Category: Jeffrey Tucker

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Big Five Catholic Music Books

I’ve been receiving an unusual number of emails recently that are asking fundamental (or rudimentary) questions.This is probably a good sign because it indicates an ever widening number of people who are interested in reforming Catholic music in a more liturgical direction. One yesterday asked for a basic tutorial in the main books of chant music for the Catholic liturgy. This seems like a reasonable request.

By the way, I’ve picked the number five here for no apparent reason. It could be shrunk to two or expanded to ten. These five are the ones you are most likely to encounter today.

1. The Graduale Romanum. This is the book of music for the Catholic Mass. There is an edition for the preconciliar form and the postconiliar form (the differences are adapted for the changed calendar). That is the book is normative and foundational was reinforced by Paul VI in his introduction to the 1969 Missal, reprinted in the new Missal. It is the one book that provides all you need for Masses throughout the year. It is entirely in Latin, even the front matter. If you are in Catholic music and plan to stay there awhile, you have to have this book.

One indispensable feature, for example: it lists the Psalms attached to each antiphon.

It is called the Graduale because of the name of the chanted Psalm for Mass, which is also called the Graduale. This gets confusing. Someone says “Graduale” and you don’t know if he means the song or the book. The other problem with this book is that because it is all in Latin, it can be the most intimidating book among them all. And if you want to really ramp up the intimidation factor, have a look at the Graduale Triplex, which contains 9th century signs that were in use before the invention of the staff!

Even though this book is at the core of the whole universal Catholic music experience, it is probably not the book you need to get first or even at all. You can get most of what you need from this book in an edition that is specifically made for the English speaking world. Still it is a great book to have because it is the one that is the musical equivalent of the Latin Missale Romanum.

2. The Gregorian Missal. This is the book to have. It is all the chants from the Graduale Romanum for Sundays and Feasts, plus English translations. The instructions are in English. The calendar is in English. It is the book that I credit with my first enlightenment to the reality that Catholic music is not something we select liturgy to liturgy but is rather part of the Mass itself. To see it for the first time can be mind blowing. Absolutely every Catholic musician must have this book. So should every priest. And Bishop. This is the book that opens up a new reality. You might not be able to sing from it, but it gives you the ideal, and that’s hugely important.

3. The Graduale Simplex. This was a book that came out in 1967 to fulfill the suggestion of the Council that a simpler book be produced for parishes. It was a missed opportunity for several reasons that I won’t go into here. It contains proper chants that can be used for entire seasons. It can still serve a purpose even though it is hardly ever used. Another version of the Simplex is Paul Ford’s By Flowing Waters, which puts the chants in English. This was probably the first book to enlighten the broader Church about the existence of Mass propers. It is also contains many other useful chants in English. I’ve have my own doubts about the long-term viability of the “seasonal propers” method but these doubts are mostly irrelevant actually. If people are singing such propers, the parish is a happy place.

4. The Parish Book of Chant. This is a project of the Church Music Association of America, compiled and typeset by Richard Rice. I would say that this book can be credited with saving chant in our time. Nearly all the books of basic Latin chant had gone out of print, leaving only the most difficult. The traditional “chant hymn” repertoire was buried in books from the 1950s and earlier. This book brought it all back to life, and, as a post-Summorum work, it actually put on display the relationship between the old and new form. It is more a pew book but is most often used by beginning choirs so they can get going with all the tunes and words that previous generations took for granted. It contains chants for the ordinary and lots of seasonal pieces, but not propers as such.

5. The Simple English Propers. This book (forgive repetition) gets parishes going on chant. It has reduced English versions of the Gregorian propers for Mass for entrance, offertory, and communion. The Gregorian mode is preserved, and every chant has Psalms. It is designed for parish use above all else. It is hassle free. The chants follow easy-to-learn formulas. I believe that history will record that this book, more than any other, made the biggest strides and bringing back the proper chants to the Mass. The book was put together by Adam Bartlett. It is a stepping stone, one that should have existed back in the 1960s but did not. It is selling so much that we are struggling to keep it in print.

There are many other important books, such as Offertoriale and Communio that provide Latin Psalms with propers. There are dozens more, depending on need. If you have a hopeless parish situation, at least consider Compline.

I sincerely hope this overview helps!

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Treatise We’ve Needed

The phone rang last week, and it was a man upset about the music in his parish. I listened patiently but I already knew what he was going to say. I’ve heard it all a thousand times before. The music seems unCatholic. It has nothing to do with the season or the day. The performers are self indulgent. It’s too loud and pop sounding. And is the hymn (fill in the blank) really permitted?

Then the question came that I’ve learned to dread: what book can I give to the pastor and the musician to help them better discern what is appropriate for the Mass?

Silence.

I know it sounds crazy but there has not been a single work that really mapped out — historically, theologically, musically, and practically — the musical framework of the Roman Rite. There are great books on theology and history. There are several books of journalism and witty commentary on the state of Catholic music. There are much older books explaining rubrics.

But, if you think about it, there is no a single book that integrates it all, rises above it all to provide new insight, and gives a viable plan going forward that is rooted in the ritual structure, the traditions, and the legislation of the Catholic faith.

Now, at last, I can say that such a book exists. It is called The Musical Shape of the Liturgy. It is published by the Church Music Association of America. It will appear in print next month. Right now you can buy it on Kindle.

The author is William Mahrt, and, I can tell you, that he is the only person in the world who could have written a book like this. In addition to being the president of the Church Music Association of America, he is a professor of music at Stanford University. He is old enough to remember the change in the Mass from old to new. He was directing a parish choir the entire time, and this was in addition to his academic duties. He was researching old manuscripts and writing scholarly papers presented at academic forums.

This combination of duties led him to develop something unique: a mind that lives and thinks in the two and usually separate worlds of academia and parish life. His research is heavily informed by practical concerns. And his practical concerns are heavily informed by his historical, theological, and musical interests. It all flows together in this mind that has the patience to do over a lifetime what no one else has done.

The Musical Shape of the Liturgy is the first general treatise on music in the Roman Rite, one that can inform audiences of all types, whether parish musicians, academics, or Church officials. In some ways, this book is the culmination of a lifetime of experience. No, it wasn’t written all at once. Many chapters have appeared in other places. But when you look at the sequence of chapters, one is amazed at how they form a beautiful whole.

How can I summarize the thesis? Mahrt’s book demonstrates that the Roman Rite is not only a ritual text of words. It is a complete liturgical experience that embeds within it a precise body of music that is absolutely integral to the rite itself. This integration is not only stylistic (though style does matter). The music is structured to provide a higher-level elucidation of the themes of the Mass ritual itself. In other words, the music at Mass is not arbitrary. It is wedded to the rite as completely as the prayers, rubrics, and the liturgical calendar itself. Everything in the traditional music books has a liturgical purpose. When they are neglected or ignored, the rite is truncated and the experience reduced in potential to reveal and inspire.

These claims will amount to a total revelation to most all Catholic musicians working today, most of whom are under the impression that it is merely a matter of personal judgement whether this or that is played or sung. As Mahrt points out again and again, genuine Catholic music for Mass is bound by an ideal embodied in the chant tradition. This tradition is far more rich, varied, and artistically sophisticated that is normally supposed. More importantly, it is the music that is proper to the Roman Rite.

The opening section of the book, then, provides a four-part course in the musical structure of the liturgy. Here we discover the origin, history, and liturgical purpose of the ordinary chants. We discover the propers of the Mass and their meaning, and why they cannot be replaced by something with a completely different text and music without impoverishing the liturgy. We find out that the Roman Rite is really a sung ritual with parts for the celebrant, the schola, and the people. Everything has a place, purpose, rationale. It’s all part of a prayer. Even the tones for the readings are structured to signal themes and fit into an overall aesthetic and spiritual tableau.

The second section explores the particulars with detailed commentary on chants and their meaning. He covers entrance chants, offertory, communions, Psalms, alleluias, and sequences. Mahrt helps the reader understand their intricate structure and theological meanings, and provides a commentary that only a musicologist on his level can provide. The reader begins to appreciate the extent to which chant is far more profound than is usually supposed.

Further commentaries reflect on the polyphonic tradition that became part of the ritual experience of Mass in the middle ages. He explains how this music is an elaboration on the chant tradition and why it is included by the Church as part of the treasury. He writes on all the great composers of this period from Josquin to William Byrd. He moves on to cover the issue and question of the Viennese classical Masses, explaining why they continue to be appropriate for liturgy despite their apparent stylistic departure from the pure chant tradition. He covers the use of organ in Mass as well.

The third section turns to the specifics of putting all of this into practice in the contemporary world. He deals with English chant, offers specific commentaries on the case for “praise music,” investigates the meaning of inculturation and musical taste, and tackles pressing problems such as what to do when a parish has no budget and no singers. This section is the one that is of the highest practical value for pastors and musicians today, so much so that it would be tempting to read it apart from the rest. I think this would be a mistake. What is missing most from today’s Catholic world is the awareness of the the musical shape of the liturgy – that essential structure of what is supposed to take place in the Roman ritual itself.

When this manuscript was sent around prior to publication, there were widespread sighs of relief from everyone from parish musicians to Church officials. Finally. Finally! Finally we have the book that has been missing in all the literature on the liturgy. This is the book that fills that gigantic hole, the one that provides that insight into the liturgy that only a musician can provide and also elucidates the purpose and structure of the music itself. In addition, it provides a path forward.

This is the book that millions wish they could have read and thousands wish they could have written. It is finally here. I can see that this book will become a classic and will continue to be so long after this generation leaves this earth. It will resonate for decades and even centuries into the future.

Congratuations to William Mahrt. Thank you for this gift to the Church. These words will be repeated by many people long into the future.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

SOPA and Sacred Music

It should go without saying that I’m all for the protests against the proposed legislation in Congress that would effectively end free information flows on the web. The sharing of content has been the key to the renaissance of sacred music in our time. Musicasacra.com, CPDL, and many others, have provided the music that has inspired a generation. It was all provided for free and put into the commons.

Having been deeply involved in this process, I can tell you that very little of this would have happened if the burden of proof over copyright and piracy had shifted against the institution doing the sharing. There are always deep pockets ready to make a claim of ownership, whether true or not and however ambiguous the claims. The legal tangles and possible penalties alone would have been enough to keep the entire library off line.

Even our daily posts here make use of material in a manner consistent with the fair use doctrine. But that would end too because in a future of government control, no one could know for sure what does and does not qualify. Generosity, sharing, and collaboration would be replace by possessiveness, isolation, and fear. We are already seeing signs of this.

Think of how the chant tradition made its way from the ancient to the early Christians, through the fall of Rome and the rise of Christendom, from the oral to the written means of transmitting, from monastery to cathedral to parish, and how this came to create the universal and beautiful liturgical art. None of this involved the thoroughly modern notion of “intellectual property.” If it had been in force, not only would the chant not have spread; scripture itself would have remained imprisoned on scrolls and not copied and preached to the ends of the earth.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Chants of the Roman Missal

The new Roman Missal is historic in many ways – and a remarkable relief for so many Catholics who have prayed for something to be done to restore dignity and solemnity to the Mass – but a major feature of the Missal is the music itself. It has rendered traditional Gregorian chant into English in a way that is very beautiful and provides a way for real sacred music to be part of every parish life. In this way, the new Missal is a large upgrade over the previous edition.

Until now, you had to buy the entire Missal to get the music in a book. The Liturgical Press has provided an excellent service in pulling all the music out of the Missal – and not all editions have contained all the music written for the book – and putting it into a very beautiful single volume. The book is Chants of the Roman Missal. It is called a study edition and it is indeed that. But it is also useful for use in liturgy itself. Any priest who is seeking to learn to sing the Mass will find this edition extremely useful. It is a good book to have for musicians who are in a position to teach priests the chants. It will be great for seminaries and seminars too.

The binding is great quality and the print of the music is very clear and crisp. It is very much worth the $50. It would make an excellent gift for any Catholic musician or priest. The book is Chants of the Roman Missal.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Great Work Is Here

The CMAA is pleased to present the great book of our age on Catholic music: William Mahrt’s The Musical Shape of the Liturgy. I would go further to say that nothing like this has ever appeared in print.

I know that it is rather unusual to distribute the book this way even before it is available in Kindle (next week) and in print (next month), but, in this case, the book is just too important. You will be able to buy the epub edition and the hardcopy edition soon enough. But for now, here it is. If you appreciate what the CMAA is doing, please consider supporting this work.

The Musical Shape of the Liturgy

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Entrance to Mass

Laetare, Gaudete, Requiem: even now, these words exist as part of the Catholic lexicon. We hear them but most Catholics have no idea where they come from. They are the first words of the entrance chants for, in order, the fourth Sunday in Lent, the third Sunday in Advent, and the funeral Mass. But there’s no particular reason why we should focus on these days instead of others throughout the year. Every Mass has an appointed entrance chant – and these chants have been largely stable since the end of the first millennium.

The new book by Jason McFarland, Announcing the Feast (Liturgical Press, 2011) makes the case that by dropping the text and music, replacing it with something else, we are removing an integral part of the Roman Rite. The entrance chant is not there merely to foreshadow the readings of the day; it is there to build a theological and aesthetic foundation for the entire liturgical experience of the particular Mass that is being celebrated.

The book is hugely significant in many ways. It comes to what might be called “traditionalist” conclusions but does so within the contemporary liturgical context. He points out repeatedly that the Missal is not the only liturgical book for Mass; there is also the Graduale Romanum, which is the musical framework for the Mass. It cannot be neglected. It is not up to us to make up the music we use. The music is given to us in an official book. We need to rediscover it.

The McFarland book covers vast history and offers detailed and subtle arguments for the entrance (or introit). For many people, especially Catholic musicians, this will be the first they have heard of this issue. It will be a surprise. And certainly its use would amount to a dramatic departure from the existing practice of most parishes.

How practical is it to use the entrance? For a parish with a schola (trained or in training), and a community that has already warmed to the depth and meaning of the Latin, it is extremely practical. From my own experience in using it, I can say that it really does prepare the space for the mysteries that follow, and that nothing else quite achieves that precise result as fully and effectively. But how many parishes have the proper groundwork laid to make this possible? I would say: not that many. Perhaps 5%, maybe 10%. Most have no schola. Most congregrations are nowhere near prepared to be hit with a big Latin text upon arriving at Mass.

McFarland is aware of this. But he cautions: anytime you change the Latin to English, or you departure from the given melody in favor of something else, you are losing something important. He understands that singing the Gregorian introit is not really an option for most parishes right away. It is not merely a matter of turning a switch or pushing a button. There is much work to be done. So a large part of the book also involves the exploration of viable alternatives. He does a fine but incomplete job here. Even since his work was completed, several wonderful collections of alternatives to the Gregorian have been published, and right now many people are working on more. Some of the names involved: Adam Bartlett, Richard Rice, Adam Wood, Kathy Pluth, Samuel Weber. There are many others. The time of the introit may have finally arrived.

But what of the pastoral considerations? Can it really be so easy to replace the familiar “gathering hymn” with a real piece of liturgical music, even it is in English, even if it has a modern feel to it, even if the people are welcomed to join in the singing? The truth is that many pastors are very afraid to do this. They fear a kind of uprising. They worry that it will put people in a bad mood for the remainder of Mass. Just the prospect introduces anxiety for them and so they decide against it. This is very common.

The other day, I was visiting with a priest who has a very serious music problem in his parish – and I’ll spare you the details because you can probably guess. Hint: it’s the usual problem. In any case, he is ready for a change. He told me that he wants to be begin with introducing an English chant at communion, then move to offertory.

We would never discourage any progress and these are fine ideas. But there is a real problem here. Why are we waiting until the end or the middle of Mass to actually introduce music that is genuinely liturgical?

After a popular and bouncy entrance about some other topic (one or another version of “we are a happy people”), a popular and bouncy Gloria (“here is our happy song”), and probably a nice performance piece stuck into the intermission between the homily and the Eucharistic prayer, it can be jarring and strange to suddenly introduce something serious and meaningful. In fact, I can imagine that this is potentially dangerous from a strategic point of view. You put the chant at risk when you try to sneak it in as if you are adding medicine to soup you are serving a child.

Consider that the entrance might be the best way to begin the reform process. For the most part, people do not arrive at Mass prepared to reflect, pray, and experience the mysterious touch of time becoming eternity. They arrive carrying a gigantic satchel of emotional and mental baggage from the affairs of the week. They are carrying secular concerns in their head, secular tunes in their head, secular thoughts and ideas.

A poorly chosen “gathering song” only says to the congregation: hey, don’t worry about it. Nothing here is really different. This is pretty much the same kind of thing that has happened to you all week. This is more of the same: just another meeting, just another thing to do, just another place to be as you carry out your tedious obligations in life. You are doing this for the kids or maybe to reinforce some religious identity that your parents attached to you from birth. Otherwise, nothing is expected of you and nor should you expect anything to happen to you. It is all going to be over in an hour and you can go about your business.

These are the messages send by the very first piece of music that is heard at Mass. If this is so, how can you expect the homily to penetrate? How can you expect people to really listen to the prayers of the priest? How can you expect people to take the sacrifice on the altar seriously? How can you expect people to get serious about receiving the body of Christ?

It seems that there is wisdom in the Church’s idea to the introit. From the very outset, we hear the words of Christ in the Psalms proclaimed to us. From the Sunday forthcoming: “Let all the earth worship you and praise you, O God. May it sing in praise of your name, Oh Most High.” Then the Psalm verses follow. “Cry out with joy to God, all the earth; O sing to the glory of his name. O render him glorious praise. Say to God, ‘How awesome your deeds!’ “Because of the greatness of your strength, your enemies fawn upon you. Before you all the earth shall bow down, shall sing to you, sing to your name!”

Now imagine this text set to chant so that the text is very clear, proclaimed with confidence. No mixed messages, no yadayada about the community, no dance beats, no forced rhymns. Now, that’s an entrance. Does it produce some degree of discomfort? Probably it does. Thinking about God and eternity tends to do that. But it works as a kind of stimulus to the spiritual mind and to the soul. It gets us on the right track. It prepares us to understand and be changed by what follows. Why would we ever decline to open Mass with this goal in mind?

There is the issue of whether people will sing along or whether this is a schola chant only. I happen to believe that this whole issue is overwrought. Most people do not arrive at Mass with an itch to belt out a pop tune or sing much of anything immediately. This is why the opening hymn is notoriously undersung by people. There is nothing wrong and much right about letting people just stand and watch the procession without having to fiddle with a book.

But even if this is an issue, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having the people join in to sing the chant, even the Gregorian chant. There is nothing forbidden about that. But neither is there anything wrong with not making it a religious obligation.

The entrance might be the perfect way to begin the reform process. The beginning is sometimes the very best place to start.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Announcing the Feast, Jason McFarland

The book just came today but I would like to highly recommend Jason J. McFarland’s outstanding new book Announcing the Feast: The Entrance Song in the Mass of the Roman Rite (Liturgical Press, 2012). I’m unaware of any book like it in terms of focus, argument, and evidence. It is engaging and straightforward but clearly the result of many years of in-depth research.

The central point is that the entrance antiphon (or introit) is an integral part of the Roman Rite and should not be casually replaced by something else, such as a favorite hymn with a different text. For most Catholic musicians, this claim will seem to be completely new, even a revelation. He covers the history in detail, with a full look at the historical evidence. He explains the theology behind the entrance antiphon and its musical function. He begins with the major mistake that people tend to make today: choosing the opening song based on the readings alone. This, he argues, is methodologically flawed and even contrary to the instructions for the ritual itself. The Graduale Romanum provides the proper text and the proper music.

Thus does he deal with the core of the musical issue: the centrality of Gregorian chant as the fullest expression of the message and meaning of the entrance. But he is also a scholar of the really existing liturgical environment, so therefore he speaks to the practical issues that every parish faces in dealing with the issue of the introit. Most do not have Gregorian scholas, of course, as ideal as this would be. So McFarland proceeds to spell what he considers to be — in light of tradition, legislation, existing resources, and parish realities — viable ways to achieve the goal of singing the entrance proper in the current context.

The manuscript was completed before the Simple English Propers had been printed, but reading the book helps me understand anew just what an achievement the Bartlett book really is. And there are others: Weber, Ford, Rice. McFarland covers some but not at of the existing options, but that is absolutely fine. The purpose of the book is not to provide a full guide to music that you can download or buy. Its purpose is to promote a new way of thinking about the entrance of Mass. It achieves that brilliantly.

The book is significant on its own terms, but it is also interesting to note that McFarland is the assistant editor at the International Commission on English in the Liturgy. He is working in the liturgical vineyards every day, and also every week as a singer for the Basilica of the National Shrine. More credentials: degrees in both music and liturgical studies. All of this heightens the importance of this work.

In talking with many young pastors today, you often notice a tendency to begin the parish musical reform effort by taking on the Offertory or the Communion chant. This is a fine thing, to be sure, but more recently I’ve come to be persuaded that this approach might signal the wrong priority: the choice of a more solemn mood (which is fine) over the re-invigoration of the integrity of the ritual itself (which is a better way to begin). Announcing the Feast makes a major contribution toward helping us understand just how crucial is the entrance to the Mass itself.

On a personal note, I warn you that if you are a liturgy geek like I am, this book is not something you want to have arrive in your mail box while you have other things to do. I found myself wildly distracted by its contents and argument, and nearly unable to put it down.