Posted on 05/03/2005 7:06:40 AM PDT by ninenot
Interesting observations, and now you've made me learn some things.
The RC regs on liturgical music have been deliberately confused by a bunch of wonk/termites (I'll not go into the rest of their personal, ah, problems) since VatII; but if one goes back to Pius X's writings on the topic, one gets a better sense of what prevailed from at least (circa) 1500-1965. B-16's writings are closely aligned to the work of Pius X.
Prior to VatII, there was a distinction between the 'High' (sung) Mass and the 'Low' (spoken) Mass--that no longer exists as it was known.
During the Low Mass, there was almost no singing, although there could be a hymn prior to (and after) the Mass. In the High Mass, the Proper Chants were sung, as were parts of the Ordinary of the Mass. The Propers were most often sung in Gregorian Chant OR in psalm-tone, and like the music Agrarian refers to, the Propers had a thematic unity with the rest of the readings of the Mass. In shorthand, it was 'tightly wound.'
However, in addition to the Ordinary and Propers, the choir could also sing voluntary motets which were not necessarily thematically-consistent with the Propers/Epistle/Gospel. Some of the motets utilized texts from Scripture; others used particular prayers (e.g., an Ave Maria or Panis Angelicus, respectively.)
Hymnody was restricted to popular devotions--not Masses. NO language other than Latin was permitted during the course of a Mass. The vulgar was allowed before or after a Mass ONLY.
The Bugnini/Weakland implementing commission made two significant changes: they erased the difference between the 'High' and 'Low' Mass, and allowed hymnody to be used during Mass, in the vulgar. IMHO, these changes must be examined carefully in light of B-16's work on Sacred Music (a glimpse of which can be inferred from the posted thread-head.)
Allowing hymnody has led to an even LESS 'tightly wound' schematic of worship than was present until 1965. The vast majority of hymns familiar to Catholics were not necessarily based on themes integral to various liturgies--rather, they were seasonal, Marian, or Eucharistic. These three classes, then, HAD to serve. Ironically, while allowing 'popular participation' the richness of each Sunday's theme-scheme was truncated, because current praxis does NOT require the priest (or anyone else) to sing or even recite the Propers--the Introit, Offertory, and Communion versicles. And because it is not required, it is not done, period.
So we have 'given a haircut' to the Mass; where the hair used to be specific and ornamental, it is now a military 'butch.' The best the iconoclasts can say is that 'there is still some hair there.'
Without extensive comment, the remaining hair has also taken on some characteristics which are unsettling--the equivalent of very bad purple or red-dye jobs...
I think that there is much to be said which is positive about the post-1500 well-composed Mass Ordinaries and voluntary motets. It is legitimate to argue that many of these demonstrate the Church's "universality," as a variety of cultural influences were 'baptized' into the service of the Church (for example, Durufle's 4 Motets, compared to Mozart's 'Ave Verum.') But as Ag. points out very well, the situation today is almost 'no bounds;' and it is confusing.
Des, you can get a 4-CD package which includes different kinds of RC Chant (Archiv 435-032-2)--Ambrosian, Mozarabic, Gregorian are included.
There are also recordings of G.O. and Russ.O. chants out there, although I don't have any...
I'm away from my home computer, but will make some comments by way of describing how Orthodox chant works.
First, there is no high/low distinction in Orthodoxy. One either does the Liturgy or one doesn't. It is always sung/chanted (the terms are interchangable -- I prefer "chant", since it is a term that can't be used for inappropriate forms of music. One can hardly say that a choir "chants" a florid Italianate Russian setting of the Cherubic Hymn.
The position of the reader/psaltis/canonarch/chanter is still a very important one in Orthodoxy -- in the Greek practice in particular, there is a strong tradition of having one or two men who chant the responses, either leading the congregation, which joins in on the fixed and familiar parts, or doing it without congregational participation on the variable material.
The bottom line is that one doesn't need a trained choir to do sung services, although it certainly adds "polish" to the services. Timothy (Bp. Kallistos) Ware has a beautiful passage in "The Orthodox Church" that describes the reaction of an Englishman to attending a service in a little room in London where a priest, a deacon, and a solo chanter did a service by themselves that took his breath away.
My next comment is that older monophonic forms of chant, Western or Eastern, can easily be chanted well by one or two chanters, or by a trained choir. Once Catholic music made the turn into polyphony, it became the province of trained and even professional singers. There are parts of our services that should be sung by the trained singer(s) on kliros, and the Russians adopted some pretty florid stuff that requires a top-notch choir and isn't material on which it is easy for people to sing along. But in general, traditional chant forms in the Orthodox Church are actually fairly easily learned by the congregation over time with repetition. I would assume that the same is true of basic traditional Western monophonic chant.
As a side-note, when I browse through modern Catholic missals, the songs I encounter are just plain hard to sing. They use odd intervals, odd syncopations, etc... They look simple on the page, but I can only imagine what they sound like with a congregation trying to sing them. By contrast, we have chant melodies that look tough on the page, but in practice they are easily memorized and applied to text by people sight-reading material. Again, there has got to be traditional stuff in the ancient Catholic tradition that would do the same thing.
The other very important point that I touched on earlier is that the currently used Orthodox liturgical tradition that has done such a tremendous job of teaching and preserving the faith is not just our Divine Liturgy. Most parishes do Vespers on Saturday evening or Matins on Sunday morning, and many (like mine and Kolokotronis's) have both. There is a lot of fixed and variable material in these services. All has been "scrubbed" over centuries of use for beauty and doctrinal purity. The Orthodox parish norm is actually the monastic cycle. In practice, the entire cycle isn't done, and there are some abbreviations, particularly at Vespers and Matins, in many parishes. But the standard toward which we all look is the full monastic daily cycle.
Catholic parish practice has mostly devolved over the centuries to a single service. It is why so much damage was able to be done just by reworking that one service in the NO. Part of this is the result of having services that were not in the vernacular. But again, these services and hymnology very much exist in the Western tradition -- why aren't they being used? There are multiple traditional "canons" of the mass in the Western (and Eastern, for that matter) tradition. Why weren't those used if they wanted variety, instead of these newly composed things? There are countless pieces of patristic hymnology that are there, most of them translated into English. Why weren't they pressed into use. I guess I just don't understand...
Would you feel better if I told you that it's NOT cynical to think in terms of "follow the money..."?
"Would you feel better if I told you that it's NOT cynical to think in terms of "follow the money..."?"
The simple grandson of simple Greek peasants is confused.
With regards the virtual suppression of 'patristic hymns' and the promotion of 'new hymns,' (not to mention 'new psalm-tones, new Ordinary settings, etc. ad nauseam,) a few observations from a practitioner...
In 1965, THE gold-standard hymnal was "Our Parish Plays and Sings," published by The Liturgical Press c/right 1959. It had about 90 hymns, plus several Chant ordinaries, psalm-tones, and other miscellaneous pieces of music.
It no longer exists, despite its utility.
By 1970, with the readings-cycle now increased to 300% of the prior Rite, "hymnals" became almost useless and were replaced by fascicles--missalettes--which contained the readings and hymns, as well.
There were a few trends, in addition. "New" music had to be created, because through vote-manipulation the Bishops' Subcommittee on Music had licensed folk/folk-rock/"guitar" music. Weakland of Milwaukee was a principal engineer of this fraud, which actually did NOT have any legal force.
Regardless, "new music" was created and sold. If that music utilized the new English translations, the royalties HAD TO GO TO ICEL, the sole body responsible for the English translation.
As a result, only a couple of publishers were quick enough on their feet to make the transition to a "fascicle" house--and they printed the "new music" (think St. Louis Jesuit crap) as part of the missalette. Other hymnbook publishers died on the vine, unless they had significant libraries of "other music" they could sell.
The zeitgeist also had negative effects on parish choirs and organists (who needs them? Bongo-groups are cheaper and just fine...), AND by the 1980's, the capital cost of the new publishing technologies was extremely burdensome.
More publishers died, or were purchased. Coca Cola actually owned the library of at least two major RC music publishers by 1985.
Real hymnody (such as that found in the older English and German books from the 1700's/1800's, is not being written, with few exceptions.
So: the publishers which had actual artistic standards are virtually all gone. What remains are those which were able to pay ICEL's demands and purchase/print "new" music, pushed very hard by the powers-that-be (Weakland) during the 1970's.
The same 90 or so "old hymns" are in most hymnals and fascicles--along with another 90 or so pieces of "new" garbage. The garbage is pushed by the now-graying but still influential revolutionaries--ironically, the "old hymns" are the ones which are actually sung by people in the pews.
The money went to ICEL and to certain authors who were NOT compensated for the quality of their offerings. The money did NOT go to those who published artistically-sound materials for choirs (few were there) or organists with artistic training (even fewer of these are around.)
Follow the money and you'll find the dreck.
Oh!:(
Now one more question. Why did the people and the priests put up with it? I'm telling you, we'd lynch any priest who tried this and topple any bishop, metropolitan or even Patriarch. BTW, did you read where it seems the Patriarch of Jerusalem, an arch scoundrel if ever there was one, may well have been toppled himself by his brother bishops and the archmandrites out there? That's how we often deal with hierarchial dogs.
" He went on to say more - perhaps it is quite familiar to you, but it is new to me, and maybe I'll type it up for you tonight."
Please do!
According to Thomas Day in "Why Catholics Can't Sing," this was not so much a revolution as an outworking of something that was already pretty badly broken. Day says that the Irish ran the show in American Catholicism (largely true) and they they were brought up with a certain suspicion of very elaborate church music because they associated it with Anglicanism during the penal years in Ireland. (When Anglicans had big stone churches with bells, pipe organs, and choirs, and Catholics met for Mass around large rocks in open fields.) Day's point is that, with rare exceptions (often involving German or Italian prelates or congregations), music in the American Catholic Church has never been especially dignified or noteworthy.
You also have to remember that the Tridentine Mass was not really a participatory experience for the laity -- it was a dialogue between the priest and the server (Low Mass) or between the priest and the choir (High Mass). Oddly enough, we've now come full circle, because most Catholic parishes have an overmiked cantor or two who do most of the singing; the people in the pews just sit there. When my previous parish went from more traditional fare to a tinkly piano player and bad contemporary hymnody, many of the people stopped singing. (Some of them, like me, just left another parish.)
Anyway, because of the non-participatory nature of things, people "put up with it" because it wasn't something they were really involved in in the first place.
Not all parishes use the missalettes exclusively. Parishes with good music use the Adoremus hymnal, or the Collegeville hymnal, or another one ... St. Michael (?).
Then there's the baleful influence of Oregon Catholic Press ... purveyor of the worst of the worst ...
You know, now that you mention it, I don't remember anybody except the choir singing at High Masses in the Pre-Vatican II days. But that Gregorian Chant was good stuff. A few years back I was at a devotion, not a Liturgy, at church when just the priest (an Archmandrite and a convert from Roman Catholicism), a couple of other fellows and I were there. I acted as psaltis that night and at a point when we were to chant the Kyrie, I did it in the Gregorian chant of the old High Mass. The archmandrite stuck his head out of the Royal Doors with a big smile on his face!
The whole idea that people need to be following along and participating with every single word in order to be praying is a pernicious one. I can tell you that while we have liturgy books available to the congregation (although we've changed to some different translations, so they mostly go unused now), the only parts where there is and ever was genuine participation (and the participation is great on those parts) are the things people learn by heart over time -- things that are unchanging (I think you call these the "ordinary." I am NOT an anti-congregational singing person (there are some of those in the Orthodox Church, and I confess to formerly being one of them. It is just that when people are flipping through books, they generally aren't listening and praying.)
The ideal service is one where there are fixed portions that people know by heart and sing along on to traditional chant melodies, and variable material done by a trained chanter or choir, to whom the congregation listens attentively without flipping through a book.
Having seen the wretched stuff put out by the cabal out in Oregon, and seen the hundreds of copies of material sold to each parish each year of their material -- I quite believe that there is a significant "follow the money" component at work here.
But really, maybe I'm being too simplistic, but an enterprising choir director/chanter and a cooperative priest could put together beautiful services in English and save the congregation a lot of money in the process. The priest would need to be willing to be educated, and be willing to educate the parish.
Most musically educated Orthodox choir directors in the Slavic tradition, anyway, own music-notation software and produce and share their work for nothing with each other. We aren't composing new melodies and certainly aren't composing new text (that is only done if there is a new saint or something). We are applying and adapting traditional chant melodies to English translations of the liturgical texts that have been in use in Greek and Slavonic forever. Then, it's sharing photocopies of photocopies of photocopies....although in the modern era, everything is going to pdfs.
We purchase very little material, other than the original sets of service books, which last forever. The Greek Archdiocese is different -- they produce a book every year for Matins/Orthros that is disposable (text only -- any psaltis will know all the melodies by heart.) But each parish only needs to buy one copy each year for use on kliros!
I guess what I'm saying is that from my simplistic Orthodox perspective, it seems to me that you are never going to go back to the Latin mass and the 1959 hymnal that you talk about. But what you could do that would be truly revolutionary (and in line with what B16 seems to believe), would be to model the way you do liturgics on how we Orthodox do it -- but having all of your source material be from the liturgical history of the Western church. You would be the true progressives, unlike those boring, graying hippies...
Think big! Be radical!
It is interesting what you say about the "overmiked cantors" today. I didn't know about that. Mikes are evil. If a church is too big for a solo cantor's voice to carry well, then you need a group of cantors/choir to carry it. What do you think the Greeks did in the Hagia Sophia?
And my other question would be to ask why people don't eventually follow along and sing with the cantor. My guess: there is such constant changing of text, music and melodies that no one has a chance to learn anything by heart? A related guess: the melodies simply aren't memorable or user-friendly?
Both things are death on congregational singing, and are *not* traditional practices by Orthodox lights, anyway.
I understand that things were "already pretty badly broken": B16's writings indicate that he was a reformer in the Vat II days for considered and valid reasons. But I just don't see that the choice has to be between the current state of affairs in Catholic music and the old days of non-congregational participation in either its high or low mass manifestation.
Campion's post adequately covers most of it.
When you stop to think of it, though, there's another problem, which has to do with the USA--genuine art-music is simply not produced here, and has not been for (arguably) 40+ years. Bernstein did some, Copland did some--it's very hard to come up with others.
Creators of art (strictly speaking) are waning, and have been waning, in this country and Western Europe, since the 1920's. There are a few in England, largely unknown here, and there may well be a few in the USA--who are also largely unknown.
Mel Gibson made a great work of art. Name another, in any field, since 1990...
The Irish influence never got much traction here in German/Polish Milwaukee, but "church music" is dead here, too, with a few exceptions. I think that most pastors simply did not have an interest, and certainly many of them were confused by the "spirit of the Council"--and our Archbishop was not particularly helpful.
I think Day was close--but not really correct. I think that the reason the music died was that by and large, pastors and parishioners just didn't give a damn.
As to why we didn't string up the Bishops...same reason. From the way you gentlemen Kolo/Ag have described your communities, there is a vastly more "communal" feel than that present in the RC parishes in worship, specifically. We all have the fish-fries, and socializing--but it's my impression that the RC's are much more "private" regarding worship. Regardless of the hand-holding, "greeters," and all that--
So those who objected were looked at as rather odd folks--and were definitely ostracized and marginalized by the Revolutionaries. They were ignored, or metaphorically murdered, by the Establishment and its well-orchestrated Zeitgeist.
Besides, we've been told that it is a grave sin to slap the s*&^ out of a priest.
Are you old enough to drink yet?
My formal church-organist training began in 1962, when I was 14.
Dear ninenot,
As long as we're recollecting here, the two earliest hymns I remember are still my two favorites, "A Mighty Fortress is our God, [I know, I know - Luther! Luther! But I can't help it.]" and "Now Thank We All our God."
sitetest
"From the way you gentlemen Kolo/Ag have described your communities, there is a vastly more "communal" feel than that present in the RC parishes in worship, specifically. We all have the fish-fries, and socializing--but it's my impression that the RC's are much more "private" regarding worship. Regardless of the hand-holding, "greeters," and all that--"
One of the Truths which Orthodoxy stresses is the concept of the Eucharistic and Liturgical Community. We work out our theosis, at least the vast run of us, in these Liturgical communities. There is a sort of Christian communalism in Orthodox Churches which mirrors that of the villages back in the old country. To tell the truth, though, I think that the communalism of the villages is a result of the Orthodoxy of those places and not the other way around as I have experienced the same feeling in parishes made up totally of converts. Perhaps that's why we are so serious about preserving our Liturgies etc.; we're just more connected to them as communities than the equivalent Roman parish might be. Its also possible that the "spectator" quality of the role played by the laity for centuries in the West contributed to this,
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