Well, it appears that James MacMillan, the great Scottish composer who wrote music for the Papal Masses in the UK, was put through a strangely familiar Hell in order that his music would be sung at liturgy during the Pope’s visit. The setting was commissioned by people who presumed they were in charge, but then the result was intercepted by a committee that judged the work to be unpastoral, difficult to play, too elaborate, and just not in keeping with the spirit of the Summer of Love that ought to last forever.
Anyone and everyone who works within the current Catholic music milieu knows exactly what he is talking about. The power ideology that drives these notorious committees is slipping, which makes them operate every more in secret and with intensifying viciousness. MacMillan, as sophisticated as he is about the world of Catholic music, was completely blindsided by the smears, innuendo, and sheer ruthlessness of the entire event.
Here is his description of the famed but anonymous committee:
Unknown to me the new setting was taken to a “committee” which has controlled the development of liturgical music in Scotland for some time. Their agenda is to pursue the 1970s Americanised solution to the post-Conciliar vernacular liturgy, to the exclusion of more “traditional” possibilities. They have been known for their hostility to Gregorian chant, for example, but have reluctantly had to get in line since the arrival of Benedict XVI. They also have a commitment to the kind of cod-Celticness that owes more to the soundtracks of The Lord of the Rings and Braveheart, than anything remotely authentic. There has also been a suspicion of professionals with this committee, and many serious musicians in the Church in Scotland have felt excluded from their decisions and processes, or have chosen not to become involved in territory which is felt to be hostile.
It became clear that my new setting had not gone down well with this group. The music was felt to be “not pastoral enough” and there were complaints (yes, complaints!) that it needed a competent organist. The director of music for Bellahouston, a priest and amateur composer, whose baby is this committee, was also informing all who would listen, that the music was “un-singable” and “not fit for purpose”. There seemed to be ongoing attempts to have the new setting dropped from the papal liturgy in Glasgow.
He really nails it here with the identifying marks: Americanization, love of dated popular styles, suspicion of talent, hostility to the practical use of chant, a patronizing attitude toward the laity, a perception that (as the old USCCB document Music in Catholic Worship) styles of the preconciliar past have little to offer the needs of the present.
He concludes his brave and deeply honest article with this: “There is a different “sound” to the new setting, which perhaps owes something to my love of chant, traditional hymnody and authentic folk music, and nothing at all to…dumbed-down, sentimental bubble-gum music which has been shoved down our throats for the last few decades in the Catholic Church. And therein might lie the problem.”
You might say that his article is harsh. Well, he was hurt and treated very badly. He decided to speak out against the persistent problem here, because it has caused and continues to cause wreckage in all parts of the English-speaking world. Thanks to MacMillan’s persistence, the good guys won over the bureaucrats here. Note that he had to forgo his fee. Very sad. But thanks to his work and willingness to tell the truth, art and beauty might eventually prevail.
good for him; these committee types have been "working" behind the scenes in most parishes forever. They need to be exposed for what they are; they bring nothing positive to the table
It should be noted that MacMillan directs the music at his local parish, a major commitment for a composer as distinguished composer as he.
they really should be denominated: The Anti-Liturgy Committee, amateurs, teaching amateurs, how to be amateurs.
Good for him! One of the reasons these kinds of shenanigans continue is that too many people in MacMillan's position judge that the gentlemanly thing to do is to say nothing, so no one knows about it. Of course, the consequences for MacMillan could be steep: the hierarchy generally doesn't trust people who tell the truth. But he'll be fine. If the church doesn't want his music, there are many exceptional musicians who do.
Michael, of course "he'll be fine." As Mahrt said, he's a PARISH musician; how much more detritus has he already seen and overcome?
Anon, I think the criticism you rightly bring to the "death by committee" modalaity should use the term "poseur" rather than "amateur." Technically, given the information that the composer waved any compensation from the commission, he became an "amateur" by association, as likely many of the choristers. Magnificent amateurs abound in our universe. The professionals, such of whom abound over at P/T (I'm thinking of one particular native of the UK as well) facillitate (there's a poseur keyword!) death by committee.
Mr MacMillan is an angry man, and he tends to hit out discriminately as a consequence of the pain he no doubt feels. He needs to be better informed about the music he professes to hate before his critique can be taken seriously. If he tars everything with the same brush, he will simply fail to persuade anyone who knows the vernacular repertoire better than he does.
As for his Mass setting composed for the Papal visit, it was a bold, even prophetic step on his part to write a setting for the assembly, rather than a choral work that could equally well grace the concert hall. Time will judge, however, whether he can be counted a successful composer of music for the assembly. I fear that his setting may sink without trace, since to my ear it fails either as a piece of art music or as a work that has the accessibility needed for a singing assembly – even a traditionally minded one – to take it to heart.
An important thing to note is that MacMillan freely gave up his fee.
Can we imagine more… commercial composers aligned with the liturgical industrial complex doing this?
And yet, MacMillan's work is much more developed, suited along sacred music principles, and contract worthy. Interesting.
Copernicus,
Your views on MacMillan's liturgical music designed for parish use are arguable. The poor quality of much of the music one hears in British parishes is not.
It's not just that this execrable stuff fails by any reasonable standard of aesthetic and technical standard, or that it's monumentally boring. More fundamentaly, its sacharine and facile play to the emotions tends to direct attention inwards to the self, rather than upwards to God. The usual suspects (I believe the collective noun for them is a summer-school) have been promoting this stuff for too long. That longevity is explained in part by the diocesan and para-ecclesiastical committees and organisations through which they exert their unhealthy influence, and against which MacMillan justly rails. I wouldn't go so far as to say their time is past – such people are endemic in religious bureaucracies – but there is an increasing sense among church musicians that they have failed us, and that the musical vision of the Council demands something very different. Whatever one's personal aesthetic judgement on MacMillan's parish music, it's a useful and competent contribution to reform.
BTW – it's good to see you commenting here!
… by any reasonable aesthetic and technical standard …
It seems to me the Bishops had too casual a process for this sort of thing and too great a dependence on an overly narrow group of advisors.
Had MacMillan not waived his fee, I wonder whether his publisher Boosey & Hawkes would have had any legal grounds for suing the Bishops.
All this petty intriguing by committee to control the public worship of God is, thank God, coming to an end.
Deo gratias.
And here's a prayer that composers like MacMillan are given greater encouragement and permission to serve the Church at the very height of their ability, and with the very best of ours.
I think MacMillan has a right to be angry and I'm glad he wrote the article. He was also justly embarrassed and annoyed at the treatment his publishers received, treatment that will only reinforce prejudices against the Church in professional musical circles.
If you want to understand the power of the committee on liturgical music here you need only look at the symbiotic relationship between composer Paul Inwood and the Diocese of Portsmouth.
Inwood's publishing company is based in the chancery buildings wher he holds the post of "Director of Liturgy". His position allows him to strongly influence what goes on in parishes, that (funnily enough) are more or less required to buy his music. If you want to know the level of this "composer" you need only know that one of his pieces is the "alleluia cha cha cha" (sadly no joke).
Keith Fraser
Here is the website of Magnificat Music (prop. Paul Inwood). Here are the details of the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth's Department for Pastoral Formation (Paul Inwood, Director of Music and Liturgy). Note the coincidence of address.
Here are some guidelines issued by Portsmouth's Liturgy Committee, of which Mr. Inwood and his wife Catherine Christmas are members. Their scope and detail are interesting.
That sheds a bit of light on what the blogger at Holy Smoke described as a "hissy" by a poster at PrayTell, a more pop-oriented and successful, (as the world judges these things,) Catholic songwriter, whose name i would prefer not to mention.
Ever.
Paul Inwood is, of course, one of the named bloggers at Pray, Tell, where he has frequently inveighed against the reform of the English translation of the Mass, not least (as he frankly admits) because he's having difficulties writing music for the new translation of the Gloria. Pray, Tell has an institutional relationship with Liturgical Press, which publishes some of Inwood's work.
Inwood has also become quite exercised in the Pray, Tell comment boxes about the financial rights of copyright holders of liturgical texts. I suppose that's not surprising, given his position as a publisher and composer. Interestingly, he's the Portsmouth Diocesan advisor on copyright. which rather brings us back to the issue of liturgical bureaucracies.
Lots of nasty recycled smears in all the above. I wonder how you "require" a parish to buy music? The idea is risible, and the lack of charity in the above discussion is no credit to this otherwise laudable blog.