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Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Dramatic Changes in Music Rubrics for New Missal

Some of the most advanced thinkers in the world of music and liturgy have long identified the critical problem in Catholic music today. They have pointed out that the Mass itself provides for the texts and the music for the Mass, but in the General Instruction on on the Roman Missal, there appears a loophole. Musicians can sing what is appointed, or (“option 4”) they can sing something else, and that something else is limited only by what the musicians themselves deem as “appropriate.” What this has meant, in effect, is: anything goes. This is why it often seems that when it comes to music at Mass that, well, anything goes.

I’m happy to report that the legislative ground has just shifted, and dramatically so. The new translation of the General Instruction removes the discretion from the music team to sing pretty much whatever it wants. The new text, which pertains to the new translation of the Missal that comes into effect on Advent this year, makes it clear beyond any doubt: the music of the Mass is the chanted propers of the Mass. There are options but these options all exist within the universe of the primary normative chant. There can be no more making up some random text, setting it to music, and singing it as the entrance, offertory, or communion.

I have no doubt that the practice of singing non-liturgical texts will continue but it will now continue only under a cloud. If I’m reading this correctly, any text other than an appointed text for the Mass will now fall outside the boundaries provided for by the authoritative document that regulates the manner in which Mass is to proceed.

We can be sure that gigabytes of digits will be produced with the intention of explaining to me and everyone why what we can clearly read below does not really mean what it seems to be saying, that there has been some mistake in phrasing, that taking this literally is only the penchant of “traditionalists,” and that the prevailing practice surely has equal normative status. Nonetheless, the text is there, clear as a bell, and will be printed in all editions of the Missal that is now in preparation.

Catholic musicians of the world, the GIRM would like you to meet a new friend: the propers of the Mass.

Let us compare old and new:

The Entrance

2003 GIRM:

47. After the people have gathered, the Entrance chant begins as the priest enters with the deacon and ministers. The purpose of this chant is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to the mystery of the liturgical season or festivity, and accompany the procession of the priest and ministers.

48. The singing at this time is done either alternately by the choir and the people or in a similar way by the cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone. In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

2011 GIRM

48. This chant is sung alternately by the choir and the people or similarly by a cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone. In the Dioceses of the United States of America, there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Missal or the antiphon with its Psalm from the Gradual Romanum, as set to music there or in another setting; (2) the antiphon and Psalm of the Graduate Simplex for the liturgical time; (3) a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including Psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year, similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

Comment: There are several crucial differences. The new version clearly elevates the antiphons from the Roman Gradual or the Roman Missal as the core text. The old version had a mistake that had been confusing for years: it referred only to the Psalm from the Gradual. The new version clearly states that it is the antiphon and Psalm that are applicable from both books. Option three makes it clear that we are not talking about any song; we are talking about the liturgical chant, and there is a huge difference. Finally, option four blasts away the vague word “song” and again emphasizes chant, and with this important proviso: “suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year.” One would have to be deliberately obtuse not to see that this refers to the proper text of the day in question.

The Psalm

2003 GIRM:

61(d). [T]he following may also be sung in place of the Psalm assigned in the Lectionary for Mass: either the proper or seasonal antiphon and Psalm from the Lectionary, as found either in the Roman Gradual or Simple Gradual or in another musical setting; or an antiphon and Psalm from another collection of the psalms and antiphons, including psalms arranged in metrical form, providing that they have been approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop. Songs or hymns may not be used in place of the responsorial Psalm.

2011 GIRM:

61(d). …[I]nstead of the Psalm assigned in the lectionary, there may be sung either the Responsorial Gradual from the Graduale Romanum, or the Responsorial Psalm or the Alleluia Psalm from the Graduale Simplex, as described in these books, or an antiphon and Psalm from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, including Psalms arranged in metrical fonn, providing that they have been approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop. Songs or hymns may not be used in place of the Responsorial Psalm.

The textual differences are subtle but with huge implications. The 2003 GIRM subtly and confusingly implied that you can only use the Gradual if the texts of the Psalm with the same as the Lectionary. I’m not sure how often that occurs, but this sort of phrasing clearly gives primacy to the Lectionary over the Psalter dating back to the earliest centuries. That phrasing is now gone. It is now fantastically clear that one can use the Gradual as a primary source. It is clearly not depreciated any longer. And this is important: the Graduals are the oldest known body of Christian music. They should be permitted and not depreciated in the Roman Rite.

The Offertory

2003 and 2011 GIRM texts are identical:

74. The procession bringing the gifts is accompanied by the Offertory chant (cf. above, no. 37b), which continues at least until the gifts have been placed on the altar. The norms on the manner of singing are the same as for the Entrance chant (cf. above, no. 48). Singing may always accompany the rite at the offertory, even when there is no procession with the gifts.

Comment: the meaning of the paragraph is wholly dependent on getting the rubrics on the Entrance chant correct. Because the new GIRM corrects the rubrics on the entrance chant, this one stands corrected too. But there is a wrinkle here that will cause some scrambling to occur come November. There is no offertory chant in the Missal. The only place to find this is in the official ritual book the Graduale Romanum. It can also be found in unofficial books like the Simple English Propers and the Simple Choral Gradual. Most Catholic singers will be stunned to learn that there is an appointed text here.

Communion

2003 GIRM

87. In the dioceses of the United States of America there are four options for the Communion chant: (1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons, approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) a suitable liturgical song chosen in accordance with no. 86 above. This is sung either by the choir alone or by the choir or cantor with the people.

2011 GIRM

87. In the Dioceses of the United States of America, there are four options for singing at Communion: (1) the antiphon from the Missal or the antiphon with its Psalm from the Graduale Romanum, as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the antiphon with Psalm from the Graduale Simplex of the liturgical time; (3) a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including Psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) some other suitable liturgical chant (cf. no. 86) approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

Comment: once again, songs are out; chants are in. The word tangle in the first option that appeared in 2003 is now entirely gone. We aren’t talking about just the Psalm from the Roman Gradual. We are talking about the antiphons and Psalms from either the Missal or the Gradual. Thank you for that clarity; it makes a huge difference. Option three is also clear: not just any song but a chant like the first and section choice from another collection. Finally, a “suitable liturgical chant” in number four, folllowing the prior uses of the word chant, makes it very clear that the discretion here is gone. The texts must be from the liturgical books, as is implied with the mandate that it be approved by the USCCB or the Diocesan Bishop that regulates ritual texts for singing.

Only after the communion proper has been sung may a hymn be sung. The difference in word choice here is unambiguous: a chant is part of the liturgical structure. A hymn is something else. This usage is 100% consistent from the beginning of the GIRM 2011 to its end. And this clarity about usage finally removes all doubt about what must be sung at Mass: the Mass must be sung at Mass.

Now, I know what you are already thinking. You see a way around all this. Any pastor or musician can just decide to call the groovy tune that is chosen a “chant.” Here’s my chant, says Lady Gaga. It’s true that you could ignore the whole of English usage and call anything a chant, and I can also call my hat a banana and no one can stop me.

In like manner, you can ignore all the clear import of the mandates here pounce on the slight bit of liberality and say, hey, who’s gonna stop this? All of that is true. And so it is when dealing with children when you step out of the house for a bit: you can give the clearest instructions possible, a comprehensive list of dos and do nots, and yet somehow they will find a way to get around the rules. All of this is true.

In other words, it will still not be possible to bring an end to the pop music with random texts at Mass by waving this at your pastor’s face. It seems to me very clear that vast swaths of existing music used in the English speaking world are soon to be regarded as illicit. I don’t think there is any other honest way to read the new GIRM. There is very little if any room for anything now but the propers of the Mass.

I’m not naive and neither are you: the other songs will continue. Even so, they are not long for this world. The Church now speaks and sings with a clear voice; we can choose to sing along or sing some other song of our choosing.

____

Here is a fair-use excerpt scan sent my way. 

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

What’s in the forthcoming GIRM (and there is apparently is one)

Pototentially important news about a new translation of the GIRM, which Fr. Z says will be published in the forthcoming Missal. Causafinetaest also discusses this. The focus of these two posts concerns posture for receiving communion.

This evening I receive a phonecall that read from the new translation and apparently the permission for “other appropriate songs” besides the propers has been seriously diminished. If what the caller said is correct, the introit, communion, and offertory clearly establishes the proper as the text.

I have no sense of how strong the language is or what all this means. I would appreciate receiving a scan ASAP.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Great Catholic Choir Struggle: Figuring Out What to Sing

Every week, Catholic choirs and cantors face that great struggle of figuring out what to sing. The usual way is to dig through the hymnbook, pick a few out, and run with it. Maybe the readings are consulted, maybe not. Depends on the time available for preparation. The results are almost always unsatisfying and even a bit boring.

Is this all there is to singing for the Roman Rite? Is this what 2000 years of tradition have come down to?

Well, a bit of study reveals something profoundly important. The Mass already has music that is intrinsic to it, picked out, printed, and ready to sing. It’s called Gregorian chant, but there ought to be another phrase because that one implies that it is all more-or-less the same. In fact, Gregorian chant is hugely varied in its style, mood, text, purpose (depends on the liturgical action in question).

But perhaps this music seems a bit remote and you don’t know how to read it or your pastor and/or parishioners are afraid of Latin.

The Simple English Propers, now in print, provides the first real answer to the problem. This book provides music for the full liturgical year, but not just any music with not just any words. The words are the words of the liturgy itself, the words appointed to be sung at entrance, offertory, and communion. The music is based on the Gregorian melodies but simplified for those starting out. And there are Psalms enough to sing to take up the entire liturgical action. One book and you can sing all the parts of the Mass for the full liturgical year.

Yes, this should have come out forty years ago, but, regardless, it is out now. Here it what this book offers for the 15th Sunday. Again, the Psalms are not printed here but there are enough for the full action. Again, the book is The Simple English Propers – a book that has been called the most important book of Catholic music since the Graduale Romanum of 1908.

Here are some practice vids.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Those Strange “Alternative Opening Prayers”

A very odd feature of the current Sacramentary is its “Alternative opening prayer,” which appears to have been dreamed up out of whole cloth. Here is the way it works. On the 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, the priest’s collect can read:

God our Father,
your light of truth
guides us to the way of Christ.
May all who follow him
reject what is contrary to the gospel. 

Or this is this other option in the right hand column. It is labelled “Alternative Opening Prayer” and it reads as follows:

Father, let the light of your truth
guide us to your king
through a world filled with lights contrary to your own.
Christian is the name and the gospel we glory in.
May your love makes us what you have called us to be.

So where did that come from? Not from the Roman Missal. They were inserted into the Missal with the help of an advisory board. Essentially they were selected by a bureaucracy and inserted in to stand alongside the already loosely translated real versions. Sometime they seem to pick up missing parts from the Latin; other times, they contain completely new ideas. But there is nothing in the Sacramentary to indicate that they are anything less then authentic. It is made to appear as if these were just another example of “choice” that is all to pervasive in the Missal already.

To be sure, most younger priests got hip to this game some years ago. They never say them because their dubious authenticity. Older priests, however, who have not partaken of the current ethos toward more faithful rendering of texts, use them frequently, and they are nearly all as puzzling as the one above (“Christian is the name…”?)

Among many extraordinary features of the forthcoming Missal is that these are eliminated entirely. The text you will see is the translated text from the Roman Missal, period.

This is a huge step.

Incidentally, this is the new collect for the same day:

O God, who show the light of your truth
to those who go astray,
so that they may return to the right path,
give all who for the faith they profess
are accounted Christians
the grace to reject whatever is contrary to the name of Christ
and to strive after all that does it honor.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Robert Louis Stevenson on Gregorian Chant

From our dear friend Jeffrey Morse comes this fascinating commentary:
With Independence Day just passed as well as the Feast on July 1st of California’s Blessed Junipero Serra, the founder of the California Mission system, my thoughts have turned to Chant in America and specifically in California, and it’s history here.  I was very pleased to come across some letters of Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of TREASURE ISLAND, A CHILD’S GARDEN OF VERSES, DR. JEKYLL & MR HYDE and many other notable books, a Scot, who visited California in late 1879. 
Two letters of his survive that are really quite remarkable. In them he describes visiting Mission Carmel, or really the ruins of it as it was roofless by this time with grass growing in the nave and cows occasionally grazing there.   
In this letter he is seen as one of the early advocates of saving the old mission writing, “In England some great noble or cotton spinner would purchase it, repair it and charge so much entry money  to curious visitors.  In France, still better, the government would take it in hand and make it one of the ‘Historical Monuments’ of the nation.”  His visit to the ruins of the Mission coincided with “San Carlos Day” the feast of St Charles Borromeo, the patron of the Mission.  He writes,
 I heard the old indians singing mass.  That was a new experience, and one well worth hearing.  There was the old man who led and the women who so worthily followed.  It was like a voice out of the past. They sang by tradition, from the teaching of early missionaries long since turned to clay.  And still in the roofless church you may hear the old music.  Padre Casanove, will, I am sure, be the first to pardon and understand me when I say the old Gregorian singing preached a sermon more eloquent than his own.  Peace on earth, good will to men so it seemed to me to say; and to me as a Barbarian, who hears on all sides evil speech and the roughest bywords about the Indian race, to hear Carmel Indians sing their latin words with so good a pronunciation and give out these ancient chants with familiarity and fervor suggested new and pleasant reflections.  (Letter to Crevole Bronson)
Elsewhere he writes more on his experience of hearing Mass sung at the Carmel Mission:
An Indian, stone-blind, and about eighty years of age, conducts the singing; other Indians compose the choir; yet they have the Gregorian music at their 
finger-ends, and pronounce the Latin so correctly that I could follow the meaning as they sang.  The pronunciation was odd and nasal, the singing hurried andcstaccato.  ‘In saecula saeculo-ho-horum’ they went, with a vigorous aspirate to every additional syllable.  I have never seen faces more vividly lit up with joy than the faces of those Indian singers.   It was to them not only the worship of God, nor an act by which they recalled and commemorated better days, but was besides an exercise of culture where all they knew of art and letters was united and expressed.  And it made a man’s heart sorry for the good fathers of yore who taught them to dig and to reap, to read and to sing, who had given them European mass-books which thet still preserve and study in their cottages, and who had now passed awayfrom all authority in the land- to be succeeded by greedy land thieves and sacrilegious pistol shots.  So ugly a thing may our Anglo-Saxon Protestantism appear beside the doings of the Society of Jesus.”
One should remember that Stevenson was not even a Catholic, and yet he was charmed, indeed one might even say bowled-over by his experience of the “Gregorian singing” so loving preserved nearly a half century after the end of the mission system.  My hope is that all of us who are involved in the teaching, directing and singing of chant might also possess this fervor, this zeal for the Church’s song, so that long after we are all clay, the Chant might ring out in our churches again, preaching a sermon, a catechism more eloquent than mere words.
Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Rite of Sprinkling

One of the strangest results of the reform of the 1969-70 reform of the Mass ritual was the musical and liturgical confusion introduced for the Sprinkling Rite. It is clear enough in the Graduale Romanum; Asperges Mei for most of the year, and Vidi Aquam for Easter season.

But this very old order of things was thrown into chaos by the loss of Gregorian standard as the norm for music, and also by the way in which the new Roman Missal seemed to split the priests parts from the choir parts and thereby drive a wedge between the two by publishing only the priest’s parts in the Missal. The Gradual, meanwhile, is mostly unknown in the lofts of the English-speaking world.

As a result, the typical Sprinking rite, insofar as it is used at all, goes like this:

Dear friends, this water will be used to remind us of our baptism. Let us ask God to bless it, and to keep us faithful to the Spirit he has given us:

Cacophonous musical thing follows that has something to do with water. 

So there needs to be a restatement about the rules. There is the Vidi Aquam for Easter, and Asperges Mei for the rest of the year. These chants are easily obtained from online sources.

But what if this is not a choir that sings Latin chant? What then?

There are many wonderful and simple options in English. One of the best comes from the Simple Choral Gradual, listed in the appendix. Here we find two little treasures: an Asperges and a Vidi in English set for the choir. Any choir can sing this. It is dignified and beautiful. It is just one of the reasons that having this book in print is a fantastic thing for the Roman Rite. Now choirs can sing propers in choral settings all year, mixing and matching with chant.

I’ll say it again: music at Mass is not just about picking some random thing that you like to sing. It is about being part of the actual liturgical structure, singing appointed texts in dignified ways.

Posted on by Mr. C

Things I learned in…..

I now know I don’t know it all.

I also know I’m not supposed to know it all.

That it’s taken me sixty years on this plane(t) to know that testifies to God’s sense of humor, and more importantly, His love.

I know that to be Catholic is not easy.

I know acting and behaving as a Christian is not supposed to be easy.

I know St. Francis of Assisi knew all this much better than I ever will.

I know his prayer should be etched on our hearts and sung by each of us upon awakening to each day.

I know his prayer bows in humility to that given us by Christ to offer together to God.

I know that chanting for a human soul is like flying to birds.

I know that singing in harmonies for the human soul is not unlike the movement of celestial bodies in the spaces of the universe.

I know that the Holy Mass dwells upon the fulcrum between heaven and earth.

I know that there is only one Mass, and God gave us senses to savor it in many ways.

I know that the Mass is an exchange of the gift of love between Creator and we, His creatures.

I know we are the sole beneficiaries of that gift, and that God’s will is that we will be enjoined to Him by His grace, which is integral to that gift, and to be treasured and respected to the fullest extent we each can offer.

I know that we are called to lay our lives down for each other, not to lay others down for our own purposes.

I know that I’ve failed.

I know that I cannot ever atone for or alter that reality of my own volition.

I know there is an enemy, and like Pogo, the enemy is often us.

I know there is also an Enemy, and it loves, among other maliciousness, cleverness.

I also know it cowers and flees upon the mere thought and mention of “Jesus Christ, my Savior and Lord.”

I know that the fabric that clothes Christians is love, period, love.

I know that to use that clothing in pride tears that fabric apart.

I know that cloth is to be kept by the door, as we are all naked before it and in need.

And I know there is the Real Presence in my heart, and by the door, and in all those I see.

I know there really isn’t anything that is truly, actually “I.”

“I” doesn’t know anything.

AM, on the other hand….