Everyone knows that there are musical choices to be made within the ordinary form of the Roman Rite. You can do the normative thing, you can do a substitute for the normative thing, you can do a translation of the substitute of the normative thing, or…you can do something else deemed appropriate.
Who is to decide what is appropriate? Well, there some degree of fighting about this in every parish environment. Every parishioner with a voice has a view about what is appropriate. Sometimes the pastor prevails. Sometimes the music director or pianist prevails. Most of the time, the process of deciding works a lot like democracy: the most well-organized pressure groups prevail. Needless to say, this is not a good framework for the fulfilment of liturgical ideals.
The U.S. Bishops have added what is considered a reliable guide: a three-fold judgement. The music must meet the criteria of being good music, pastoral music, and liturgical music. This famous test was heavily emphasized in the now-defunct document called Music in Catholic Worship; it is much downplayed in its replacement document Sing To the Lord. In any case, I’ve never really been convinced that this three-fold judgement puts much in the way of limits on anything, since all three of criteria can be easily rationalized by whomever is selecting the music in question.
The provision that the music must be “pastoral,” while not technically prejudicing the choice against Gregorian chant, seems to indicate, in American parlance, something that meets the community’s immediate need for some kind of gratification. It doesn’t have to mean that kind of prejudice but the hint is embedded in the long use of the word “pastoral” in the American context. This test, moreover, puts excessive focus on the people who are present at the liturgy without regard to the millions of people who have been driven from the Catholic faith by bad music. What about the pastoral needs of those who have been long alienated by others’ choices of what constitutes an appropriate substitute for the normative ideal?
In any case, one aspect of the process of picking music for the ordinary form is interesting. It leads to a relentless trial and error of various musical approaches, which in turn allows us to compare the merits of many approaches. In this process, I’ve strengthen my own conviction that Gregorian chant (yes, in Latin) is the ideal. Actually of course it is not my conviction but rather the conviction of the Church, which is why it has been legislated at the right music for liturgy in every bit of Papal legislation on record. I only mean that I’ve experienced the wisdom of this teaching in real time through many different attempts to discover some suitable substitute.
In the ordinary form, every music director who has worked for some years ends up trying many different approaches. The usual approach to the entrance for example, prevailing in probably 95% of parish environments, is to sing a hymn in English. The hymn can be a traditional classic, a traditional contemporary (thinking 1970s here), or a praise and worship chorus designed to give the Mass a blasting start that gets everyone into some sort of frenzy. Whatever style you choose, the hymn is the conventional choice, even though it has never been the first choice in the whole of Catholic history. .
The trouble here is that the hymn follows a four-square beat that is not all that different from that offered by the secular world. It has a singable tune. It has a certain familiarity that enables people to sing along with it. There might not seem to be anything objectionable about any of this until you consider the rarefied environment offered by liturgy and liturgy alone. This is not just a time for the community to gather and not just a time to study the Bible and pray together. The liturgy makes dramatic and mystical claims in its forms and language and actions; it seeks the suspension of time and an intimate contact of God and the human soul.
Doesn’t it makes sense that the music should strongly signal the reality of liturgy at the entrance, and the entrance more than any other point in the Mass? This is when the general comportment of the Mass is established. It is the time when people prepare for a long prayer. It is the period when everyone needs to be reminded that this is a special place and a special time, not just for joining or gathering or socializing but for the extraordinary act of liturgy. And yes that might mean just a shade of discomfort, something that picks us up out of the world we’ve been living in all week and plants us in a new place so that we can prepare for the mysteries that will unfold before us.
At the very least, then, the text we sing ought not to be some text composed by someone else but rather than appointed text for the entrance at Mass. Is that really too much to ask, too much to ask that the choir sing the actual text of the Mass called the entrance antiphon? It strikes me that Laszlo Dobszay is correct that single weakest part of the rubrics of the ordinary form is that it permits replacing this text with some other text that could, conceivably, be made up right there on the spot.
Once we have the priority of the propers straight in our heads, there are many other options still, all of them better than a hymn. We could sing the Gregorian melodies to an English text. We could sing the English text with a new chant-like melody. We could sing a polyphonic piece with the English text. We could sing the Latin text with a Psalm tone. We could sing the English text with a Psalm tone. There are editions out there of all of these choices, and all of them have their merits.
Our own schola does not always have time to work up the Gregorian chant for the entrance, so these other options are highly useful for us. And yet when we do have time to sing the real chant that belongs to the Mass of the time, it really strikes me: this is what is perfect. It conveys the right message, has the right sound, make for the perfectly dignified entrance, suggests stillness but upward motion into another realm, and instills a quiet sense of prayer. It is quite something, and doesn’t really have a full explanation. I don’t mean just one introit in particular but rather all of them, each one carefully crafted for the needs of the day. I can only say with full confidence that the best introit in our own experience is precisely the one that the Church recommends: the Gregorian chant.
I wish we could do this every week but it just isn’t possible given time constraints and other musical demands. But when we can do it, we have a strong sense that we did precisely what the liturgy calls for. And after singing this, everything else we sing seems to go better than it otherwise would. The Mass already has that opening lift and is easily carried the rest of the way. The schola itself seems more relaxed, and the atmosphere of the Church more prayerful, patient, and attentive.
There is also something meritorious about leaving our judgement aside for once during the week and deferring to the judgement of our tradition. The tradition is most often more correct than we are. It embodies more experience, more wisdom, a broader outlook, and is less prone to mistakes than a single generation or a single person. In fact, I would suggest that if someone’s judgment about what is appropriate time again excludes the Gregorian chant, there is something very wrong with the method by which the judgement is being made.
Sometimes pop philosophers like to ask why God allows bad things to happen to good people. We might similarly ask why God allowed pop music to takeover the ordinary form of the Mass. One answer might be to instill in all of us a more profound appreciation for the music that the Church has given us to last the ages. As we work through another round of Gregorian restoration, may we never forget this lesson and cling to its beautiful words and melodies, world without end.
"Our own schola does not always have time to work up the Gregorian chant for the entrance, so these other options are highly useful for us."
another option: the best singer/sightreader in schola could sing it solo, getting the words right and if the melody is not exactly that of the Gregorian chant, better luck next time as we "encourage one another to love and good deeds"
In so many places, trying to put into place your suggestions is an up-mountain battle. To be "pastoral" in such places everything is brought down to the lowest common denominator of the faithful: they must understand, feel at home, be within their level, etc. Of course "pastoral" can mean almost anything, and when that word is used to justify some liturgical action, watch out, there is something deeper underlying the issue. Having the faithful meditate while the Schola sings the Latin Gradual can lift up the soul more greatly than a catchy Responsorial psalm, and thus be more "pastoral" (sic) but it is not part of the prevailing pop culture that the "majority" of the faithful are used to. Yet sacred space is meant to be by definition a setting apart from the common, the profane.
Your arguments are on the level of music and the musical tradition of the Church, but the issue is much deeper. After Vatican II there is one fundamental change in the liturgy that explains so much of what has happened. That is the change of emphasis from Mass as a sacrifice to the Mass as a community meal. In the latter, the altar becomes a table where everyone gathers around, everyone does the nice things they would do at home at supper time, put on soothing music to listen to, talk informally, etc. That may have helped relations with the Protestants, but it alienated the Orthodox. Until the former emphasis is re-established, the use of sacred music will be directed towards the assembled community.
A commentator, Mr J. Smith, on the NLM mentioned something very important yesterday. In the East, the Divine Liturgy is in the vernacular because the Holy Sacrifice is veiled physically with the iconostasis from the faithful, in order to maintain that essential distance between the Holy of Holies and the faithful. In the Latin Church that was done through language: Latin. If you have nothing more that a community meal going on, none of this makes any sense, and your suggestion falls on deaf ears.
This whole post comes across as single-minded.
1) How can hymn singing be wrong, especially given the legislation on music from the 1950s, which actually encourages hymn-singing in Mass after the Latin chants have been sung/spoken?
2) How can you justify excluding hymns by saying they are too secular, when even the Church recognizes that this is not the case? It is also a huge leap to equate traditional hymns (or rather, their tunes) to the religious music adopting pop styles. The 1958 Instruction on Sacred Music is ultra clear in this regard, so it is baffling that you do not make similar distinctions.
The real problem here is setting up a false dilemma of an either/or scenario. In German-speaking lands with a strong tradition of hymnody (or Britain and America, for that matter), "pastoral" sensitivity seems to allow for the judicious use of appropriate hymns. There is no need to reject them wholesale. And why not combine hymnody with chant?
Given that the Propers are nearly always based on scripture, replacing them with a hymn is replacing the Word of God with the word of man.
As you've said before, there is always talk of how much scripture we've gained with the Novus Ordo, but never much talk about what we've lost…
The church also wishes us to have a greater knowledge of the psalms. As the texts for the Propers are frequently drawn from the psalms and, at communion, the antiphon is alternated with several verses drawn from the psalms, we are provided with an excellent opportunity to become familiar with them. This is especially true for people who are not able to participate in the Divine Office….
Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2559): ""Prayer is the raising of one's mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God"(St. John Damascene). But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or "out of the depths" of a humble and contrite heart? (Psalm 130:1) He who humbles himself will be exalted;4 humility is the foundation of prayer, Only when we humbly acknowledge that "we do not know how to pray as we ought,"(Rom 8:26) are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. "Man is a beggar before God." (St. Augustine)."
Compendium of the Catechism (paragraph 557): "Prayer cannot be reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse; rather it implies contemplation, study and a grasp of the spiritual realities one experiences."
Catechism of the Catholic Church (paragraph 2725): "Prayer is both a gift of grace and a determined response on our part. It always presupposes effort. The great figures of prayer of the Old Covenant before Christ, as well as the Mother of God, the saints, and he himself, all teach us this: prayer is a battle. Against whom? Against ourselves and against the wiles of the tempter who does all he can to turn man away from prayer, away from union with God. We pray as we live, because we live as we pray. If we do not want to act habitually according to the Spirit of Christ, neither can we pray habitually in his name. The "spiritual battle" of the Christian's new life is inseparable from the battle of prayer."
When we ponder upon what prayer truly is and believe when one sings one prays twice (St. Augustine), then what other liturgical music than Gregorian chant can best serve our prayers to be most fit into the definition of prayer presented by the Catechism of the Catholic Church?
It's proper to sing the Psalms
It's also proper for the people to sing this piece in "dialogue" with the choir. As long as that first choice of GIRM 48 is repsected, I have little problem with Jeffrey's point here.
I might quibble with his lack of depth with the GIRM as a whole, but that's another matter.
For the record, I've used the propers as cantor/choir verses to both English and Latin refrains. Sometimes I've programmed psalm settings for Entrance or Communion. More often, I use songs based on psalms or the Scriptures. An entrance hymn is programmed maybe 1/4th of the time, but it is usually based on the psalms or Scripture.
I admire Jeffrey's tenacity, but I don't see a retreat from what parishes are doing, and for the most part, doing well. Congregational singing is placed as a higher priority than what is sung. A chant-of-the-week, every week is ideal for a monastic or daily worshipping community. Not most parishes.
As long as the ideals of the Eucharist set down in the GIRM are followed with regard to the people's singing, I don't see a driving need to insist on the propers.
Gregorian chant has pride of place, but not the only place.
Adam, conversations between Jeffrey and me are little to none of your business and are off topic on this thread.
Instead of making this thread about me, permit me a counterproposal: stick to the music or to the Church's legislation on liturgy, or even both. The Church, in her wisdom, permits, allows, or emphasizes a great deal along the lines of sacred music. Those who disregard, tend to marginalize themselves in the larger discussion.
I think that's what you'd call a flounce …
Actually, Ian, in American parlance it's called a slam dunk.
Honestly, I don't get the rank lack of curiosity about the liturgy here. Not to mention the abuse of English vocabulary. Propers-alone-and-only-propers is dogmatic. The GIRM and MR3 aren't at all dogmatic of even very scary. But you actually have to get to know them.
Todd, Todd, the day you support your generalisations and bald assertions, and show a willingness to discuss the detail, is the day you'll begin to be taken seriously here. Still, I suppose if you're going to pontificate a sight like this is appropriate [joke/pun].
ps I still think you flounced!
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Gentlemen, if I may, to your corners for a two minute respite, please if you will.
Todd, as you have kindly allowed me in the past to observe, statements such as "Honestly, I don't get the RANK LACK OF CURIOSITY about the liturgy HERE (emPHAsis mine.)" is rightly offensive to likely quite a few writers and readers HERE, on many levels. The coup de grace of scolding the site generally about grammatical "abuse" is a minor, repugnant irritant to boot.
Honestly, what I don't get is "What do you get from uttering such 'generalizations and bald assertions?'" You know in your Christian heart that none of what is written and discussed on this dedicated forum primarily about chant could hardly have such descriptives justly ascribed to the blog content. Now, if your first synapse reaction is to counter "Now, Charles, I was referring to the combox discourse…" then your condemnations are just as inarticulate as anyone else's that you put in your sights.
And, confoundingly, you persist in sweeping indictments of all of "us" with the assumption that each of us comprises, despite overwhelming public evidence to the contrary of our diversity, a cabal of automatons parroting the "party line." You have been, to my direct knowledge, asked at least twice if you're omniscient, and not necessarily was that question sarcasm. Do you know the content of the next article I'm composing in response to Jeffrey's thread and contention? Do you conveniently forget that there is a world of difference of experience, intellect, and praxis among fellow posters on this blog? Do you really believe that each of us, from Dr. Mahrt to Arlene to Nick to Adam to Mike to even my plebian fat gluts, have seriously proven deficient in our interest and love of the liturgy? I don't believe it; but should you believe it, I would suggest a trip to the bathroom mirror for a brief eye examination. You have stated elsewhere that you believe musicians to presume themselves competent liturgists. That belief cannot be empirically proven except through your own anecdotal evidence.
Liturgy is complex; as a gift from God we are covenantly obliged to offer it to one another and to God in the Spirit it was given us, and with the gravity of understanding that the Incarnation of God Himself is an integral factor in our deliberations and actions.
Please, let's each of us respect those realities by refusing to posit our thoughts at the expense of simple truths, and the second of the two greatest commands Jesus offered his adversaries.
Now, if we could return to our regularly scheduled programming….
Ian, thanks for responding. I think you know well that I'm more than willing to get into details. My site has nearly two-thousand posts on Vatican II and post-conciliar liturgy documents. Lots of detail, and the occasional in-depth discussion where sound reasoning is always taken seriously, no matter what it proposes.
I don't know that details would be taken seriously by some posters here. It seems that even when I bring Catholic liturgical documentation to the table, there's not even an attempt to engage the red-n-black, or the instructions that go with the Roman Rite.
GIRM 48 is pretty clear, reading with an eye to the Roman model of instruction. And far from being dogmatic, it presents a clear set of priorities based on the same reasoning that places propers at the top of a repertoire list. There's an ideal for which to strive, and any number of fallback positions to be employed when, as Jeffrey concedes, there's not time (or something else) to get #1 done.
I'd say that Jeffrey and his colleagues need to decide if Chant Cafe is a serious sacred music site or just a pep rally for chant. Either is a sound reason to have a blog. But if it's the latter, then let's be clear it's mainly about the music, and not so much about the liturgy. And if Chant Cafe does have pretensions for liturgy, it really needs a serious liturgical scholar or two to balance out the cheerleading.
I'll note again, Ian, that you and Adam have derailed this thread by trying to make it about me rather than sticking to the topic. Personally, I find shifting of topics on blogs to be refreshing. It's an opportunity to widen the discussion and gain new insights. Less edifying is when people seem empty of counterpoints. So they get personal. As a friend, I challenge you to take the high road.
As for Jeffrey's original post, the GIRM instructs on the entrance chant:
"The singing at this time is done either alternately by the choir and the people or in a similar way by the cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone."
Rome clearly favors a choir over a cantor, and the top choice is music in dialogue between people and music leaders. Next, singing by the people alone. Last choice is choir alone.
So I put it to you, Ian: how does that square with Jeffrey's points in paragraphs 4 and 10 of his post?
Actually, ref, that's the kind of point Adam & I were making.
"The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy."(Sacrosanctum Concilium, 112)
I think emphasis should be placed on singing the text itself of the integral part of Mass (singing the Mass, not singing at the Mass), even though other options are possible . It is sad that GIRM 48 is most often misused to exclude Gregorian repertoire from Mass. It has been rarely applied the other way around in mainstream liturgy in the US.
And I assume "active participation" of people can be best practiced by their singing the responses and ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, etc.) of Mass. It demands at least 15-20 minutes of singing, which is long enough for the congregation to actively resonate their vocal cords. I doubt anyone will complain about a schola/choir singing the propers of Mass.
"GIRM 48 is pretty clear"
Please explain how a directive that gives SEVENTEEN! possible options is clear. I must be an insufficient liturgist to not comprehend this. There are four possible arrangements:
1) choir and people
2) cantor and people
3) people alone
4) choir alone
any of which can sing any of the four options totaling 16 scenarios or it can be spoken (17).
Music directors need to know what the ideal is, and how to work towards this with practical consideration. The purpose of the article is to give insight and advice for music directors who who are left trying to figure out this ambiguous ecclesiastical legislation, not pompously inflate this forum with hot air.
Erik, thanks for responding. The ideal in a Roman document is always the first option listed. That's why Jeffrey pushes the propers, and rightly so. They are the first option.
GIRM 48 gives the options as to who sings first, above the "four options." So that is given priority above repertoire.
Putting the two together, you have the choir and people in dialogue with the proper and the psalm attached to it. How can that dialogue work? In a few ways. The choir can state the melody and the people repeat it. Simple. The choir can also take the proper and the people chant the psalm associated with it. Or the people could sing the proper and the choir use Anglican chant or any sort of tone to the psalm verses.
Roman legislation on liturgy is remarkably flexible. It fits when one has no choir, when one has a limited repertoire, or when one is building repertoire, or when one finds oneself stuck.
And yes, as music directors, sometimes we have to make a judgment call, balancing one set of priorities against another.
And Peter, regarding, "I doubt anyone will complain about a schola/choir singing the propers of Mass."
Some people would. And you would find yourself defending such a routine practice against not only local custom, but GIRM 48. But really, if you want the Gregorian proper, what's so bad about chanting psalm verses to go with it? That's the traditional liturgical practice with the Psalter, still used in the Liturgy of the Hours.
By all seriousness, over 20 minutes of singing is too much demand for congregation. I know it by experience; I have often sung all the responses, ordinary and propers for Missa Cantata and I usually got exhausted after singing them all. I think it is a very neat idea that a schola sing the proper and congregation actively sing the responses and ordinary (or in altenatim with the choir). By the way, how many parishes in the US fully sing the responses and ordinary which are the texts of the integral part of Mass?
Well said, Todd. I wouldn't say you're in total disagreement with Jeffrey. I get from your argument though, that you believe it is more important that the scenario of choir and people singing in alternation be achieved rather than the ideal repertoire: the Gregorian Proper. Do you think it's ideal to sacrifice doing the Proper Introit to achieve the ideal singing arrangement? If so, what else can you base this on other than coming first in the GIRM? I guess it would be a pretty bone-chilling experience to hear a congregation of 500 people singing the Proper Introit, but I don't know that this is ideal. I think the schola or cantor singing the Propers is not only ideal, but obviously practical.
"Do you think it's ideal to sacrifice doing the Proper Introit to achieve the ideal singing arrangement?"
In a monastery or a music school or an intentional community dedicated to one ars celebrandi Sunday Mass, it wouldn't be necessary to sacrifice. It could be done.
Let's say you and I and the whole Chant Cafe commentariat were stranded on a desert island with a treasure chest of sheet music. Obviously, we'd be singing the ideal every day till rescue. And it's likely some of us would be happier unrescued.
Practically speaking, you have parishes with three, four, or more Masses every weekend. The ideal would be choirs at all those Masses, singing the proper repertoire. Can it be done? I'd love to see it, but I doubt it happens even at St Peter's in Rome.
Let's take an example: if I were working on the first Sunday of Advent, I have the introit Ad te levavi, right? Psalm 25. I'm good with the choir singing this text, but I'd also use other verses of this Psalm (I think the introit covers 1-4) and put them in the people's mouth. Maybe I use Paul Ford's tone from BFW. Maybe I compose a chant tone suggestive of Ad te levavi. But maybe I really want to make sure the last two verses of Psalm 25 get sung: "Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, because I wait for you, O Lord. Redeem Israel, O God, from all its distress!" What a great expression to open the Advent season.
How might I arrange it? The choir sings the proper, then the people stand and the procession begins and they chant a set number of verses, possibly 16-22. The choir repeats the antiphon as the priest reverences the altar. Mass continues from there.
My fallback position is a vernacular setting of Psalm 25. Gelineau. BFW. Haugen. Whatever is good. Even in parishes where people are more accustomed to singing songs or hymns, I've used the introit psalm from time to time. I get no complaints about it, even when it's in dialogue and the people are used to singing the whole entrance hymn.
As a music planner in a more mainstream parish, the propers inform what I program, but obviously I don't believe the form of the singing of these texts must dictate.
The ideal is multi-dimensional. Todd is merely pointing out that multidimensionality can't be elided if one's rationale for dealing with the issue is to claim fidelity to what the ritual books call for in one of the dimensions when one is not addressing fidelity to another dimension, et cet.
It's the standard problem of the partial truth: to say, "[X – being what I am defending] is called for by these provisions in the ritual books" is true, but it's only a part truth if [Y – what is in tension with X] is also called for by the ritual books.]
The Internet feeds the game of deploying partial truths of this sort as a kind of rhetorical badminton.
And it's a big old waste of time.
And it's just as big a waste of time to engage in partial truths as when one resorts to the Big Principles behind the points (like the dual desiderata of recovering Gregorian chant, but also have actual/active participation that a variety of papal statements make clear was to include congregational participation in chant).
Rome has not even pretended to definitively resolve the tensions among these things. I would say that failure was deliberate, rather than inadvertent, and it was deliberate not as a cowardly evasion but in hope that the will of the Spirit might be discerned in the fruits of actual experience, and that the results would likely vary by time and place.
I would also add, having sparred with Todd for over a dozen years on the Internet (Todd can show the scars), that if one is not paying attention, one of Todd's longstanding themes is the liturgical recovery of the Word of God to complement the liturgical recovery of the Real Action and Holy Communion of the Eucharistic sacrifice – these recoveries can date their initiation back to Pius X. That is, the recovery of the singing of the Word of God in liturgy, not limited to an antiphon and a verse, but more generously and consistently (albeit with flexibility in terms of musical idiom).
I know that there are traditionalists who believe that kind of recovery should be left to the Divine Office, and you will hardly find a heartier champion of the parochial celebration of the Divine Office than Todd, but I would agree with him that leaving such a thing to the Divine Office is to seriously misread a century of liturgical and theological development in the Roman rite.
Anyway, it's the reason Todd enjoys tweaking people about the St Louis Jesuits, much of whose work did involve recovering the centrality of Scriptural texts as the font for liturgical singing by the congregation. And that's a really solid point, not to be treated as a triviality.
I thank Erik, Todd and especially Liam for sparing me from posting a redundant article.
And I recuse myself from my commentary above, it should have been privately conducted.
Hi everyone,
I am a director of music and I have been trying to move from Gather and Glory and Praise to traditional hymnody to chant eventually. I was successful for about six months and then we got a new pastor. He is on the other end of the spectrum and wants me to do more Haugen, more Haas, more Farrell, more Hurd, etc.
What would you suggest that I do? He is the pastor and signs the paychecks, so it is a difficult spot.
Thanks
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