Here are a few minutes of the several total days of drilling and teaching chant at the Chant Intensive. The class is taught by Arlene Oost-Zinner.
Memento mori
It has not been a particularly good week for musicians. First Gustav Leonhardt died, and then Etta James (what a voice!) and now, sadly, word has gotten around that Gerre Hancock, long time organist and choirmaster at St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, died today in the arms of his wife and colleague, Judith.
Hancock was world-famous particularly for his great improvisations; he is a figure who will likely still be emulated in a hundred years alongside Pierre Cochereau, Olivier Messiaen and others. He wrote a book on improvisation which I confess I have yet to look at. Perhaps his most notable saying is that “salvation is a half step away.” In improv, it’s easy to get into a rut, and the way out of this is to modulate. More than once my somniferous doodlings have been rehabilitated by remembering this advice.
I never met Hancock and only heard him live once many years ago in an Anglican Evensong given by the St. Thomas Choir. It was one of those unforgettable performances, where the music is so beautiful and makes you feel so ecstatic that you feel like you’ve left your body. Time stops. Now time has stopped for Dr. Hancock, and we hope he will meet a Great Reward for a life well-lived.
A Special Message for Priests
Here is a special message for all priests:
The CMAA Colloquium and the Priest
By Father Robert C. Pasley, KCHS
Chaplain of the CMAA
Rector of Mater Ecclesiae, Berlin, NJThe annual CMMA Colloquium has been an overwhelmingly wonderful experience for over 20 years. It has been open to anyone interested in the Catholic Church’s official understanding of Sacred Music and its proper use in the Sacred Liturgy. Most of the attendees have been lay people with a small smattering of priests each year. In the last 5 years, a class on the correct tones for the celebrant has been added for priests and seminarians. The problem, however, is that most of what was taught was not printed in the liturgical books. Well, with the new Missal, this has now changed. The priest’s chants are printed from cover to cover.
I would like to extend a special invitation to priests and seminarians to consider attending the Sacred Music Colloquium XXII at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City, Utah. June 25-July 1, 2012. If the Liturgy is to be restored, if chant scholas are to be formed, if the people are to learn to sing the Mass and not just sing at Mass, if we are going to be faithful to our tradition, then of all people, bishops and priests, must once again learn to sing the Roman Rite according to the tones of the Roman Rite.
Just recently I was watching the Mass on EWTN. The Franciscan priests of EWTN have done a superb job learning the chants of the new Missal. One day, a guest priest said the Mass, a good priest and a great preacher, but when he opened his mouth to sing, a Syro, Byzantine, Anglican, modified Roman, with a modern interpretive touch chant came out of his mouth. It was jarring and distracting and it was wrong.
It was not the priest chant of the Roman Rite. It was either what he was taught in the seminary, or what he heard another priest sing and liked, or his own invention, but it was not the proper chant of the Roman Rite. I am not trying to tear this priest down but just make a statement of fact, and he is not alone. So many priests mean well. They want to sing the Mass, but in the last 45 years they were taught nothing or next to nothing. There has been a breakage with our Catholic, liturgical, priestly musical traditions and it must be corrected. Now is the time for every priest and seminarian to buckle down, force themselves to unlearn bad habits, and learn the right way to sing the Rite.
The CMAA wants to help seminarians, priests and Bishops. We have many resources on musicasacra.org. We have Sacred Music Magazine and we have the magnificent Colloquium. Many priests might be intimidated by the Colloquium. “But Father, Father, I would like to come but I am not a musician. I can’t read music, and I’ll feel self-conscious around all those professional musicians.” First, you don’t have to be a musician but someone who wants to learn. If the priest doesn’t sing, the Sacred Liturgy can never be celebrated to its fullest extent. You are absolutely necessary, not only sacramentally but musically.
Second, to sing the Mass you will have to have some basic knowledge of chant notation. This year, all first time clergy and seminarians, unless you are a musician priest, will have to spend each morning in the basic chant scholas. This is necessary for a good foundation and it is a good way to see how greatly people will sacrifice to give glory to God. Third, there is no place for self – consciousness. Priests are the servants of God, His people and the Sacred Liturgy. They must do everything possible to learn how to pray and sing the Mass according to the mind of the Church.
The class on the chants of the Missal will be offered each afternoon. Not only will the new Missal be covered but the basic principles of music for the priest found in the Liber Usualis will be discussed. Orations, readings, prayers, the Eucharistic Prayers and chants for the Ancient Form of the Mass will be covered.
The highlight of the day is Holy Mass in the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Forms. The chants, the polyphony, the organ, and the variation of great styles of the sacred treasury of Catholic Music will be at the service of the Liturgy. These liturgies are meant to be paradigms of liturgical practice, musical excellence and moments of the most intense and uplifting prayer. You will be immersed in all things Catholic.
Finally, there is the social part of the Colloquium. You will meet priests, seminarians and people from all over the country and the world, who are filled with zeal for Sacred Music. You will network with priests, seminarians and people who want to do what is right. You will hear inspiring stories. You will be uplifted by the talks. You will be exhausted from the liturgical Opus Dei. You will laugh, be inspired and come away a better priest or seminarian and person.
Most dioceses offer their priests a stipend for further education. Check into it. Use that money for the Colloquium. You will not be sorry. I long to see many more priests and seminarians at the Colloquium this June. God Bless You!
A Tribute to Adam Bartlett
This is really great
Several years ago, I met an aspiring young musician and recent college graduate who had an ambitious vision for the renewal of Gregorian chant in the Catholic Church of Phoenix and beyond. The internet gave him access to hundreds of years of scholarly musical literature and chant books, the kinds of things one once had to travel to Swiss monasteries to look at; he was apprenticed to an elderly Benedictine monk and chant master in Chicago who was conveying the skills and wisdom necessary to reanimate chant in the 21st century; he had contacts with a number of willing and able singers thanks to his parish life and his connections at ASU’s highly regarded school of music.
There was just one problem: he didn’t have a music job in a parish. It’s kind of difficult to start a revolution without even a camp in the jungle. But fortunately, his employer was allowing him to set up a music studio and rehearsal space in a vacant old building he owned and was redeveloping right on Central Ave., a tiny, gutted former retail store with wires and pipes sticking out of ceilings and walls and a concrete slab floor splattered with the paint, glue, and plaster of decades. In this rent-free urban chant lab, Adam Bartlett assembled and rehearsed a number of small choirs and chant scholae over the next year. The intricate modal lines of chant, developed in the resonant acoustics of medieval churches, sounded unbelievably good in the echo-y space of this gutted old building, and it wasn’t long before Adam’s guerilla campaign to re-animate sacred music gained first a toehold in the Diocese, and then a foothold at St Joan of Arc parish. (His recent editing and publishing ventures in the global community of church musicians have advanced of late: read about them here and here.)
Ancient Gregorian chant in the heart of an urban redevelopment: I can’t think of a better example of the kinds of things that happen in Phoenix because of Sloane McFarland, entrepreneur, re-developer, conceptual artist, landlord, and, not accidentally, a daily Communicant in the Catholic Church. His company, Martha + Mary, does in its projects what its name suggests: create spaces within the active-practical sphere (read: businesses) for the reflective-contemplative activities without which human life is empty.
3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Simple English Propers
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.
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.