4th Sunday in Ordinary Time, SEP
William Mahrt on Kevin Allen
Here is William Mahrt’s introduction to Kevin Allen’s new collection of SATB motets Cantiones Sacrae Simplice
Many have been enchanted by the performance of Kevin Allen’s Tantum Ergo, which introduced the video of the Sacred Music Colloquium, Sacred, Beautiful, and Universal, produced by Corpus Christi Watershed. This is sacred music in continuity with the tradition and yet in a beautiful modern idiom. The Second Vatican Council encouraged composers to produce new music for the liturgy, music that is genuinely sacred, with texts drawn from liturgical and scriptural sources, including some music suitable for small choirs: Composers, filled with the Christian spirit, should feel that their vocation is to cultivate sacred music and increase its store of treasures.Let them produce compositions which have the qualities proper to genuine sacred music, not confining themselves to works which can be sung only by large choirs, but providing also for the needs of small choirs and for the active participation of the entire assembly of the faithful.The texts intended to be sung must always be in conformity with Catholic doctrine; indeed they should be drawn chiefly from holy scripture and from liturgical sources. (Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶121)After the Vatican Council, the liturgy, and especially its music, experienced considerable instability.
Indeed, choirs were disbanded and Gregorian chant was replaced with music that can only charitably be called ephemeral. In ret-rospect Pope John Paul II and after him Pope Benedict XVI attributed this to a “hermeneutic of discontinuity,” a sense that everything from before the Council was obsolete and must be replaced with something new. In contrast, they asserted that the proper interpretation of the Council must be a “herme-neutic of continuity,” following the prescription of the Council itself, which maintained that “there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them, and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already exist-ing.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium ¶23)Music for the liturgy is a matter of culture, and music after the Council had perforce to interact with several cultural factors. The first is the musical cul-ture of the secular world, which finds itself with a great split between what is deemed popular and what classical. “Popular” music is dominated by commercial interests, and most often seeks the lowest common denominator; this does not always promote any kind of excellence.
Moreover, what passes for “folk” music is subject to the same commercial interests, and rarely achieves the sense of commonality that genuine folk music should have. On the other hand, “classical” music tends toward academic and esoteric interests, which have become detached from the patronage of intelligent connoisseurs of music; its compositions are excellent, but often only other composers are their most appropriate listeners. The respite seems to have been to maintain traditional concert repertories more extensively than has ever been done in the past. New music which attempts to bridge this gap rarely succeeds in attaining excellence and avoiding sentimentality.
There is, in addition, the musical culture of the Church itself. Here, traditional music has been almost totally eclipsed by Protestant hymnody and music in popular styles, promoted by commercial interests. A few major publishers have dictated what music is performed throughout the Church, with little supervision by ecclesiastical authorities. When church musicians attempt to imitate popular styles, best known in recordings produced at great expense through the use of complex and sophisticated technology, they cannot compete, and their music appears amateurish. Yet, attempts at composing for the liturgy in serious styles run the risk of being out of reach of most choirs, or being trivial
because the canons of composing in a simple style have been forgotten.
Kevin Allen’s Cantiones Sacrae Simplices provide one model for the solution of the present dilemma. They are in continuity with the tradition of sacred polyphony: they follow classical polyphony in being in an essentially imitative style; their texts are all Latin texts from the liturgy—Mass propers, four offertories and eight communions; they make a link with Gregorian chant by providing chant verses, both in Latin and English, which can be alternated with the polyphony. They are simple enough to be accomplished by a moderately good choir. Yet they are also in a modern idiom: their polyphony shows colorful dissonances which yet are justified by good voice-leading, and their sonorities,
while basically triadic, are rich and original. And so they fulfill the Council’s recommendations for the composition of new liturgical music. May the publication
of these Cantiones be an inspiration for other composers to make similar contributions; may your singing of these motets contribute to the enjoyment of
your choirs and enhance the beauty of your liturgy.
William Mahrt
Stanford University
O Oriens, 2011
Esto mihi, 6th Sunday of the Year
Heinrich Isaac’s Missa Carminum
This past weekend at St. Paul’s in Philadelphia we sang Heinrich Isaac’s Missa Carminum. It’s a bit of a strange piece but lovely nonetheless. For one thing, the voicing is tricky, at best. As far as I can determine, this should really be sung STTB. The high tenor part can be done with a countertenor, but even transposing as high up as A-flat would still make it an acrobatic part that crosses over many singers’ breaks. It’s probably better to have two tenors in general. We sang it in F# (we have a courageous and competent countertenor) but the next time we do it, I just might take it up another full step. I’m also tempted to make my own version with the note values halved. The one recording of this Mass on iTunes features a men’s choir with a children’s choir, which might be one of the better ways to mind the gap between the top two voices. As unusual as the voicing is, it gives the piece a fantastically rich sonority, warm and delicious and yet workaday.
Isaac was a contemporary of Josquin’s, but this isn’t entirely obvious from the music itself. He organizes the sections of his Mass in much the same way that many late Medieval and early Renaissance composers did, using full cadences a bit more often than a later Renaissance composer would use. At times, too, he gets long winded, but then at the last minute treats the last few words of a phrase in businesslike fashion. The third Agnus Dei is a good example of this.
All the same, the harmonic language is practically straight up F major, and the melodic figures are not as challenging as they’d be in a Mass by Josquin, Taverner, or Dufay. In fact, there is a great deal of homophonic writing. Moreover, the Mass isn’t nearly as long as many others from the same time period. In short, it seems that Isaac was composing a bit ahead of his time. This Mass is a good choice if you’re looking for accessible repertoire from a period that’s a little earlier than most ears can handle. Maybe it’s even one of those bridge pieces that opens up doors for people (if I may be permitted to mix metaphors).
This Mass looks scarier than it is, and I promise to let everyone know if I ever get around to making a more practical version. (If someone else wants to do it, by all means, I won’t stop you!) If a choir has the right voices, that is the biggest hurdle. Beyond this, the Mass pretty much sings itself.
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!
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted on the Church’s Role in “Preserving and Fostering” Sacred Music
Bishop Olmsted presents part two in his series “Singing the Mass”:
In the first part of this series on sacred music, I described the meaning of sacred music, the music of the Church’s sacred liturgy, as distinct from “religious music.” In this second installment, I shall explore, from a historical perspective, the Church’s role in guiding and promoting authentic sacred music for more fruitful participation in the Sacred Mysteries by the clergy and lay faithful alike.
The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that “the musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 112). This led the Council fathers to decree that “the treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care” (ibid, 114).
Sacred music in Judaism before Christ
The dual task of preserving and fostering sacred music remains a crucial one for the Church today. But to understand what the Council is asking of us, we must not only know what sacred music is in general (as we explored in the previous installment in this series) but also how the Church has carried out this endeavor in history.
The Church inherited the Psalms of the Old Testament as her basic prayer and hymn book for worship. With these sacred texts she also adopted the mode of singing that had been established during the development of the psalms: a way of articulated singing with a strong reference to a text, with or without instrumental accompaniment, which German historian Martin Hengel has called “sprechgesung,” “sung-speech.”
This choice in Israel’s history signaled a concrete decision for a specific way of singing, which was a rejection of the frenzied and intoxicating music of the neighboring and threatening pagan cults. This way of singing the Psalms, traditionally viewed as established by King David (cf. 2 Sam. 6:5), disrupted only by the Babylonian exile, remained in use at the coming of Christ. Sung with respect to and during sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem, the early Jewish Christians assumed this tradition into the sacrifice of the eucharistic liturgy.
Sacred music in the early Church
After Pentecost, the first centuries of the Church’s life were marked by the encounter of what was a Jewish-Semitic reality with the Greek-Roman world. A dramatic struggle ensued between, on one hand, openness to new cultural forms and, on the other, what was irrevocably part of Christian faith.
For the first time, the Church had to preserve her sacred music, and then foster it. Although early Greek-style songs quickly became part of the Church’s life (e.g., the prologue of John and the Philippians hymn, 2:5-11), this new music was so tightly linked to dangerous gnostic beliefs that the Church decided to prohibit its use. This temporary pruning of the Church’s sacred music to the traditional form of the Psalms led to previously unimaginable creativity: Gregorian chant — for the first millennium — and then, gradually, polyphony and hymns arose.
In preserving the forms which embodied her true identity, the Church made it possible for wonderful growth to be fostered, such that centuries after that original restriction, the Second Vatican Council boldly proclaimed that her treasury of sacred music is of more value than any other of her artistic contributions.
. . .