Category: Adam Bartlett

In his book “The Spirit of the Liturgy”, Pope Benedict XVI describes the difference between Apollonian and Dionysian music.

Apollonian music, the Pope describes, is “music that draws senses into spirit and so brings man to wholeness … It elevates the spirit by wedding it to the senses, and it elevates the senses by uniting them with the spirit”. It is easy to see that this is the effect that sacred music should have on worshipers. Their senses are engaged by the beauty of the musical content and they are are drawn into the spirit which grasps for the infinite God in an act of praise and prayer. This is the Apollonian effect of sacred music.

Dionysian music though, according to the Pope, “drags man into the intoxication of the senses, crushes rationality, and subjects the spirit to the senses”. In this case, the spirit is crippled and unable to ascend to the heights of prayer and contemplation. The senses are overwhelmed and become the primary focus of the individual. A worshiper who becomes enraptured by Dionysian music is not able to engage the music sacramentally, in a way that it could lead him beyond the sign toward the heavenly reality, but instead weds him to his flesh and leaves him bound to the effects of the Fall.

I found the following passage of a review of a new book by Mark Changizi entitled Harnessed: How Language and Music Mimicked Nature and Transformed Ape to Man to be very telling of the difference between Apollonian and Dionysian music. The reviewer foretells Changizi’s thesis that music, an historically constant activity of man, has nearly always been associated with movement, and music has therefore always had the power to harness man. The reviewer then offers this very interesting insight:

The relationship between movement and music may come as a surprise for some, but not so much for others. In some African cultures, the word for “music” and “dance” are one and the same. In contrast, concert pianists or cellists sit still when they perform.

Why this difference? Blame the Gregorian chant, says Benson. Monasteries were the intellectual centers of Europe in the Middle Ages. Monks chanted tonal, arrhythmic verses daily, developed the Western musical notation, and set the pattern for the understanding and performance of Western music during the centuries that followed. “And if you think of that as the basis for music, then you’re not going to get the kind of music you get in Africa and India,” Benson told me.

Essentially, the Gregorian chant decoupled the ideas of movement and rhythm from music in the Western world. But Changizi’s theory brings the ideas together once again, backed by a statistical approach that looks more deeply into the correlation between dance and movement and music.

What Gregorian chant did for Western music is orient it to an Apollonian end. Gregorian chant stripped “world” music (if you will) of rhythm and dance intentionally so that the music could serve the purpose not of intoxicating the senses, but of wedding the senses to the spirit and enabling it to lift its gaze to heaven.

While Dionysian music may have always been and still remains a part of the universal human experience, it is not the music of prayer. On this earth we are bound by the effects of the Fall and our aim is to “undo” our fallen nature and prepare for, even begin to participate in, the restored creation in heaven.

Every time that we participate fruitfully in the liturgy we prepare for and even truly participate in the heavenly reality. True sacred music enables this participation and lifts our senses out of the fallen world and up into the restored order. True sacred music weds the senses to the spirit and lifts the entire person to prayer. True sacred music releases worshipers from the bondage of the fallen world and aids them in participating in a foretaste of the world to come.

Western music can thank Gregorian chant for lifting its focus out of mere sensuality and orienting it to the contemplation of higher things. It is no wonder that Gregorian chant is the supreme model of sacred music. Its effect not only on the liturgy but also on all of Western culture is colossal.

This music, this very repertoire, remains for us Catholics the supreme model of sacred music even in our day, so much so that the Second Vatican Council gave it primary place in the liturgy. Whenever we ask ourselves if the music that we sing in the liturgy is achieving its ultimate goal we need only to look to Gregorian chant which is the Church’s model of what true sacred music is and ought to be.

This morning I went up to my parish’s chapel choir loft for a funeral. It was the first time I had been up there since I returned from my summer studies away. To my surprise, I found that that the devil had worked out a plot to take my life, only he must not have known that I was going to be away.

Exhibit A, faux organ pipes in chapel loft:

Exhibit B, organ bench; faux pipe lying on ground:

Exhibit C, organ bench with large scar where I would have been sitting, had I been there:

Thank God that I pray this prayer with my daughters every night!

This morning we have learned that there has been a new translation of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal for the dioceses of the United States. The new translation has superseded the previous 2003 translation, it takes effect immediately, and it will appear in printed editions of the Roman Missal this November.

In browsing briefly just a few sections of this new edition of the GIRM, it is clear that we have much to learn and consider as we prepare for the moment of liturgical renewal ahead of us this November. I have decided to dedicate a short series of reflections, then, on this new translation of the GIRM which will explore it in a few different lights.

First, I would like to consider the nature of translation in light of liturgical adaptation–otherwise known as inculturation.

“The first significant measure of inculturation is the translation of liturgical books into the language of the people.” (Varietates Legitimae, the fourth instruction for the right implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium, 1994 [VL] §53)

The liturgical books of the Roman Rite are normatively promulgated in Latin. Translation of these into the vernacular is done according to the most basic form of inculturation as it was described in Sacrosanctum Concilium and in subsequent instructions. In this basic form of inculturation the Latin Typical Edition remains the normative source and holds the weight of UNIVERSAL LAW. When issues of translation arise, then, consulting the Latin text is often helpful for clarifying the Mind of the Church and the true sense of the text or rubric in question.

We are told in the newly released edition of the GIRM that there is now a “single official translation for the English-speaking world”, which includes 11 English speaking bishops conferences.

While this is a very wonderful aspiration for purposes of unity in the English-speaking world, this description is in a certain way untrue. There will not be a single English language GIRM for all English-speaking conferences. Each will in fact be unique in a few specific places.

What I am speaking of here are the more substantial adaptations (inculturations) of the General Instruction that have been made in each conference according to the competencies given in GIRM 390, which reads:

It is up to the Conferences of Bishops to decide on the adaptations indicated in this General Instruction and in the Order of Mass and, once their decisions have been accorded the recognitio of the Apostolic See, to introduce them into the Missal itself. These adaptations include

• The gestures and posture of the faithful (cf. no. 43 above);
• The gestures of veneration toward the altar and the Book of the Gospels (cf. no. 273 above);
• The texts of the chants at the entrance, at the presentation of the gifts, and at Communion (cf. nos. 48, 74, 87 above);
• The readings from Sacred Scripture to be used in special circumstances (cf. no. 362 above);
• The form of the gesture of peace (cf. no. 82 above);
• The manner of receiving Holy Communion (cf. nos. 160, 283 above);
• The materials for the altar and sacred furnishings, especially the sacred vessels, and also the materials, form, and color of the liturgical vestments (cf. nos. 301, 326, 329, 339, 342-346 above).

Directories or pastoral instructions that the Conferences of Bishops judge useful may, with the prior recognitio of the Apostolic See, be included in the Roman Missal at an appropriate place.

The sections described above, then, have received liturgical adaptation in every bishops conference, and these adaptations, which have been absorbed into the GIRM in that locale, take the force of PARTICULAR LAW.

The Latin version of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani, promulated in 2002 by John Paul II, is the universal edition of the Roman Rite and it takes the force of UNIVERSAL LAW.

According to the Code of Canon Law (§12) though, PARTICULAR laws “bind those for whom they were issued”, and thus they trump UNIVERSAL LAW in that region.

What this means is that in the places, listed above, where liturgical adaptations have been made to the GIRM by individual bishops conferences, these become unique to that particular jurisdiction, and their content TRUMPS the same content that is found in the Latin typical edition.

This has many implications. It is very good because it allows for particular instruction to be given according to the unique needs of a region. For example, we have seen in two cases so far a further clarification of language in GIRM 48 for two English speaking conferences: England and Wales, and the United States.

Particular law in the dioceses of England and Wales does not allow for the singing of “alius cantus … congruus” (another suitable song) and requires instead for the singing of either the proper chants of the official liturgical books, or “a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons”. The language used here is much more restrictive than the universal law contained in the Latin typical edition, but it is binding with the force of law in England and Wales since particular law trumps universal law.

We have a similar situation in the United states where the word “liturgical” has been added to “chant” in the adaptations made to GIRM 48 in the dioceses of the US.

“(4) another liturgical chant [may be sung] that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year, similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.”

The word “liturgical (liturgia)” is not to be found in the Latin typical edition (UNIVERSAL law) in paragraph 48. This one word has been added by the USCCB and has been approved by the Holy See and forms part of the PARTICULAR (binding) law in the United States.

One might ask why one single word is of any significance in this conversation. Some might feel that all of this legal conversation is completely unnecessary. But I believe that the addition of the word “liturgical” to the word “chant” in GIRM 48 does much to speak of the “ontology” of the processional chants of the Mass; that is, the nature of the processional chants. It clarifies the intention of these chants, and is descriptive of its proper role.

Discussion of the nature or ontology of the processional chants of the Mass, as described variously in the binding particular law of different English-speaking regions, will be considered in the next post in this series.

I remember the day that I first discovered the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)–about a month after it was established and launched online–sometime in early 2006. I knew at the time that it was the beginning of something huge.

The mission of IMSLP is “to create a virtual library containing all public domain music, as well as music from composers who are willing to share their work with the world without charge.” What began with a music student in Canada scanning and digitizing public domain scores in his dorm room has grown in five years to a library downloadable sheet music that now includes 39,875 works, 98,278 scores, and 5,748 composers.

While IMSLP’s “Petrucci Music Library” has been an immensely useful tool for research and performance, the mechanics of downloading and printing files remains cumbersome. The traditional method of purchasing clean and durable musical scores and books remains advantageous for a number of reasons.

This is beginning to change though. IMSLP has just recently launched the all-new “Padrucci” app for the iPad. It is currently available for purchase in the App Store for $5.99. Padrucci offers the entire Petrucci Music Library in a single, tablet-based solution. The benefit is obvious: The library of music is no longer a source for printing scores on paper, but is an entire library that is available at your finger tips, ready to be played or sung right from the iPad.

After I discovered this app this afternoon I downloaded it immediately and began to assess the interface and downloaded a few scores. The interface is very tasteful and rather attractive. The primary window lists tabs across the top which list the scores according to historical period, and in each case all of the composers from that period are listed in the main window. Upon selecting a composer you are able to view and download all of the available scores from that composer. Downloading is very quick and painless and the score is automatically added to your personal library on your iPad.

After downloading a few scores I immediately ran to the organ and put the iPad right on the console and began to play through a few pieces of Renaissance organ music. It was such a delight to navigate the score via the iPad, and turning pages is a breeze: a single swipe of the finger. My only real complaint is that the screen on the current iPad is really too small for many of these scores, many of which were notated for sheets of paper much larger than is available on the screen. I didn’t entirely mind it however, and lighting is never an issue since the screen is back-lit and the brightness is controlled by the viewer. I think that this application will be infinitely more useful when the iPad or something like it is eventually released with larger screen sizes.

The application is only a month old, and it is clearly in an early stage of development. There is a tagging feature that does not yet seem to work, and a bookmarking feature which only cause the application to crash the few times I used it. There is important data missing from the interface still. I’m sure that all of this will be implemented/corrected in future releases. I am fine with this though because of my excitement about the potential for this app.

For the price, I would say that this is an essential iPad app for any practitioner of sacred music. It is only going to get better, and purchasing the app may also be support the development effort as it proceeds. Considering the mission of IMSLP, this is an inestimable gift to the Church and to the world. Please consider supporting the IMSLP Petrucci Music Library and all of the fantastic work that they are doing for the good of humanity.

If any of you have studied chant with Fr. Columba Kelly, OSB before you know what it is like to drink chant theory as if from a fire hose. His syllabus for a 5-day seminar contains at least six books, including writings from Cardine, Saulnier, Agustoni and Göschl, and on top of this you will also be given a binder full of materials written and created by Dom Kelly himself.

The working manual which Fr. Kelly has been teaching from is currently unpublished. There are plans to polish his manuscript and to put it into print and into wider circulation in the near future. For now you may have an interest in perusing it in its current form, which is not professionally engraved, but is thorough and enlightening nonetheless. Some readers have asked for some materials to review before attending next week’s CMAA Colloquium which will feature for the first time a week-long course in Gregorian Semiology as taught by Dr. Edward Schaefer. If you would like, this manual should give you more than enough to do in your spare time between now and then!

DOWNLOAD FR. KELLY CHANT MANUAL

Also of interest will be the third chapter of Fr. Kelly’s book Gregorian Chant Intonations and the Role of Rhetoric, a book which retails for $119.95, but the third chapter of which is now available to you in the commons for free. This final chapter is very similar to Fr. Kelly’s working chant manual, but has some additional studies in modality and structure pitches that are most enlightening and are at the heart of Fr. Kelly’s chant methodology.

DOWNLOAD “THE ROLE OF RHETORIC” BY FR. KELLY

It is a real gift that he has shared such knowledge with us in this way. Summer is here and now is the time to upgrade your working knowledge and musical skill. Download and study these treatises. You won’t regret it.