The Chronicle of Higher Education tells how an act of Congress retroactively put millions of musical scores, books, and other manuscripts under copyright protected long after they have become part of the commons (public domain), and how this act in effect placed a huge tax on citing, performing, and reading of these texts. Some scholars are fighting back. The story illustrates some points: copyright has nothing to do with property rights or justice or the integrity of a work, but is rather a legislative monopoly favoring well-heeled companies; copyright is not about the creator and the need to be compensated, but is rather about large institutions protecting themselves from competition; copyright isn’t about the promotion of works of art, but rather its restriction and burial. It is for this reason that these legislative methods of publishing ought to be totally eschewed within the world of liturgy in favor of common ownership and distribution.
How Gregorian Chant and Simple English Propers are Related
A feature of the Simple English Propers is that they preserve the mode of the Gregorian original. The original insight here comes from reflecting on the history of simple propers in the old form.
One of the most popular books of the past (and it is probably still popular) is the Rossini propers. These use the same mode regardless of the chant or season. The problem here is that every Sunday sounds pretty much like every other Sunday, and a major feature of the tone and color of the music attached to propers is completely lost. This makes the propers rather tedious in some respects – a perfunctory job we do rather than a special piece designed to elucidate and beautify the text.
Rather than make judgements on which mode the Simple Propers were written in, Adam Bartlett preserved the original, which also allowed the formulaic chants to be adapted to preserve some melodic content as well. You will see this in particular on special days where the introit, communion, or offertory has a special distinctive feature.
To see how this works in practice, consider the example of the Offertory for Pentecost: Confirma Hoc.
Here is the Gregorian original.
Now consider the color, structure, and general mood similarities with the same piece written in the formula for the Simple English Propers.
The idea here is not to replace Gregorian chant. It is to provide a bridge away from a situation where propers have been completely lost and the chant is not being sung, and toward an environment friendly to chant. That transition could take years or even decades, and, in the meantime, beautiful music that is plainsong and melodically fitting with the liturgy is being sung and heard. This is fantastic training for the people and the singers.
A Mighty Contribution to the Practical Arts of Liturgy
Hardly anything gets me as excited as a practical book to boost the solemnity and accessibility of Catholic liturgy. Scholarship is great, dusty old manuscripts are wonderful, an extended history is always welcome, and a good polemic never fails to engage. But, in the end, it is all about the resources that we have on hand to make the liturgy more beautiful, more doable, less remote. And so this is why my eyes popped out when I looked this: Canticum Clericorum Romanum.
Has a book like this ever existed? I don’t know for sure, but I doubt. What we have here are the full notated Gospels, Orations, and Epistles for the extraordinary form of Mass. It is bound in leather, and comes in at 850 pages. The price is $275, which strikes me as a bargain. I would think that every parish that is even considering the extraordinary form needs this book.
Now, people from the old school might look at this and say: why is this book even necessary? Why write it all out? You just need to learn the tones, mark the text, and sing!
Well, that’s true enough but guess what? This skill is mostly vanished. We can sit around and regret the loss of the ability of point text and sing, and we can also sit around and regret the loss of the ability of cantors to sing text the same way or, for that matter, the ability of scholas to memorize the entire Graduale as they did for the first thousand years or Christianity. There are always things to wring out hands about and bemoan.
Or we can get to work and put together books that meet the current, practical things that move us further toward the idea. St. John Cantius is very much to be praised for having see the real – the crying – need for this wonderful book.
Congratulations to them for thinking creatively and progressively.
Fr. Richard Hilgartner on the New Translation
New comments system
Blogger’s comment system crashed, and this is a good excuse to move, in any case. See if you like the new system. All people who wanted to comment on the last two posts, have at it, please, and thank you!
A Case for Life-Teen Music: Your Response?
It’s strange to me that one rarely if ever reads a defense of the status quo of parish music, much less an intellectual defense of rock music at Mass. Nearly all the intelligent commentary defends chant on grounds that it is organic to the liturgy, puts primary emphasis on the words of the liturgy, is holy and beautiful, and is the music recommended by every authority as far back as the eye can see.
At last we have a defense of the other position. Here is the text.
What is your response? Does he defend his case?
Introit, Pentecost
I could post these all day really, so I’ll stop, but I wanted you to hear that entrance for Pentecost. This will be sung at the Sacred Music Colloquium.