 | A major contributor to this article appears to have a close connection with its subject.(September 2022) |
Peter Kwasniewski | |
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| Born | 1971 |
| Occupation | author, lecturer, composer |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Genre | Essays |
| Subject | Traditional Latin Mass, sacred music, theology |
Peter Andrew Kwasniewski (born 1971) is an American traditionalist Catholic writer and composer.
Kwasniewski was born on 22 March 1971 in Arlington Heights, Illinois. [1] He grew up in New Jersey. At the Delbarton School in Morristown, he received his first serious tutelage in music. [2] He attended Georgetown University for a single year, before starting as a freshman at Thomas Aquinas College in California, where he received his BA in Liberal Arts in 1994. [3] He received his MA in 1996 and his Ph.D. in 2002 from The Catholic University of America, both in philosophy. His MA thesis in 1996 was entitled "The Dialectic of Reason and Faith in Descartes's Meditationes de prima philosophia" [4] and his Ph.D. dissertation defended in 2002 was entitled "The Ecstasy of Love in Thomas Aquinas". [5]
He was a professor at the International Theological Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family in Austria [6] and an adjunct instructor in music appreciation at the Franciscan University of Steubenville's Austria Program located on the same campus. [7] In 2006, he joined the founding team of Wyoming Catholic College in Lander, Wyoming, where he served as assistant academic dean and director of admissions, and then as choirmaster and Professor of Theology and Philosophy. [8] He also taught music and art history in the college's fine arts curriculum. [9]
In 2016, it was revealed that Kwasniewski was among the clergy and theologians who signed the "Letter of the 45", a letter to all the Catholic cardinals which asked them to "respond to the dangers to Catholic faith and morals" which they alleged that Pope Francis' Amoris Laetitia had posed. [10]
Kwasniewski was a founding board member and scholar of The Aquinas Institute. He remains a fellow of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies. [11]
In 2016, Cardinal Burke introduced the Czech translation of Resurgent, calling it "very readable and very accessible" and thanking Kwasniewski "for giving us this work." [12] Other positive publicity for this book included New Oxford Review , which claims that "Kwasniewski accurately sums up the current situation in the Church" and that Resurgent is "a starting point for serious discussion" for "revitalizing the Church". [13]
His book Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness was praised by The Catholic Herald in Britain and National Review , both of which published favorable reviews. [14] [15]
Kwasniewski has also worked as a choirmaster and composer. [16] He studied composition and conducting with Roy Horton, abbey organist and music teacher at Delbarton School at St. Mary's Abbey in Morristown, New Jersey. [17] [18] After this he became an assistant choir director at Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, California (1990–1994). [17] [19] While in graduate school at the Catholic University of America he served as director of the Schola Cantorum at Old St. John's Catholic Church in Silver Spring, Maryland (1994–1998) and later directed music at the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria (1999–2006). [20] [21] He was the founding choirmaster and schola director at Wyoming Catholic College (2007–2018) until the time he left to pursue a full-time writing career. [22] [23] [24]
Among compositions that have received numerous concert and church performances since 1990 may be included settings of the Catholic Mass, religious motets, English hymns, Christmas carols, and liturgical antiphons and acclamations. [25] The Mass settings include Missa Spiritus Domini (1994), Missa Spe Salvi (1995, rev. 2012), [26] [27] Missa Brevis à 3 (1997/2020), Missa Hereditas Mihi à 3 (2016), Missa Honorificentia Populi Nostri (2017), [17] [28] and Missa Rex in Æternum (2018). The work Seven Mandatum Antiphons (2010), consisting of English a cappella settings of the texts from the Maundy Thursday liturgy for the washing of the feet, was dedicated to Arvo Pärt on the occasion of the latter's 75th birthday. [29] [21] [30] [31]
Ensembles that have performed Kwasniewski's choral music include the Ecclesia Choir (dir. Timothy Woods), [32] the Vittoria Ensemble (dir. Rick Wheeler), [33] Cantiones Sacrae (dir. Graeme Adamson)—which recorded a CD, Divine Inspirations, of Kwasniewski's music together with that of British composer Nicholas Wilton—and Cantus Magnus (dir. Matthew Schellhorn). [34]
Mass is the main Eucharistic liturgical service in many forms of Western Christianity. The term Mass is commonly used in the Catholic Church, Western Rite Orthodoxy, Old Catholicism, and Independent Catholicism. The term is also used in some Lutheran churches, as well as in some Anglican churches, and on rare occasion by other Protestant churches.
The Mass of Paul VI, also known as the Ordinary Form or Novus Ordo, is the most commonly used liturgy in the Catholic Church. It was promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1969 and its liturgical books were published in 1970; those books were then revised in 1975, they were revised again by Pope John Paul II in 2000, and a third revision was published in 2002.
The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Traditional Rite, is the liturgy in the Roman Missal of the Catholic Church codified in 1570 and published thereafter with amendments up to 1962. Celebrated almost exclusively in Ecclesiastical Latin, it was the most widely used Eucharistic liturgy in the world from its issuance in 1570 until the introduction of the Mass of Paul VI.
"Dies irae" is a Latin sequence attributed to either Thomas of Celano of the Franciscans (1200–1265) or to Latino Malabranca Orsini, lector at the Dominican studium at Santa Sabina, the forerunner of the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome. The sequence dates from the 13th century at the latest, though it is possible that it is much older, with some sources ascribing its origin to St. Gregory the Great, Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153), or Bonaventure (1221–1274).
The Mass is a form of sacred musical composition that sets the invariable portions of the Christian Eucharistic liturgy, known as the Mass.
The Feast of Corpus Christi, also known as the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, is a Christian liturgical solemnity celebrating the Real Presence of the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus in the elements of the Eucharist; it is observed by the Latin Church, in addition to certain Western Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican churches. Two months earlier, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper is observed on Maundy Thursday in a sombre atmosphere leading to Good Friday. The liturgy on that day also commemorates Christ's washing of the disciples' feet, the institution of the priesthood, and the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Low Mass is a Tridentine Mass defined officially in the Code of Rubrics included in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal as a Mass in which the priest does not chant the parts that the rubrics assign to him. A sung Mass celebrated with the assistance of sacred ministers is a High or Solemn Mass; without them it is a Missa Cantata.
Church music is Christian music written for performance in church, or any musical setting of ecclesiastical liturgy, or music set to words expressing propositions of a sacred nature, such as a hymn.
Saint Thomas Aquinas Cathedral is the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Reno, Nevada, United States. It is located at 310 W. 2nd Street in Reno. It was built in 1908 as the rise in Reno's Catholic population warranted a larger church. The cathedral was nearly destroyed by a fire in 1909 and was restored the following year. The cathedral complex was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022.
Thomas Aquinas College is a private Catholic liberal arts college with its main campus in Ventura County, California. A second campus opened in Northfield, Massachusetts in 2018. Its education is based on the Great Books, and students are instructed via the seminar method. It is accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission.
Missa cantata is a form of Tridentine Mass defined officially in 1960 as a sung Mass celebrated without sacred ministers, i.e., deacon and subdeacon.
Solemn Mass is the full ceremonial form of a Mass, predominantly associated with the Tridentine Mass where it is celebrated by a priest with a deacon and a subdeacon, requiring most of the parts of the Mass to be sung, and the use of incense. It is also called High Mass or Solemn High Mass.
Annibale Bugnini was a Catholic prelate. Ordained in 1936 and named archbishop in 1972, he was secretary of the commission that worked on the reform of the Roman Rite that followed the Second Vatican Council. Remaining a controversial figure, both critics and proponents of the changes made to the Mass, the Liturgy of the hours and other liturgical practices before and after Vatican II consider him a dominant force in these efforts. He held several other posts in the Roman Curia and ended his career as papal nuncio to Iran, where he acted as an intermediary during the Iran hostage crisis of 1979 to 1981.
Inter pastoralis officii sollicitudines was a motu proprio issued 22 November 1903 by Pope Pius X that detailed regulations for the performance of music in the Roman Catholic Church. The title is taken from the opening phrase of the document. It begins: "Among the concernsof the pastoral office, ... a leading one is without question that of maintaining and promoting the decorum of the House of God in which the august mysteries of religion are celebrated...." The regulations pointed toward more traditional music and critiqued the turn toward modern, orchestral productions at Mass.
The Church Music Association of America (CMAA) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) association of Catholic church musicians and others who have a special interest in music and liturgy, active in advancing Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphony, and other forms of sacred music for liturgical use. Founded in 1964, it is affiliated with the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae (Roma), an advisory organization on sacred music founded by Pope Paul VI.
Contemporary Catholic liturgical music encompasses a comprehensive variety of styles of music for Catholic liturgy that grew both before and after the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. The dominant style in English-speaking Canada and the United States began as Gregorian chant and folk hymns, superseded after the 1970s by a folk-based musical genre, generally acoustic and often slow in tempo, but that has evolved into a broad contemporary range of styles reflective of certain aspects of age, culture, and language. There is a marked difference between this style and those that were both common and valued in Catholic churches before Vatican II.
A paraphrase mass is a musical setting of the Ordinary of the Mass that uses as its basis an elaborated version of a cantus firmus, typically chosen from plainsong or some other sacred source. It was a common means of mass composition from the late 15th century until the end of the 16th century, during the Renaissance period in music history, and was most frequently used by composers in the parts of western Europe which remained under the direct control of the Roman Catholic Church. It is distinguished from the other types of mass composition, including cyclic mass, parody, canon, soggetto cavato, free composition, and mixtures of these techniques.
Hans Ansgar Reinhold (1897–1968) was a Roman Catholic priest born in Hamburg, Germany. Reinhold took part in the Roman Catholic resistance to the Nazi regime until taking refuge in the United States. He was a prominent liturgical reformer whose work was influential in shaping the changes to the Mass made at the Second Vatican Council. Reinhold was also a prominent advocate for the introduction of modernist architectural ideas to the construction of Catholic churches in the United States.
Canonical digits, also referred to as liturgical digits, are a posture or bodily attitude of prayer used during the celebration of the rite of the Holy Mass. This gesture is performed by any Catholic priest after consecration and before ablutions, standing and joining his thumb and index finger in a circle, and holding the other fingers straight away from the palm.
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