Category: Jeffrey Tucker

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Interview in the National Catholic Register

Special thanks to the NCReg and Trent Beattie who seems to have put all this together, but I’m pretty pleased with the interview that appears in this paper this week and also online: Singing the Mass.

I’m talking up the Simple English Propers and chant generally here, and discussing the new Missal among other things. They had lots of biographical questions too. I’ve emailed the editor to make sure they change my title from editor of Sacred Music to managing editor. The editor is William Mahrt and is responsible for its consistent high quality and excellence.

In any case, an excerpt:

Of course my fascination with it began as purely artistic, but when I realized that there was a reason for its structure and sound, my appreciation grew. I realized that it is all a form of prayer, and the musical structure amounts to an attempt by mortals to touch a realm of immortality. It was all an attempt to somehow capture and characterize what the ancients called the “music of the spheres,” which is something like a heavenly sound that might be worthy to be presented by angels at the throne of God. The composers and the tradition heard something true and beautiful and the liturgy absorbed it as its own.

It goes without saying that secular music doesn’t attempt this at all. It is designed to flatter the performers, indulge the composers, entertain the audience, or whatever. There is a place for this approach in the culture at large, but sacred music has a different purpose. To me, to begin to understand liturgical music is to realize this central point that appears in Christian writings from the earliest age: There is a difference between sacred and profane. Many people deny this today, which just amazes me. I consider it so axiomatic that it is not worth debating, only explaining.

Why do people deny it? It has something to do with an embedded agnosticism born of deconstructionist thinking. There is no intrinsic meaning in anything, this view says, so how can we really make such distinctions between what is sacred and what is not?

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Unfinished Vespers of 1170

A fascinating note from Jeffrey Morse:

Some years back, Mary Berry released a brilliant recording of the “Unfinished Vespers of 1170” on the Herald label, contemporary witnesses relating that it was during the singing of Vespers (Christmas Octave Vespers) when Thomas of Canterbury (Beckett) was martyred.  The monastic office is sung as it would have been on that day, when the chanting of the capitulum/little reading breaks off, about the time of the martyrdom, and then the great bell of Canterbury Cathedral is rung.  Very dramatic- I’ve heard thiis presented on NPR at least two times.  Also on the CD is Lauds, written perhaps by a contemporary of the events.  It was diificult for Mary to find this office as even before the liturgy changed, Henry VIII excised by royal decree the celebration of the feast of St Thomas of Canterbury.  If the pages are not just ripped out in service books of the time, then they are blotted out with red or black ink.  Eventually Mary found a copy with just the thinnest line though the pages- all of the text was legible!  Nearly a miracle. Wonderful liner notes as well.

The CD is called something else now I noticed, but available in this country from Archive.  As tomorrow is Saint Thomas’ feast day, I thought perhaps you might find this interesting….  Here is the link for the Archive page of the CD. Here is the page for the recording from HERALD with a lovely sample that comes up automatically when the page comes up.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Guido Marini, Hero

This Washington Post story has really made the rounds, so if you are seeing this for the first time, the ChantCafe.com must be the only blog you visit. In any case, it makes me proud to have named my own puppy after the Papal MC and the inventor of the music staff.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Glorius Christmas Music at St. Agnes

This article details the absolute glory of the St. Agnes music program, which featured Mozart’s Coronation Mass this Christmas. I’m so grateful for what this parish continues to do to uphold Msgr. Schuler’s great legacy. He was nearly the only practicing champion of serious sacred music in the 1970s and 1980s. As I’ve said many times, they called him a dinosaur and a reactionary; it turns out that he was a prophet of progress.

Periodically I do a youtube search for presentations of orchestral Masses at this parish. I’ve never found one. Perhaps I’m overlooking something. There should be hundreds available by now. Imagine the evangelistic opportunities here! Just imagine how wonderful it would be to have a full online archive of all the great music at this parish. It would not only help the parish recruit parishioners and choristers. It would promote the use of this music in a liturgical context – a Catholic liturgical context. We could watch and listen see the great legacy of Msgr. Schuler spread all over the world.

Well, what seems to be the problem? The short answer can be reduced to two words: union policies. Thanks to union policies, nothing can be recorded or distributed because they believe that if you do this, the demand for their live performances will go down and their standard of living would fall. That’s what the unions believe, based on their zero-sum, take-what-you-can-when-you-can attitudes.

It never seems to dawn on these people that demand for services is not somehow a fix part of nature but rather something that has to be cultivated, marketed, promoted, elicited from within the structure of society through inspiration and persuasion. Of course there is no scientific way to guarantee this (there are no controlled experiments in the social sciences) but a good entrepreneurial instinct would suggest that posting rather than withholding performances would actually help the musicians themselves by drawing attention to their work and the beautiful liturgy here.

Msgr. Schuler believed in paying musicians well. I completely agree. This is a wonderful policy. It should be adopted in every parish. Sadly, as a reflection of his times and his outlook, he tied his goal with a policy of deference to music unions and their demands for salary and terms. This is the core problem at the parish that may eventually harm his legacy, unless there is unlimited money in the budget, which I doubt, and an unlimited tolerance for keeping obscure what should be globally famous, which I also doubt.

It mainly makes me sad that the world is denied any access to the glorious music at St. Agnes and hence a wonderful evangelistic opportunity is lost. I also belief that it is a very short-sighted policy. It would be a terrible thing to see St. Agnes get caught up in some kind of labor struggle here but the parish should really consider recruiting musicians from outside union ranks and also explain to the unions that whether they like it or not, the performance at Mass will be posted online for universal distribution. If the unions boycott or harass any musicians who continue to perform, that might suggest something about their actual dedication to the cause of liturgical excellence and the Christian mission.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Reflections on Whether Gregorian Chant Is Pastoral

This morning at Mass, at a very mainstream parish packed with visitors from all places around the country, the entrance song was Puer Natus Est, from the Graduale Romanum. It was sung by two women’s voice alone, without any accompaniment. They sang the antiphon, the Psalm, Gloria Patri, and the antiphon again. The procession of the celebrant and servers took place during this time, along with the incensing of the altar. An amazing stillness settled over the entire place, to the point that one sensed not a single muscle movement from among the hundreds of people in the congregation.

To be sure, this is not entirely what people might have expected. The usual fare is a familiar carol, perhaps gussied up with trumpets and flutes and various other things played by the musicians who mysteriously emerge to be featured at these splashy holiday events, and then vanish once it is over.

This is did not happen this Christmas. Instead, what the people  heard was woven into the fabric of the Mass as thoroughly as the celebrant’s part. As just as the people do not say everything with the celebrant, they did not sing with the schola; they stood and listened instead.

But did they participate? Most certainly. The environment and the music itself nearly compels it. How so? A floating chant this beautiful, and yet strangely minimalist in this world filled with incredible noise and racket at every turn, does not provide the complete experience with its notes or words alone. It is so pure, so comparatively sparse, even stark but full of movement, and where? It is moving toward something and upwards to something not found outside these walls. The chant’s very remoteness elicits something from within us, drawing on our hearts and minds and asking us to provide something to complete the picture.

And what is that something? It is a prayer. That prayer can be for something very personal, for something or someone that has been causing us pain. It could be about terrible things we’ve done or opportunities we’ve missed to do good. It could be a prayer of thanks for the wonderful blessings that surround us. It might be even more vague: perhaps just a sense of having some connection to the transcendent for the first time in a very long time. It gives us a sense of peace and safety even in times of turmoil.

The chant lasts a surprisingly long period of time but somehow not long enough, because this peace we feel is luxurious. It feels right, perhaps not at first but after a few minutes as time itself begins to fade in importance. The discomfort we felt at the outset, when we heard those initial notes that seemed so isolated, has given way to comfort and a realize we are surrounded. We are now used to the sound of still voices singing one line and we realize that there is only one place and one activity that provides us with this sense of transcendence. We have entered the presence of holy things. God is with us. Christmas is not just a history; it is a reality and this reality is being lived in the liturgy.

We don’t sing chant only because it is what is being asked of us; we sing chant because the liturgy loves it and the faith loves it and because it is, speaking from the purely pastoral point of view, exactly what we need and want. Hearing it and experiencing it is a challenge and it does ask something from everyone; and that something is the humility to listen to the Word and to dare to allow our hearts to be changed.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Benedict XVI on the Gloria

“Saint Luke does not say that the angels sang. He states quite soberly: the heavenly host praised God and said: “Glory to God in the highest” (Lk 2:13f.). But men have always known that the speech of angels is different from human speech, and that above all on this night of joyful proclamation it was in song that they extolled God’s heavenly glory. So this angelic song has been recognized from the earliest days as music proceeding from God, indeed, as an invitation to join in the singing with hearts filled with joy at the fact that we are loved by God. Cantare amantis est, says Saint Augustine: singing belongs to one who loves. Thus, down the centuries, the angels’ song has again and again become a song of love and joy, a song of those who love. At this hour, full of thankfulness, we join in the singing of all the centuries, singing that unites heaven and earth, angels and men. Yes, indeed, we praise you for your glory. We praise you for your love. Grant that we may join with you in love more and more and thus become people of peace. Amen.” —Pope Benedict XVI, Homily at Christmas Missa in Nocte, 24 December 2010

H/T cantare amantis est