 23rd psalm, and taught
a small choir of English speaking people to sing the responses
in Spanish (since the mourners at a funeral are often to overwrought
to actually sing or say the responses,) and I served as a cantor.
We did some Gregorian chant, also, that I translated into Spanish
(don't worry, I checked it for accuracy with the priest before hand.)
I also played some somber but beautiful classical music on the organ.
NOW THEY WANT ME TO DIRECT THE SPANISH-LANGUAGE CHOIR.
This is overwhelming because as I said I speak no Spanish, and
most of the parishoners are new immigrants who speak no English
at all.
But that's not the big problem. I have a few people who can serve
as translators, and hopefully my Spanish will get better and their
English will!
The real problem is that I HATE the music they use now for Spanish
language Masses.
I am a classical musicians and I want to do good music.
I think they WANT me to do good music, as this job offer comes in
reaction to the music i provided for the funeral.
The woman who currently directs them is not a musician, she can just
play
the piano a little and doesn't speak any Spanish.
She just plays out of a book that kind of sounds like mariachi songs
only with religious words, and has someone play along on tambourine.
Anyway, I freely admit that I am a musical snob, and I don't
imagine that before Vatican II this kind of pseudo-folk music is
what these epople would have sung or heard at Mass, any more that
we in the USA had to put up with the trashy commercial pop stuff that
is now sung at most Catholic Churches (and which I refuse to do
with my other choir.)
But I can't seem to find any resources.
No one in the choir has any real musical background, the preist
is tone-deaf.
So can anyone tell me, what the classical tradition in Mexico
produced in the way of liturgical music?
Some composers names?
Some books or hymnals to look for?
I know I can always do Latin motets, but I am hoping to be able
to find quality indigenous music.
I would also like the names, if anyone knwos them, of Mexican
litrugical composers of the present day who are working in
a classical, not a folk idiom.
Thank you very much, anyone who can shed some light on this.
Please feel free to e-mail me.