Posted on 04/05/2010 4:09:27 PM PDT by Desdemona
After years of observing the Catholic music scene, particular as it affects the liturgical life of the Church, I think I can narrow down the most pressing problems of our time. The good news is that all five problem have answers that are readily at hand. For this reason, we all have cause for being extremely hopeful.
1. Musicians do not have a model, much less ideals, in mind. Catholic musicians are very sincere people who aspire to do research so that they can do their jobs well. They order book after book and read many official documents. And yet even after this, the music they sing in Mass seems like a big blur. They pick a Mass setting, some hymns, and slog their way through various small bits but otherwise have little understanding of the structure of what they are doing.
The best solution for these people is to break down all the things they sing during the course of a Mass and classify them as: ordinary, propers, and dialogues. They need to come to recognize that their hymns are substitutes for propers, that they need a stable and predictable model for dealing with dialogues, and that the ordinary of the Mass, which is changing, involves only a narrow set of music. Understanding this would go a long way toward stabilizing and eventually solemnizing the liturgy.
As a second step, musicians need to come to realize that in every case, there are ideal solutions to all these musical questions. That ideal is found in the chant tradition in general and the Roman Gradual in particular. Many musicians would be amazed to discover that they are singing nothing but substitutes for the music that the Church has given us long ago to sing at Mass! This understanding would be a major step in the right direction.
2. The music resources in the typical parish are nothing short of pathetic. Every weeks, I'm reminded of this when I attempt to sing a regular hymn and discover that the words in the missalette are different from the choral books from which the choir is singing. Sometimes whole verses are missing. The Psalms that mainstream Catholic publishers are pushing are a mere shadow of genuine Christian Psalm singing. The arrangements range from bad to ghastly, pointlessly changed from traditional arrangements only so that the music can be recopyrighted. The missalettes even leave out sequences and important chants for Holy Week. Believe me, this short summary only scratches the surface. The resources available today for Catholic musicians are a grave embarrassment. The worst nightmare of any Catholic musician is to have a Presbyterian or Episcopal friend visit the loft and see what we are using!
Here I can only praise the glories of digital media. On the internet, we can find all that we need to displace and replace the whole of this garbage cluttering up the pews and the loft. There are Psalms. There are free propers in English and Latin. There are free settings for the ordinary chants in English and Latin. There are tens of thousands of motets and other pieces. There are tutorials and sound files and more. It is all 100% freed. It is really incredible. Now, to be sure, you have to know something of what you are doing to make your way around the resources. We are all working together now to make all this material more accessible. The time will come. In any case, this is the source of our salvation.
3. The musical competence within the typical parish is shockingly low. Many parishes of 500 families have only a few people who know how to read music at all. Among them, very few are willing to commit to singing every week or volunteering to direct. As a result, many parishes lack even the personnel to begin a serious sacred music program.
I can't speak to how matters were before the great meltdown of the 1960s but it is fact, undeniable, that musical competence was depreciated after the Council. Many people came to believe, during the great folk movement, that competence was a bad thing that prevented people from creating art from the heart. You know the old story. Anyway, we are stuck with the results. The mass of Catholics can't find their way around a four-part hymn. Musical notation is Greek to them.
Fortunately, chant can be sung without formal training in musical notation. Often it is best sung by amateurs who care. Above all, sacred music requires a king of humility. People without training are more adept at humility simply because they have spirits that are more teachable. It's not that a lack of technical competence is a good thing, but I do think that Catholic music is not thereby shut off to them. In fact, to begin in ignorance is not necessarily a disaster. We can work around this and turn it to an advantage.
Another important element here: children's choirs. This must never be overlooked.
4. Catholics lack of a universal song. This problem shows up not just between countries but between parishes and even within parishes. The early morning Mass is traditional. The mid-morning Mass is adult contemporary. The evening Masses are divided between student populations. And so on. And none use the music you hear at any other Mass. It is the Tower of Babel. We are divided and fractured, and sometimes out of necessity to keep the peace.
But clearly this will not do for the long term. We need a universal Catholic song, and the answer here is clear: there is only one viable body of music to claim this mantle and that is chant. It is the music that can brings us all together. It is the music of the rite itself, and its style knows no demographic or period of time. It has lasted and lasted, as much as a thousand years with a tradition that stretches back perhaps three thousand years. It will be around long after we are all dead. By singing it, we are becoming part of something larger than our own generation. We help link the past with the future. It makes our musical efforts mean something. Then we can actually come together as a parish or even as Catholics from all nations and sing together.
5. The final problem involves orientation and I do not just mean the orientation of the altar, though that is a symptom. We need to make a decision here. Is Mass by and for the people or is Mass by and for God? There is a crucial difference here. If we are properly oriented to God, turning toward the Lord must be a pervasive action and activity not only of the celebrant but of everyone and everything. We become less demanding that our needs are met by happy clappy music. With a proper orientation, the people will demand music for prayer, and prayer will become our main need. This, after all, is what liturgy is all about: removing us from our mundane fixation on our earthly needs to prepare us for an eternal encounter. If all we do is demand more of what we can get outside of Church, we will never really find fulfillment in liturgy.
Perhaps this last point is the most serious of all, and there only way to address it is through pastoral leadership. We need people like Moses who will condemn our Golden Calfs made from our own possessions and lead us to higher goals. Once our orientation is right, the rest follows. We will find our voices, find our song, find the resources, and develop our knowledge and talents.
Thank-you, that would interest me. I can learn it, it will be done a little more careful and with effort to listen to the person(s) next to me.
I prefer the English version in the Episcopal hymnal. This is the translation of the "Tantum ergo". As I noted above, the Piskies' theology and politics are suspect, but their musical taste is impeccable.
"Therefore we, before him bending, this great Sacrament revere.
Types and shadows have their ending, for the newer Rite is here.
Faith our outward sense befriending, makes the inward vision clear.
Glory let us give and blessing, to the Father and the Son
Honor, thanks, and praise addressing, while eternal ages run,
Ever too his love confessing, who from both with both is One.
Amen."
But once you get into really singing liturgical music with the idea of being as good as you can possibly be, for God's honor and glory, then all this stuff becomes fascinating (well, o.k., at least to me it does).
The deeper you go into it, the richer and more entrancing it becomes. After all, the style has survived for hundreds and hundreds of years and will survive long after Haugen/Haas and the St. Looey Jebbies are nothing but a bad dream.
Our Episcopal choirmaster used to essay a spiritual every now and then, then he'd throw down his baton and look at us all with total disgust and say, "You all sound so . . . white!"
"Well - DUUUHHHHH!" we would all chorus back.
Since I'm Scotch-Irish to the bone, singing the "Sacred Harp" spiritual songs comes much more naturally.
Last Advent, during a carols and leasons presentation at my parish, the regular music minister taught the choir and I a beautiful song about the Blessed Mother.
The chant song is called “Felix Namque”, “Thou Art Glad Indeed”. First I remember the English words were spoken first, then the song was sung in beautiful Latin. I did the whole song in Latin, by lots of practice and listening to the next person.
I do believe that learning chant can be done.
This is a rather difficult chant tone.
This version of “If He Changed My Name” by Jeniffer Bynun Greene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNk57qEWiEU&feature=related
Beautiful and touching. :)
The Pange Lingua? We sang 17 verses this year. I guess since I've sung it for about 25 years in a row... It's not so much that chant is hard, it's about getting the right sound.
Part of the problem is that some of the chants don't translate well. It's generally the case that music fits best in the original language. And most singers will tell you that the roughest language to sing in after French is English. It's true. Latin is pretty easy IF you hear it all the time, which is a big issue. I'm a classically trained singer, so I can actually just ask which IPA sheet are we using (none of them are actually what we sing in church), but I am completely cognizant that this is more the exception than the rule.
Make that IPL sheet. I had rehearsal tonight.
The really depressing thing is that for the rest of our lives when we hear certain scripture readings some random ditty will float through our heads. Happened to me twice Saturday night.
*snort* By b-i-l, the priest, and I were discussing the changes coming down the pike in the Liturgy, and I mentioned that one thing I've just detested in the last 20 years or so is that the Scripture translations can be so pedestrian! I mentioned that I loved the sound of the language of the KJV.
For the last 25 years, I've enjoyed listening to "A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols" which is broadcast from Kings College Chapel in Cambridge, England, every Christmas Eve. The 'Lessons' are taken from the KJV, and they are just a joy to hear. So much so that during Advent, when I hear the Scripture readings from Isaiah, I zone the Lectionary out and hear the reading from the KJV in my mind; so much more lovely.
I favor the Douay-Rheims myself. The KJV has too many errors.
I’ve never read the Douay-Rheims. Might be nice if a Catholic group did a “Lessons and Carols” using that one. ;o)
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