New Liturgy Reanimates Catholic Music

From NPR-

When Catholics arrive at church for the beginning of Advent this weekend, they may find themselves stumbling over not only the words, but also the music.

The Vatican has changed the English-speaking Mass to make it more faithful to the Latin — and as a result, the sung portions of the Mass often don't work. It's the most dramatic change in more than 40 years, and it has Mike McMahon working overtime with his choir. The music director of St. Agnes Catholic Church in Arlington, Va., leads the singers through the Sanctus, or Holy Holy, tweaking until the new words and rhythms become second nature.

The choir has been rehearsing for weeks, and McMahon says it's been an adjustment. "Things that we're familiar with, that we know by heart, suddenly have a different sound to them," he says. McMahon says that when the Vatican changed the words of the liturgy to adhere more closely to the Latin, the sung portions of the Mass suddenly had a different sentence structure and cadence.

"Some parts are a little more poetic; some are a little more awkward," he says. "But one of the things that happen with music is that even things that are a little more awkward suddenly become a little more graceful when they're put to music."

More here-

http://www.npr.org/2011/11/26/142664983/new-catholic-liturgy-reanimates-catholic-music