Richard Morris Quotes

When the truth is that there would be no great Western music, and certainly no decent choral repertoire, without the Catholic faith.

Once the Mass is restored to its rightful place, we will again see choirs being developed.

Music had always been the handmaid of the Roman liturgy.

I listen to Bach a great deal. In general I like to listen to hymns and liturgical music.

Catholic liturgical music, it would seem, is everywhere but in the Catholic Church itself.

A lot of church music really inspired me. A lot of ancient music that's made for God. If you get really into the history of music, inevitably you're going to have to get into sacred religious music.

As for sacred polyphony, there is no reason to be afraid of it.

You can count on one hand the number of Novus Ordo churches in this country that feature a fully Catholic music program of any quality, consistent with the Roman rite tradition.

I find most 'sacred music' pretty dismal.

I come from the performance world, but the idea of a worship song is different. It's useful music.

All you hear Catholics turning out these days are pop versions of the old Protestant anthems.

My parents were in the local church choir, and I used to go along and sing and play the organ at all the weddings and christenings.

I was a choir boy my whole life.

I'm fortunate in that I've grown up in a worshipping tradition which is quite rich musically (and music is very important to me) and has a wonderful resource of hymns from all sorts of different parts of the Church... and to go to church and be able to sing that stuff and listen to a Bach motet or indeed some charismatic choruses.

An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and of sacred polyphony.

Never have so many recordings of the great Masses and motets been in wider circulation.

I sang in church choir all my life, through elementary school, junior high and high school.

I think the most exciting thing is that you expect people our age to know the music, but actually a lot of kids know the music, and if anything is left, we have left really good music, and that's the important part, not the mop-tops or whatever.

The Church knew what the psalmist knew: Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church and all its decoration; it is the Church's greatest ornament.

The most consistent musical experience I had growing up was church music.

The difference between me and the newer artists is that I have the history with the architects, the masters that started the music. I know where the music came from.

I feel that for years of teaching in the country and reading criticism in books, I feel like the things most needed in our culture are the understanding of the meanings of our music. We haven't done that good of job teaching our kids what our music means or how we developed our taste in music that reminds us and teaches us who we are.

I'd like to be remembered as a keeper of the flame who kept traditional music alive, because I've been doing that twice as long as I was in the Byrds.

I listen to a lot of medieval music.

There is no dogma that the organ or harmonium can be used in church, but not the drum.