Chant Café

As promised, I now offer my concluding thoughts on the CMAA 2011 Winter Chant Intensive.

As I mentioned in my first post last week, I had a few particular objectives in attending my first CMAA training event. My objectives surely are unique to me, and I am not speaking for the entire group that attended. Every participant comes from a different situation, a different location, a different background, and surely everyone walked away from the Intensive with something different. This is surely one of the most beautiful things about such an event, and the results were truly wonderful.

My first objective was to grow intellectually in the art and science of singing and directing Gregorian chant. Toward this aim the advanced group sat at the feet of Dr. William Mahrt, venerable musicologist and Stanford professor, for up to 7 hours each day. Anyone who has had the opportunity to simply sit and listen to a scholar in old age who has spent his entire life delving the depths of the topics that he is discussing knows what a sublime experience this is. Better still is the opportunity to discuss topics and ask questions in a seminar setting. What might take a person many years to understand on their own can suddenly be presented to them in thorough and breathtaking clarity. Such was the case in Dr. Mahrt’s sessions. Even if he spent a half-hour or more arriving at a single point, following the journey to arrive at that point is almost as valuable than the point itself for aspiring scholars, musicians and artists. These sorts of opportunities cannot be passed up, and I am so very grateful for the opportunity to soak in all that Dr. Mahrt had to offer this past week.

My second objective was to consider methods of chant interpretation other than the one that I have been primarily trained in. My training in chant has primarily been in what is called the “New Solesmes” school, or the “Cardine” or “Semiological” school. I knew previously that Dr. Mahrt does not adhere strictly to a single school of thought, but that he uses elements of both schools of thought, including others such as Domincan chant, and his own insights from studying the writings of Medieval theorists. I also knew that in practice much of what is taught at CMAA events relies very heavily on the methodology of what is often called the “Old Solesmes” method, or the “Ward Method”. These systematic methodologies were advanced by Doms Mocquereau and Gajard in the first part of the 20th c. and also by Justine Ward in her practical instructions on the singing of chant.

I found it very interesting, then, that one of Dr. Mahrt’s first topics was a discussion of the different schools of thought in the practice of singing Gregorian chant. I was personally very excited to see him hand out photocopies of the Mass Propers for the Feast of the Epiphany from the Graduale Triplex, which contains 10th c. manuscripts which are the subject of Gregorian Semiology, and asked everyone to sing from this edition. I could see on the faces of many seasoned chanters in the room a sort of wide-eyed or mildly bewildered look as they looked at these pages, some for the first time. Many of the singers present had the “Old Solesmes” system down so cold that I can imagine that they saw very little value in the early manuscripts. In fact, as we sight-read through some of these pieces for the first time a perfectly nice result was achieved. All of the pitches were correct, the text was sung with correct pronunciation, the lengthenings were conventional and unified, surely for some this was a perfectly acceptable performance for any Sunday parish liturgy. But Dr. Mahrt insisted that there was so much more to be found in the chants in regard to their rhythm, to their expression, and that the early manuscripts found in the Graduale Triplex contained so much of this information which simply could not be found in the modern square note editions.

Dr. Mahrt worked very hard throughout our singing of these proper chants over the course of the week to get us away from a tendency to slightly stress every successive note in a chant melody. He described how Medieval theorists described a neume as a single movement, a single stroke of the breath, and that many of the ancient neumes similarly contained in one stroke of the pen 5 or often more notes. Our goal was to sing these neumes in a legato and flowing manner as such. He also tried relentlessly to get us singers to away from “doubling” notes with horizontal episema, and the first note of the quilisma. Many of the singers had great struggles with this, and seemed to continue to fall back into patterns of even accentuation, and of strictly doubling notes since they laid so nicely in a pattern of equal pulses. I also found it very interesting that both conductors verbally reprimanded the doubling of these two notes, yet I observed that in their conducting they very often conducted these notes in a manner that was perfectly doubled according to the established more or less equal “pulse”! I say this in good fun, and with the greatest respect for both Mahrt and Turkington, and only mention it as an observation that I have made in the practice of a school of interpretation that I have little experience with.

There came early in the course of our singing of the Epiphany propers a sudden command from Dr. Mahrt: “Okay, why don’t just ‘count out’ this phrase”. And what followed was a perfectly unified singing of “1-2, 1-2-3, 1-2, 1-2…” on the pitches of the chant in question by the majority of the singers in the room–all except for three. I personally have NEVER counted a chant in 2’s and 3’s. I don’t even know how, actually! And another singer who had sung chant as a child in London sat still with a look of bewilderment. After this was concluded she softly raised her hand and politely asked “might I kindly ask what is this counting that we’re doing?” We all had a good laugh and Dr. Mahrt gave a brief description of the “Old Solesmes” method to those who weren’t familiar with it. I find it very interesting, though, that the entire group proceeded to sing the same music together without a strict reliance on a single mode of thought. I do think, though, that the Old Solesmes method was not able to be overcome by the end of the session. This was the predominant influence on the group of singers, and many of the nuanced elements of rhythm and expression proposed by Dr. Mahrt seemed not to stick. It is not that the end result was not beautiful–it was in its own way. But I found this very interesting to observe, and I wonder if an approach that begins with a rhythm that is found first in the text, and in the ancient neumes might produce different results.

So overall I found the advanced session to be very enriching in a multitude of ways. My only disappointment is that we seemed only to begin to scratch the surface in exploring a more nuanced singing of the chant, especially by means of analyzing the information that is found in the early manuscripts. The singing itself, in the end, did not seem to go too far beyond the rudiments of the Old Solesmes method, and I suspect that many of the singers and directors in the session were prepared for a more in depth exploration of the elements of chant interpretation. I personally would love to see in future “advanced” sessions a more thorough or even systematic consideration of the elements of Gregorian Semiology, which, after my experience of the Chant Intensive, I see not so much as conflicting with Old Solesmes, so much as I see it as a continuation of what began in the Old Solesmes Method.

My third objective in attending the Chant Intensive was to consider, on the part of my diocesan Office of Worship, how training seminars like those put on by the CMAA could supplement the training and catechesis that will be taking place in the coming year as we prepare for the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal in Advent of 2011. The events put on by the CMAA have been in the forefront of the chant training efforts in the United States for the past several years, and I was very happy to observe how the task was handled. I must say that the entire week was orchestrated in a very balanced way and I think that similar scaled-down versions could be offered on the diocesan level with the intention of embracing the implementation of the new translation as an opportunity grow in our ability to sing the Mass. This means that priests and deacons need to be trained to sing their part, and that musicians also can understand the role that they play in the liturgy which involves singing the proper of the Mass, and leading the congregation in the singing of their parts which primarily include the Order of Mass and the Ordinary of the Mass. I can’t wait to implement these sorts of training programs in my own diocese as we prepare for the new translation of the Roman Missal.

And finally, my fourth objective was to take a week of spiritual retreat. One of the most beautiful things about the Chant Intensive was connection to the sacraments. Every day participants were given the opportunity to attend daily Mass, in either the Ordinary or Extraordinary Form, and to avail themselves to a sacramental confession if it was desired. This is the fundamental difference between studying Gregorian chant in a sterile classroom environment, and studying it within the framework of the liturgical life of the Church. The highlight of the week, without a doubt, was the solemn Mass in the Extraordinary Form that concluded the week of study. Both choirs prepared portions of the sung liturgy, dividing up propers, in singing together Kyriale Mass IX. The ceremonial was complete and the ministers executed the rites with solemn dignity and beauty. There were many parishioners of St. Patrick’s Parish who also attended the liturgy and vocally participated in the Order of Mass and much of the Ordinary as well.

What I found particularly striking in this liturgy was that the main celebrant, Fr. Klores, pastor of St. Patrick’s in New Orleans, took up the desire of Pope Benedict XVI that both the EF and OF should mutually enrich each other. Many traditionalists perhaps see this as an opportunity for the OF to conform to the EF, but I was very edified by the Epistle and Gospel which were both sung prominently and solemnly in the vernacular, and by the Pater Noster which was sung not just by the priest, but in full by the congregation. My experience of liturgy has primarily been and remains in the OF, and I was so inspired by the pastoral decision to implement these two developments which find their origin in the liturgical reforms of Sacrosanctum Concilium. It is this sort of enrichment of the Roman Rite that is the future of the liturgy, I think. Needless to say this liturgical celebration was among the most beautiful and prayerful acts of worship that I have ever participated in. God was given worship befitting a King, and the souls present, including my own, were edified and sanctified.

All in all, the 2011 Winter Chant Intensive was a wonderful success and a very welcomed time of retreat and study. I am thankful to God for the work that the CMAA is doing in encouraging and training musicians in the music of the Roman Rite, and for doing so with a vital connection to the font of grace that is the Eucharistic liturgy and the sacraments.