Five Years Since the Revival Began

Looking back, it seems that the current revival in Gregorian chant had something to do with a conference in Vatican city, December 5, 2005. Yes, this was only five years ago. I recall the event very well. The conference featured many wonderful speakers, among whom Monsignor Valentino Miserachs Grau, president of the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music. The speech made the headlines and it provided dramatic encouragement to a movement that, when seen from today’s perspective, seems to have been only in its infancy.

Msgr Grau said:

Gregorian chant sung by the assembly not only can be restored — it must be restored, together with the chanting of the “schola” and the celebrants, if a return is desired to the liturgical seriousness, sound form, and universality that should characterize any sort of liturgical music worthy of the name, as Saint Pius X taught and John Paul II repeated, without altering so much as a comma. How could a bunch of insipid tunes stamped out according to the models of the most trivial popular music ever replace the nobility and robustness of the Gregorian melodies, even the most simple ones, which are capable of lifting the hearts of the people up to heaven?

We have undervalued the Christian people’s ability to learn; we have almost forced them to forget the Gregorian melodies that they knew, instead of expanding and deepening their knowledge, including through proper instruction on the meaning of the texts. And instead, we have stuffed them full of banalities.

By cutting the umbilical cord of tradition in this manner, we have deprived the new composers of liturgical music in the living languages — assuming, without conceding, that they have sufficient technical preparation — of the indispensable “humus” for composing in harmony with the spirit of the Church.

We have undervalued — I insist — the people’s ability to learn. It is obvious that not all of the repertoire is suitable for the people: this is a distortion of the rightful participation that is asked of the assembly, as if, in the matter of liturgical chant, the people should be the only protagonist on the stage. We must respect the proper order of things: the people should chant their part, but equal respect should be shown for the role of the “schola”, the cantor, the psalmist, and, naturally, the celebrant and the various ministers, who often prefer not to sing. As John Paul II emphasized in his recent chirograph: “From the good coordination of all — the celebrating priest and the deacon, the acolytes, ministers, lectors, psalmist, ‘schola cantorum’, musicians, cantor, and assembly — emerges the right spiritual atmosphere that makes the moment of the liturgy intense, participatory, and fruitful”.

Remarkably strong words! We hadn’t really heard anything like this from such a high position in the Vatican. The words seems to kick off a momentum that has not stopped.

At last – and this is a testament to how quickly the times are moving forward — a proceedings volume is published under the title Musica Sacra: A Liturgical and Pastoral Challenge from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments. It contains papers of great weight and significance, most of which I had not seen and which were specially translated for this volume. Authors include Dom Philippe Dupont, Martin Baker, Cardinal Domenico Sorrentino, Louis-Andre Naud, Giordano Monzio Compagnoni, and John Paul II with his Chirograph on sacred music. Each offers something special.

Taken as a whole, this a wonderful book that provides something of a background on what is happening today. The rationale, theology, and practical application of sacred music are all in here. The papers in total represent something of a clarion call. It is impossible to say that this conference is what sparked the current movement; perhaps the movement’s time had just come. Regardless, every advocate of sacred music at every level of the Church should regard this book as seminal.

It is not unusual for a conference volume to be in production for fully five years. what is unusual is to find a conference volume that so perfectly foresees and defines a moment in the history of art and faith.