GASTONIA — As vice provost and chief communications officer at Belmont Abbey College, Rolando Rivas has spent much of 2020 dealing with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic at his place of business, but the pandemic has also inspired a reflective tone in his personal music writing as well. This past year has challenged everyone, but combine that year with the loss of a father, the near loss of a mother, and some personal health concerns and there’s a recipe for inspiration.
Rivas just released his latest album, “Bountiful,” in which he looks back on the past year and a half and invites listeners to see the blessings God continues to bestow.
“Despite all the challenges, despite the loss, let us keep our eyes fixed on the Lord, and let us realize that yes we are still blessed, and our lives are truly bountiful,” Rivas says.
The new album is comprised of 14 songs that cascade through this year and last year – the year Rivas’ father passed away and his mother moved in with his family in Gastonia.
“Last year seems eons ago and yet is still fresh in my mind. Dad passed somewhat unexpectedly, and Mom had just recovered from a seeming deathly spiral, and alone at home, with my family traveling back and forth from Texas to help my parents I was often there with my guitar, and songs would just come.”
The pandemic also provided an inspiration. Like everyone else, Rivas found himself locked indoors – again with a guitar available – and the daily difficulties inspired new songs.
“These songs would literally show up out of nowhere, a phrase here, a melody there, and then suddenly a complete song,” Rivas reflects.
Four of the songs, “His Presence,” “You Alone (There is Nothing I Shall Fear),” “Nothing Has Changed,” and “I Will Hope in the Lord,” all directly respond to our times. “I kept wanting to remind people that while we might feel stuck, we might feel alone, we might feel desperate, God still has us, God is still with us, and yes nothing has changed, because Jesus still died for us and we still have our salvation in Him.”
Rivas also pays tribute to his parents love in “The Sacrifice of Love” and “God Will Wipe Every Tear Away.”
When his father died in August 2019, Rivas felt a strong sense of having to let him know how much he had meant to him. A song seemed the best way to pay tribute to him. “They both sacrificed for us, love is that – a sacrifice – and they gave our family that sacrifice day in and day out, with their love for each other and every sacrifice they made to keep our family happy, and loved.”
Later in 2019, his mother moved in with his family. “I wanted to give Mom that gift of a new home with her grandkids, and we’ve loved having her with us.”
“Bountiful” was released Dec. 1, and is available for streaming or purchase on iTunes Music, Spotify, Amazon (a delivered CD option), YouTube Music, Pandora, iHeart Radio, Napster and many more online stores.
“Bountiful” is Rivas’ third album. He released his first, no longer in print, in 2008. His second album, “My Cup Runneth Over,” was released in 2018 and is also available on iTunes Music and Spotify. That album reflects on his two daughters leaving to pursue vocations at two different monasteries in Pennsylvania and Alabama, as well as has songs for each of his children and his wife.
Rivas began composing music out of necessity since borrowing a guitar from a high school friend in 1984 and has tinkered with music since.
“I didn’t find my muse until I turned to God for inspiration, He brings the songs now, I just play them,” he says. “If there’s anything good in my music it’s because of Him. I truly believe He wants these songs heard. Why else would He give them to me, such an average musician – there’s no doubt it’s all Him!”
The music associated with the Christmas season has always maintained a special place in the Catholic Church and in the hearts of the faithful. There are many beloved sacred music works linked to this season, from G.F. Handel’s “Messiah” and Arcangelo Corelli’s “Christmas Concerto” to J.S. Bach’s “Christmas Oratorio.” One sacred Christmas Vespers text, however, seems to have captured the imagination of composers through the centuries more than any other: “O Magnum Mysterium.”
I was recently reminded of the beauty of this text prior to a Mass at St. Bartholomew Church in Sharpsville, Pa., when their phenomenal and holy priest, Father Matthew J. Strickenberger, was playing the work. As the title “O Great Mystery” suggests, the text describes the great mystery of the Nativity of Our Lord, lying in a manger with animals looking on, and closing with a reference to Our Blessed Lady whose virgin womb bore the Christ Child. While joyful, it is a reserved wonder and almost every composer – regardless of the century in which they lived – has set these words to music that illustrates the mysterious and sacred event.
The most famous is undoubtedly the motet by Tomás Luis de Victoria, a native of Ávila, Spain. His “O Magnum Mysterium,” written in 1572, dates from his employment in Rome as a Church musician. Three years later in the Eternal City, he was ordained a priest. In Victoria’s work, the listener is drawn into the significance of the role of Our Lady by the manner in which he sets “O beata Virgo” (“O blessed Virgin”). The phrase is preceded by two beats of silence immediately prior to enhance the syllabic text setting in homorhythmic texture, meaning there is one note per syllable with the voices sounding the words synchronously. These elements contribute to the textual clarity, to signify the importance of our Blessed Mother.
An example of a contemporary setting is by Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Dr. Jennifer Higdon. As the composer explained, her setting of “O Magnum Mysterium” resulted from her desire “to create a bit of mystery, which is why wine glasses are a part of the piece.” Like Victoria’s composition, the work is scored for a chorus of soprano, alto, tenor and bass voices, but with texts in both Latin and English complemented by two flutes, chimes and two crystal glasses. The contemporary harmonies are quite different than the Renaissance counterpoint of Victoria, yet the work maintains the beauteous, mysterious nature of the text. A superior recording of the work can be found on the 2005 album “All Is Bright” by the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus.
Father Christopher Bond, pastor of St. Lucien Parish in Spruce Pine and St. Bernadette Mission in Linville, reflects on the text of “O Magnum Mysterium”:
“I find within ‘O Magnum Mysterium’ (in its various haunting arrangements) an extremely simple approach to the birth of Our Lord. So often, we get caught up in the anxieties of Christmas preparations that we fail to slow down to the point of mere marvel that God would humble Himself to enter our world, take on human flesh, and redeem the human person through the blood of the cross. If lowly animals can put their worries on hold and stop to ponder the glorious mystery of the Incarnation, why can’t we?”
As the faithful prepare to celebrate the Christmas season in a simpler way this year, the numerous settings of “O Magnum Mysterium” – in particular, the Victoria and Higdon compositions – can foster quiet devotion in pondering the stillness combined with wonder that defined the very first Christmas.
— Christina L. Reitz, Ph.D., Special to the Catholic News Herald. Christina L. Reitz, Ph.D., is professor of music at Western Carolina University in Cullowhee.
Listen to Tomás Luis de Victoria’s musical setting of “O magnum mysterium” performed by the Cambridge Singers:
‘O magnum mysterium’
O magnum mysterium,
et admirabile sacramentum,
ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,
iacentem in praesepio.
O beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt
portare Dominum Iesum Christum. Alleluia.
O great mystery,
and wonderful sacrament,
that beasts should see the newborn Lord,
lying in a manger.
O Blessed Virgin, in whose unblemished womb
was carried the Lord Jesus Christ. Alleluia!