From an editorial in the December 1937 issue of Caecilia:
LITURGICAL MUSIC IN THE UNITED STATES
There are approximately 32 dioceses maintaining liturgical church music commissions; regulations; or providing facilities for learning the principles of liturgical music at the present time. We know of the following and there may be others:
California — Los Angeles, San Francisco, Monterey,Fresno.
New Jersey — Newark.
Pennsylvania — Pittsburgh.
Missouri — St. Louis.
Illinois — Peoria, Iowa, Dubuque.
Wisconsin — Milwaukee, Green Bay, La Crosse.
Montana — Helena.
Louisiana — Lafayette, New Orleans.
Indiana — Indianapolis.
New York — Albany, Brooklyn, Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester.
West Virginia — Wheeling.
Minnesota — St. Paul, Crookston.
Ohio–Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus.
Iowa — Des Moines.
Mississippi — Natchez.
Washington — Seattle.
Montana — Great Falls.
Maine — Portland.
Kansas — Wichita.The above dioceses do not include those offering summer courses only. In each of
these 32 dioceses there is one Priest or layman whose assignment is the planning and supervision of liturgical music activities throughout the year.Yet of the 32 dioceses listed above not more than eight have really aggressive
church music commissions actually working out a comprehensive plan for the improvement of conditions (i.e. actually supervising conditions, and holding regular choirmasters meetings). A few years ago there were not eight such dioceses. Now at least progress is being made. If in the coming year 1938 out of the 32 listed above a few more join the aggressive list the march of progress will continue. If more dioceses join the above named 32, by at least recognizing that there is a permanent place in the administrative side of church work, for liturgical music the Motu Proprio of 1903 win become proportionately more closely observed.
Comment: it is frequently observed that Catholic liturgical music was in a sad state before the Second Vatican II, and so therefore it is quite unfair and unbalanced to contrast the current shabby situation with an idealized version of the past. Fair enough.
But there are two considerations: first, the direction of change (at least before World War II) indicated progress, and, second, the very definition of what constituted progress was not in dispute among competent people: it meant Gregorian chant and polyphonic music. This was the goal and there was no question about it. A diocesan commission dedicated to music would be dedicated to that ideal.
Today, the very creation of such a commission would cause a fight to break out. But in some ways, that too is progress, since thirty years ago there would have been no dispute about what such a commission would seek: the gutting of the treasury of sacred music and its replacement by what we know all too well. I have no doubt that the people working and writing for Caecilia in 1937 could not have imagined such a future. It would have been inconceivable.
In a similar way, very few people in 1980 who were working for a universal imposition of pop music in place of real liturgical music could imagine the growing movement for musica sacra today.
Times change and the status quo, whether good or bad, is always made vulnerable by the unknown future.
I'm of the opinion that more pop/folk-based Catholic musicians should know about what "pre-Vatican II" really means.
While some might continue to complain about the liberalization (I love that word in this context) of the "old Mass," it would be helpful for us (I'm one!) to understand that what is happening now in Sacred Music isn't really "pre-Vatican II" at all.
It is, at least:
1) Very much contemporary,
2) Very much in the spirit and word of Vatican II, and
3) like a hippie-Catholic song might say, "ever ancient, ever new."
One could argue (as I often do, and as I think the USCCB has) that popular/folk/contemporary styles have a place, but there is no way that someone with the ability to read could argue that it should have the pride of place that it currently does. Which was part of the point of the V2's SC! The people were already doing schlocky, schmaltzy, vernacular, devotional music- there needed to be no special document to swoop in and allow it.
Your fifth line, Jeffrey, has two states. Separate out "Dubuque," add it to the "Iowa-Des Moines" line, and you'll have 33 dioceses.
In my experience, diocesan commissions still find a gap between themselves and the parishes. It was probably more pronounced in an era where the parish was the center of Catholic life, and fewer people had a recognition of the diocese as something more than a bishop.
That said, this is a helpful piece, but not a convincing one. That parishes ran on the priorities of the pastor leads me to think that three factors were likely stronger than diocesan commissions, at least in the US:
First, we've all experienced or known people fired at the whim of a new pastor. Before Vatican II is was certainly at least as strong a factor as it is today. A new priest could arrive, fire the music director/organist, and the parish would enter the dark ages.
Second, as a source of musically educated professionals, women religious were leaving orders, and with many of them, a basic training in sacred music.
And let's not discount the huge growth in suburban parishes after WWII. Urban parishes were no doubt feeling the pinch, and many faith communities with fine music programs were simply not transferring to the outlying communities that often put their resources into a school rather than a church building.
There was less a malevolence toward chant and polyphony than a dislike for its perception as too slow and boring. People simply prefer metrical music sung at tempo than plainsong and old hymns played poorly. Well-performed music will always win out over what is weakly done.
The other thing to keep in mind is that contemporary church music was relegated to the ghetto Mass well into the 80's. There was no takeover, just a gradual replacement of some organ hymnody with contemporary music. I was active on a diocesan music commission in the 80's, so I have a good feel for the lay of the land on one of those dioceses you've listed above.
Speaking about "contemporary" music should be refined. There is quite a difference between James MacMillan and Marty Haugen liturgical compositions, the former being of the art-music type, the latter of pop-music, yet both are "contemporary". As everyone no doubt knows the pop-music paradigm was favoured after V2 under the banner of "inculturation" so as to foster an "active participation". The type of music that most people were familiar with was implanted all around the world; that did not make the person who was not part of that "most people" very welcome, of course.
I suspect the art vs. pop music, or generally elitist vs. egalitarian perspective was not much of an issue in 1937. It fomented only after the war, and finally given a clear, although ideological, direction after V2, and Gregorian chant is generally considered to be art-music.
I think an interesting parallel are Disney films. The earlier films very much used art-music if for no other reason than to teach kids the higher forms of music; Fantasia (1940) is a good example. The later films , especially after the death of Walter, gradually adopted the pop paradigm that Disney films have today.
"As everyone no doubt knows the pop-music paradigm was favoured after V2 under the banner of 'inculturation' so as to foster an 'active participation'"
I don't think this was true, at least not in North America. I'd be cautious about trying to boil down the past forty-five years of music so casually.
I think the reformed liturgy put demands on producing a quick vernacular repertoire, almost all of which was quickly retired within a decade. After that, you have the St Louis Jesuits and others producing a much higher quality body that had many advantages over pre-conciliar Low Mass hymnody: it was based on Scripture and the liturgy, and it often avoided saccharine excesses.
The focus in the 80's and 90's was to continue to produce better music that was singable and accessible. I would agree with my colleague Jeffrey that the market-driven aspect of this is unfortunate. On the other hand, never in Catholic history have music directors had such a quantity of good music to draw upon. Problem is that you have to work harder to find it.
Also, I think the tussles between classical and folk go back to the early 19th century in the US. Our Protestant brothers and sisters tossed out the tradition of white spirituals begun in the colonial era and substituted European pretensions instead. We have a certain tradition in hymn texts, for example. But 1800's churches set Watts and Wesley to European composers instead of Billings, Ingalls, and others. Only Appalachia and the Blacks of the deep south remained true to authentic American music.
Lastly, chant wasn't even on the page in the organ vs guitar tussles of the 70's and 80's. It was organ hymnody, sometimes exclusively, set up as the ideal. The old Low Mass, only with better texts and tunes. Check out Worship, first edition, for a look.
"What happened after the Council was totally different: in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We left the living process of growth and development to enter the realm of fabrication. There was no longer a desire to continue developing and maturing, as the centuries passed and so this was replaced – as if it were a technical production – with a construction, a banal on-the-spot product." – Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger,"The Mass Reduced to a Show"
I wonder if the mainstream postconciliar liturgy in the US was immune to the criticism of Cardinal Ratzinger.
Cardinal Ratzinger's cynical and pessimistic assessment doesn't hold for what I see in Catholic liturgy. Mainstream postconciliar liturgy in the US had its struggles, to be sure, but liturgy and music both grew in hewing closer to Scripture, and in a deeper appreication for tradition.
Todd, the Mass is not intended to be a Bible study, central to the Mass is the sacrifice of Calvary, not an academic undertaking of Scripture. Scripture was never more "closely hewn" with the Mass as it was given to us divinely by God, through Christ and then, the Church Fathers. The prescribed Propers are taken exclusively from Scripture and Sacred Writings. Scripture has a more central role in the Canonical hours than the Mass.
Erik, quite right that Biblical formation is not part of the Mass. I never said anything about it being so.
As for your understanding of the essence of Mass, there's more than Calvary–it's the whole of the Paschal Mystery. And your understanding of the role of Scripture is not in keeping with either the modern understand of the Mass (see the commentaries on the 20008 Synod of the Word, not to mention Verbum Dei) but also the understanding of both the Eastern and Western Fathers.
Just out of curiosity, what exactly was it did you think I wrote in the post immediately above yours?
What Todd claims differs from my conversations with first-hand witnesses in the various small parishes of New England: Although there had been attempts to have the faithful sing the Gregorian Ordinaries by the time of V2, there was an all out effort to have the faithful sing everything in the vernacular right after the council. From around 1965 to 1970 there were fairly traditional English hymns and even some English translations of Gregorian pieces being sung. It is after this, by the mid 1970's, that organs were being thrown out of the churches and choirs suppressed to be replaced by bands leading the singing with the new pop-style (or folksy stuff that was also popular then) compositions that were becoming readily available. Glory and Praise became the stable and easily sung to chord strumming guitars. It goes without saying that this last practice still continues to be fairly widesperead in suburban parishes today.
Also: "On the other hand, never in Catholic history have music directors had such a quantity of good music to draw upon." Your perception of "good music" begs the question. Compare any popular Catholic hymnal of today to the Episcopal 1982 Hymnal or the New English hymnal, or perhaps even a recent mainline English Protestant hymnal. English speaking Catholics still have a long way to go in producing hymnals with good music.
"It goes without saying that this last practice still continues to be fairly widesperead in suburban parishes today."
Glory and Praise jumped the shark decades ago. I have more organists in my parish than guitarists. It's close there, but keyboard people significantly outnumber guitarists these days.
I think we all have our own subjective perspectives: what we remember, what we experienced, and what other people tell us. I recall guitar groups still in liturgical ghettos in upstate New York in the 80's. With only two parishes with full-time liturgists there was little chance I was going to get one of those jobs, so I left.
And yes, given the huge quantity of any music, the good, if not great, music is fairly common. I've sung the Episcopal 1982 Hymnal. For the US, not enough American music, and even more German/central European tunes than British Isles.
So yes, I'd agree there's a lot of room for growth in most parishes. My sense is that new pastors either bottom out of hike up a music program in a lot of parishes, and the overall balance these days is a gradual uptick.