Author: Jeffrey Tucker

CMAA Colloquium XX 2010 from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

http://corpuschristiwatershed.org/projects/cmaa/

Copyright: 2010 by Corpus Christi Watershed

http://ccwatershed.org

Film work by Danny Mendez

Fifth Avenue Famous (Fordham University Press, 2010) is a complete history of the music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York. A good review of this book appears from Maureen McKew:

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful book by St. Patrick’s Cathedral musical historian and cantor, Salvatore Basile, titled Fifth Avenue Famous (Fordham University Press, 2010). Whether your interest is music, New York history or you simply love an inside story, you will really enjoy this book. And if, like me, you come to the Cathedral regularly, it may explain a few things you have heard and seen.

I have been present for many of those highs and lows as the Cathedral’s music directors, organists, and singers juggled Gregorian chant and polyphonic anthems with the requirements of the post-Vatican II church while, at the same time, responding to the personal preferences of an assortment of archbishops and rectors.

One or two music directors even tried to resist. I recall a Sunday in 1989 or 1990 when longtime conductor John Grady led what had to be the liveliest rendition of the Welsh air, “Cwm Rhondda,” outside of the Welsh Rugby Union. I am not 100 percent certain which set of lyrics Grady used – it might have been “Guide Me Now, O Great Jehovah” with its reference to the Bread of Heaven because this all took place as the congregation received Communion – but I will never forget the sight of Cardinal John O’Connor listening to it. I think I saw steam coming out of his ears.

Until I read Fifth Avenue Famous, I had no notion that the two men had been on a collision course since the Cardinal’s arrival in 1984.

Read the entire review.

The CMAA’s archive of Caecilia has been updated through 1965 (some issues still missing). There is a wealth of material here for anyone seeking to understand the seeming mystery as to what happened to Catholic music in one of the strangest decades in Church history.

I just stumbled upon this remarkable document from the Autumn 1963 issue of Caecilia, the predecessor journal to Sacred Music.

What follows is an official petition concerning music in the liturgy. It urges greater focus on the issues at hand, with special concern shown for the propers of the Mass, the training of choirs and priests, the furtherance of the Gregorian ordinary, the discouragement of the then-growing practice of vernacular hymnody at Mass, and limiting (at the start) the extent of vernacular to parish Vespers.

On every point, this document is correct and history bears this out. These were great experts on music here. They knew that vagueness and slogans were not enough to do what needed to be done. Moreover, they were not reactionaries but rather true advocates of the Liturgical Movement: see the plea for the congregation to be encouraged to share in the singing at Mass, but not at the expense of the structure of the service. This is not a call to preserve the status quo (see even the criticism of the 1958 decree on music) but rather a plea for a more solid framework for progress in the future.

I’m particularly struck by #4 and the suggestion that a sung Mass be made possible within the Low Mass, to be handled by a Cantor alone. This of course is the most common Mass structure we see today but it also most commonly lacks propers of the Mass. It’s as if the worst of the old (four vernacular hymns) ended up by default combining with the worst of new to create this modern hybrid we know so well.

One senses a profound worry at the heart of this document that if the Council was not specific enough, disaster could befall the music of the Mass. Would that the Caecilian’s plea been heeded!

The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, passed later this very year, did not necessarily contradict anything in this petition, and it even gave a ringing endorsement of Gregorian chant, but it lacked the specificity and failed to correct for the abuses which the Caecilians anticipated.

Note finally that two years later, Pope Paul VI called for the successor organization to the Society to be given a leadership role in guided the development of music following the Council. (It goes without saying that this wish was not fulfilled.)

Everyone who sniffs at the stuffiness of the old Society of St. Caecilia ought to consider the foresight revealed in this petition. It is time that history acknowledge who was right.

The American Society of St. Caecilia respectfully submits to the consideration of their Eminences and their Excellencies, the Most Reverend Fathers of the Second Vatican Council, the following petitions.

1. Regarding the place of music in the liturgy:

In view of the fact that the church has always regarded the function of the cantor and the trained choir, as well as that of the singing congregation, as an integral and necessary element of public worship, this Society is sincerely hopeful that the Fathers of the Council, before making any changes which might affect the structure of the services, will give earnest consideration to the importance of these traditional elements. While this tradition is not founded upon recent documents, we should desire the retention of the principles so clearly outlined in Pope St. Pius X’s Motu Proprio and in the Musicae Sacrae Disciplina of Pope Pius XII.

2. Regarding the Propers of the Sung Mass:

If any changes are to be made in the structure of the Proper of the Mass, this Society respectfully urges that the Fathers of the Council give careful thought to the fundamental structure of the service, and therefore to the meaning and value of each part, clearly preserving the roles of the cantor and trained choir. This Society also begs that art and beauty, which are inherent and not foreign to the casting of the Proper parts, not be sacrificed to the single issue of simplicity and brevity.

3. Regarding the Ordinary of the Sung Mass:

Since the necessity of a clearer insight into what worship really is presses for a greater sharing by the people in the song of the Church, this Society earnestly recommends that the congregation be encouraged to share in the singing at Mass, not necessarily according to the medieval and mistaken norm of the Ordinary as a unit, but with due regard for the place the various chants have in the fundamental structure of the service. It therefore also pleads that the great treasures of medieval chant and classical polyphony, as well as the riches of modern and contemporary music, not be discarded on the untraditional plea that there is no place for participation by listening.

4. Regarding the music at Low Mass:

This Society respectfully urges that consideration be given to maintaining the sung mass as the norm for congregational service, and where necessity demands, that provision be made for a simplified form of sung Mass that requires only the service of a trained cantor to supplement the singing of the congregation. The singing of hymns at low Mass, a solution suggested by the 1958 decree, is not completely satisfactory, because it remains extraneous to the action at the altar.

5. Regarding the use of the vernacular in the sung liturgy:

The Society of St. Caecilia recognizes that the vernacular problem is a pastoral problem, but even more basically a problem involving the proper attitude toward worship. Because music is an integral part of worship, the problem is necessarily also a musical one. This Society therefore urges care and caution, since the musical problems involved are certainly very great, whether in creating a new music for a vernacular text or in adapting a vernacular text to the rich store of chant and polyphony and other music from the past. The Society especially suggests vernacular adaptations to the offices of the church which have fallen into disuse, notably parish Vespers.

6. Regarding the practical realization of a sung liturgy:

The Society of St. Caecilia urges the Fathers of the Council to implement the repeated wishes of the Holy. See by encouraging the musical training of both clergy and laity, and especially of choirmasters and organists, according to the norms laid down in the decree of the Sacred Congregation of Rites of September 3, 1958, so that the ideals of a reverential and artistic musical worship may be realized.

The above articles have been approved by the Most Reverend Gerald T. Bergan, Archbishop of Omaha, the. Liturgy and Music Commissions of the Archdiocese of Omaha, and by the Boys Town Liturgical Music Institute’s eleventh national session.

For the Society of St. Caecilia:
September 12, 1963
Msgr. Francis P. Schmitt, President
Rev. Francis A. Brunner, C.Ss.R., Secretary
James P. Keenan, Treasurer

Epilogue: After the Constitution was passed, with its strong endorsement of chant, the same writers were actually rather calm. Wrote Fr. Schmitt: “I have every confidence that the post-conciliar Commission on the Sacred Liturgy will keep things, officially at least, within the guidelines of the Constitution.”

It was not to be. Their worst fears were realized in time.

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 reminded that this is the 400th year of Monteverdi’s Vespers of 1610. This is the signature piece that signaled the transition between the era of polyphonic music to the baroque and to opera, and it is glorious to how central the chant of of the ages its integrated in a living way into this masterpiece.

For me, this piece was part of a transition the other direction, beginning with my own beloved Mahler and going backwards in time to Handel and Bach and then Monteverdi and finally with Renaissance polyphony. This is a piece that beautifully bridges two worlds, whichever way you are traveling.

Intriguing too that the 400th comes at a time when the music and great performances are accessible for free through youtube and other online venues. More people in more nations can hear this music than ever before. I suppose there is some question about whether this is liturgical (however much it is rooted in Catholic liturgy) or performance music only, but, either way, this is truly living music.

Two samples from John Eliot Gardiner from this DVD.

I guess I’m a bit puzzled by the question asked at the Pray Tell blog: given the reform of the reform (and, implicitly, the renewed interest in the old form of the Roman Rite), what is the future of the liturgist? The post asks: “Will the Reformers of the Reform send us ‘back’ to a day where such professionals and scholars could never make a living as full time liturgists?”

I had a hard time following the question actually. If one is a liturgist, that would presume a specialization in liturgy and, in particular, rubrics, music, liturgical items, vestments, and all that is associated with liturgy. Why would a shift toward greater solemnity and greater seriousness about liturgy (which is how I see the “reform of the reform”) threaten that job? After all, so far as I can tell, there is a huge shortage of competent Masters of Ceremony right now; they have to be flown across several states whenever there is a solemn high Mass right now. We could many more, not fewer, MCs.

I suspect there is some sociological history behind the way in which the author of the post is using the term liturgist here.