What does the \u201ctypical\u201d Roman Catholic parish in the United States of America sing? GIA Publications believes \u2013 not without reason \u2013 that many parishes in the United States of America heavily use post-Vatican II \u201ccontemporary\u201d-styled pieces for Mass while retaining many so-called \u201cclassic\u201d hymns and songs of the Roman Catholic tradition. To appeal to this demographic, they have released Gather, Third Edition \u2013 <\/em>really, a comprehensive hymnal, though it takes the name Gather<\/em> \u2013 a valiant attempt to be all things to many people.<\/p>\n The strongest part of this hymnal is the hymnody\/song portion, which is strikingly diverse. There is what I would term a chant starter kit \u2013 from \u201cOf the Father\u2019s Love Begotten\u201d to \u201cParce Domine\u201d to \u201cUbi Caritas\u201d to \u201cSalve Regina.\u201d \u00a0I was pleasantly surprised at the number of recently-written hymns. There are a number of strong texts by Sylvia Dunstan, Ruth Duck, Delores Dufner, and Brian Wren, as well as other living hymnwriters of note. A large number of well-known contemporary songs whose copyrights are held by OCP and WLP are included, such as Bernadette Farrell\u2019s \u201cO God, You Search Me\u201d and Steve Warner\u2019s setting of Julian of Norwich\u2019s text, \u201cAll Will Be Well.\u201d<\/p>\n Four decades have now passed of largely-vernacular liturgy in the USA, with multiple waves of musical styles and repertories. Some representatives of each era are included. As a church musician who has spent much of his career serving in parishes that use much of this contemporary repertoire, looking through the hymnal was a little bit like going to a high school reunion. Wow, when was the last time we sang \u201cWe Are The Light of the World\u201d?\u00a0 Wasn\u2019t it fun to sing Bob Dufford\u2019s \u201cAll the Ends of the Earth\u201d? And remember the first time we sang \u201cLord, I Lift Your Name on High\u201d?\u00a0 While I haven\u2019t used any of these pieces recently, I\u2019m sure there are\u00a0 congregations which have.<\/p>\n Two things in particular struck me:<\/p>\n GIA has used this opportunity to rethink and re-edit the hymns as well. They have maintained their policy towards inclusive language (which will disappoint fans of Frederick Faber\u2019s text \u201cFaith of Our Fathers,\u201d of which only one stanza appears here) but have revisited other hymns. I was especially happy to see a more original version of the sixth stanza of \u201cThe First Noel,\u201d which now concludes by praising the Lord \u201cwho made the heavens and earth of naught \/ And with his blood our life has bought.\u201d Instead of a meek doxology, this stanza restores the text\u2019s connection between the Incarnation and the Passion. \u201cI Receive the Living God\u201d now has nine stanzas, making this hymn much more useful for lengthy Communion processions. \u201cHoly God, We Praise Thy Name\u201d now includes a fourth stanza.<\/p>\n My largest concern with this hymnal would be the Mass settings, a whopping twelve in all, plus many other individual pieces of service music. \u00a0It is hard to fault GIA for this when every other publisher is acting similarly. My sense is that few people really have a sense of what will be the next popular Mass setting; publishers seem to be providing many alternatives in the hopes of either striking gold or at least claiming their piece of the royalties pie.\u00a0 Gather, Third Edition <\/em>includes the retrofitted Mass of Creation<\/em>, along with chunks of the revised Mass of Light, Community Mass<\/em>, and others. Other musicians have voiced the challenges of using these familiar melodies with new words, and I share their concerns.\u00a0 There are two chant settings \u2013 the ICEL chants, and a Cantus Missae \u2013 <\/em>plus a bilingual setting (English\/Spanish), a setting by Liam Lawton with a Celtic flavor, a setting in the African-American style, and several more new or newly-revised offerings from familiar GIA composers such as Haugen, Haas, Alonso, Morris, and others. None of the newly-composed settings really caught my ear, although all seem workable. I\u2019ll be watching with interest to see which of these settings become popular in the years ahead.<\/p>\n Gather, Third Edition<\/em> has much to offer. It is a hymnal of such size and scope that every congregation will likely find plenty of new music for the congregations to learn. While I\u2019m sure everyone can find that one more song or hymn that they wish were included, this hymnal does a fine job of collecting many frequently-used, much-loved, and useful repertoire.<\/p>\n Disclaimer: Chris \u00c1ngel has works published by GIA Publications, though none appear in <\/em>Gather, Third Edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" GIA’s Gather 3<\/I> \u2013 a valiant attempt to be all things to many people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22,1394,23],"tags":[1462,62,1463],"class_list":["post-10544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-hymns","category-music-mass-settings","category-recently-published-books","tag-gather-third-edition","tag-gia","tag-hymnal-review"],"yoast_head":"\n\n