Revealed: the tired, trendy, dated music planned for the Papal Mass in Coventry – Telegraph Blogs

Sunday 13 July 2014 | Blog Feed | All feeds

Damian Thompson




• Eucharistic acclamations by Fr Peter Jones, who wrote the tiresome Coventry Gloria for John Paul II's visit in 1982. Yes, he's still going strong;


Salisbury Alleluia by Christopher Walker, another of the inner circle;



• Some Taizé. You would have thought we'd heard enough Taizé over the years, but apparently not.

Oh, and there's a brief motet by Elgar and a couple of rousing Newman-based hymns; but basically it's game set and match to the Society of St Gregory (SSG), the mafia of the mediocre who ensure that most music at Mass in most dioceses reeks of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. This stuff didn't sound either beautiful or cutting-edge when it was performed for Pope John Paul; how will it sound to the ears of a genuine music lover, Pope Benedict XVI? And young Catholics, especially, loathe it.

I'm confused. I thought that the Bishops of England and Wales had helped to commission the setting of the Mass by James MacMillan that will be heard at the papal ceremony in Glasgow. That is a lovely piece: fresh, original, full of unexpected modulations but also majestic traditional harmonies that will appeal to our Bruckner-loving Pontiff. Why not also perform the MacMillan Mass at the Newman beatification?

Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham is a former student of the Royal Northern College of Music. Your Grace, how can you justify forcing the Holy Father to listen to music that he will not like – indeed, that no one much likes, apart from a few elderly Tabletistas and the SSG (some of whose members make far too much money out of their cosy arrangements with dioceses)?

It's not too late to put things right, I hope. Does Mgr Guido Marini, the Papal Master of Ceremonies, know of these depressing plans? Also, if the music is going to be this corny, that doesn't augur well for the rest of the liturgy, does it? The Coventry Mass should be one that makes the heart soar, not the toes curl.

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