You obviously have not been to the cathedral in Munhall lately. Or to a parish in Parma in the last 20 years. At the cathedral the words have all changed. The music has all changed. No one can sing it. My cousin who belongs there started going to St. Elias. She says that they�ve lost a lot of people since the archbishop started making all these changes. No one can sing Jerry Jumba�s music. A little rework by Thompson is not going to help it.
You are correct about this: I have not been in Parma parish in ~25 years, and have not been to
Munhall.
I think, however, that it is a safe bet that this is not true:
"At the cathedral the words have all changed."
If you would like to make comments that might, conceivably have some productive effect, then you should try to stick to actual facts and cogent criticisms, and avoid symptomatic expressions of annoyance.
Ditto:
"The music has all changed. No one can sing it."
I was happy to get a link to this site so that I could get some of the music that has been discussed before on this forum. I tend to be very liberal in criticism (ask Zenovia). And I was expecting to find a great deal to criticize. Instead I was thrilled to see excellent renderings of texts onto our chant tones. The natural singability of the lines is excellent, attention to our actual tone motifs is excellent, restraint in the introduction of innovations is perfect. This work was done very diligently and skillfully. I don't give praise lightly, but this work is highly laudable. What a relief!
I am not just fawning. There are some things I would like to see revisited. Most notably the Sunday Tone 8 tropar where the "song" of this tone is regretably lost. The phrasing of the introductory motif of Tone 3 was also a surprise, but I could get used to it. There was a least one troublesome key signature (staying with 2 sharps after Dmajor tone 6 variant, instead of going back to e-minor for the samohlasen in the paraclesis). And perhaps a half-dozen choices onb slurred syllables that I might have done differently. But that is all.
And overall what I see and hear is OUR tones - what you would hear in Presov or Budapest, or... - with skillful text overlay. And compared to many adaptations of the past, that fought the music rather than dovetailed with it, this work gives me enormous pleasure.
