Posts

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Singing is Rather Fashionable

Phillburbs reports on a large group of high school singers who meet after school to sing unaccompanied medieval music and chant. It is particularly charming how the writer of this story takes it for granted that chant is part of Catholic liturgy.

Whether it’s a Gregorian chant sung during a Roman Catholic Mass, or a barbershop quartet harmonizing on a neighborhood street corner, the popularity of unaccompanied vocal music has persisted through the ages.

And the New York Times further reports:

After “American Idol,” “The Sing-Off,” “America’s Got Talent” and the coming “X-Factor,” can anyone come up with still another way for singers to compete on television?

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Sweetly Lord, by my father

I hope you will permit me a personal indulgence. “Sweetly Lord” is my father’s song, one I remember especially well because he sang it to me when I was little and it was sung again at his funeral. He was a great musician and a great man, and I miss him. No, he wasn’t Catholic and this song probably doesn’t belong at Mass, but it is very pretty and sincere.

Sweetly Lord

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Mary Berry and Alma Redemptoris Mater

From a facebook update, we find one of thousands of such stories about Mary Berry, evangelist for chant and the great bridge between the Second Vatican Council and today’s revival of chant the world over (every schola in Eastern Europe today owes its existence to her efforts, for example):

In about 1993 I, and a friend from my choral group, Ecclesia Consort, picked Sister Mary up at Community of Jesus and drove her to Providence Rhode Island’s Blessed sacrament Church where she gave Ecclesia a brief 2-hour lecture on Gregorian Chant personally. it was one of life’s most amazing things. We then drove her to Boston’s Logan and I asked her her favorite chant, which she proceeded to sing gently in a very crowded terminal. She began the Alma Redemptoris Mater with head bowed. She began despite the cacophony around her. When she got about half through, the room was completely silent…no lie. It was a transforming moment for me and one I hold dear forever. She was first a loving nun and woman of faith, and second a dedicated and passionate intructor of the Chant. I felt as if she was placing a mantle upon us that afternoon. We have continued to sing the Chant in every service since. Not like Community of Jesus, but we still sing it with love and joy.

Here she is conducting Puer Natus

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

How Accompaniment for Gregorian Chant Works

Our friend Jeffrey Ostrowski has written a nice piece on various strategies for organ accompaniment for chant. Most chant experts say that it is far better not to accompany chant. A minimum amount can help in particular cases, such as when the room is so dead that the sound will not carry. This is sadly common in parish life today, due mostly to the presence of carpet (if there is carpet in your parish, pull it up right now and the sound will dramatically improve).

Another reason for organ backup is to stop the pitch from falling. I’m a bit dubious about this solution because it doesn’t teach anyone how to sing. It gives them a crutch and arguably makes people more dependent on externals. It doesn’t fix the problem except in a temporary sense, and this approach can cause the quality of singing to decline due to laziness and dependency.

The worst reason to favor chant is actually the most common one: it makes the music less liturgical and more accessible to modern ears. I’m sure we’ve all been in a situation in which Gloria VIII was sung gussied up with chords that it hardly sounds like chant at all anymore.

So the demand for accompaniment is real, despite all the failings, and Ostrowski has done the world a favor by posting vast amounts of it in many styles. His piece below explains the various strategies used by the composers.

________________________________________________________________

Two famous quotes by Jean-Philippe Rameau (an important theorist/composer) and Willi Apel (who wrote an important book on Gregorian chant) make it clear that some parties absolutely condemn organ accompaniment of Gregorian chant. However, right or wrong, this practice is undeniably a part of our Catholic musical heritage. For one thing, many thousands of pages of organ accompaniments and treatises have been published by Catholics over the last two centuries (incidentally, the majority of these are now available online at the St. Jean Lalande Library). Furthermore, organ accompaniment was considered so crucial that Catholic composers consistently (and inexplicably) published voluminous accompaniments for numerous “forbidden” parts of the Mass (such as the Sundays in Lent, the Requiem Mass, and the priest’s parts like the Pater Noster, which were not supposed to be accompanied by the organ). The only time organ accompaniment was never used (before the Council) seems to have been Good Friday.

The Missa Pro Defunctis, in particular, was always set to organ accompaniments. Not atypical is this 1876 Requiem Mass accompaniment (click to view) by Dr. Franz Witt. In his 1910 edition, Max Springer carefully marked all the Sundays of Lent, through Palm Sunday (click to view) with “Non pulsantur organa” . . . yet still harmonized each and every chant. For the Sundays of Advent (click to view), Springer put “Silent organa.” For those interested, this longer article has extremely rare excerpts of 19th century organ accompaniments, explains the different “schools” of Gregorian accompaniment, and contains many more instances of “forbidden” accompaniments (like the Pater Noster, Preface, etc.).

I would like to share a few “tricks of the trade” of Gregorian accompaniment, but I’m a bit nervous. After all, Bishop Fulton Sheen has reminded us that “ordinarily, the less your audience understands, the more impressed they are with you.” Still, I feel that giving away these “secrets” might help people who are interested in music but “don’t know much about it” get a glimpse of compositional techniques.

It’s important to approach each piece differently, because each piece in the Gregorian repertoire presents unique challenges and deserves careful consideration. In general, all harmonizations will require four things: (A) chordal direction (that is, “go somewhere”); (B) as much (modal) chordal variety as possible; (C) counterpoint and smooth voice leading; and (D) variation in texture. I cannot (in this short article) explain each of these terms, but I will give a quick definition of “counterpoint.” Wolfgang Mozart said, “Counterpoint is simple. When one voice goes up, the other goes down. When one voice moves, the other voice stays put.” What makes counterpoint difficult is that the vertical harmonies also have to line up (at all times!), which makes writing counterpoint similar to solving a Rubik’s cube.

Below, I will use a piece called Concórdi Laetítia, which (unless I’m mistaken) is a very ancient text set to a “neo-Gregorian” (i.e. 19th century) melody. (Concórdi Laetítia from Pothier’s 1903 Cantus Mariales) However, for our purposes, this piece will do just fine, because it’s strophic (that is, the same melody repeats over and over). According to the Belgian school (which I follow), it is not at all artistic to use the same exact harmonization and registration over and over again for a strophic piece (like a Gregorian hymn). So, immediately, the challenge becomes: how many different ways can each verse be harmonized?

(VIDEO PRESENTATION • 1st verse) In the first verse, I don’t do anything “fancy” (since it’s the first verse), but I do sneak in a few walking bass lines (marked in purple).

(VIDEO PRESENTATION • 2nd verse) In the second verse, things begin to get more interesting, as I employ a walking bass line that goes from very low to very high, without a single skip. This method really helps accomplish all the goals we set earlier (chordal direction, chordal variety, etc.).

(VIDEO PRESENTATION • 3rd verse) In the third verse, I do the opposite; that is, I start up high and gently walk the bass line all the way down in stepwise motion.

(VIDEO PRESENTATION • 4th verse) For the fourth verse, I still use walking bass lines, but my emphasis is more on variation in cadential chords. I also chose an interesting “fluty” organ registration (which one can get away with after multiple verses).

(VIDEO PRESENTATION • 5th verse) Finally, I pull out the “big guns” for the final repetition (colorful seventh chords, lots of motion in the voices, and even a “drive to the cadence”). As always, walking bass lines solve many of our problems (with regard to smooth voice leading, oblique motion, chordal direction, etc.). And now, here’s a video with all five verses in a row:

Those intrigued by this brief article are encouraged to “poke around” the St. Jean Lalande Library, or the other Corpus Christi Watershed Liturgical sites (which contain many hundreds of organ accompaniments). One especially good place to find “Belgian” accompaniments is our brand new, 180 page publication.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Time to Sing the Mass

From the Times of India

As one involved in church choirs here and elsewhere for the last forty years, I must say I too believed we were spreading “the spirit of Vatican II” when we introduced catchy innovations during Mass.

I was told “the people’s participation” was all-important. We choir types were pleased when members of the congregation came up after Mass and said, “Oh, we really enjoyed it!” as though it were a show. We concentrated on four hymns, thinking that was our bit. No one ever told us in 1970 to sing the Mass, to aim at inner participation, helping people enter more fully into the meaning of each liturgical action.

In the last few years, especially at weddings and funerals, I have often heard choirs do devotional and profane music at various parts of the ceremony, even interrupting the liturgy with so-and-so’s favourite song.

Almost invariably, some schmaltzy number replaces the precious Psalm chosen from the hymnal Jesus himself used. Then again, there is a habit of singing prayerful words to plagiarised pop tunes. When a choir of seminarians erupted into an Alleluia to the tune of ‘Oo Oo Ah Ah Sexy Eyes’, I was surprised the congregation remained solemn. Alas, we have stuffed our ears with cotton wool. Now is the favourable time to change all that.

Starting this Advent season, we have a year to settle choral scores.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Prepare the Way for Simple Propers

I know a high school group of liturgical singers and strummers that might mean well but makes a terrible mess of the music at Mass, week after week. There are thousands of such groups around the country. I’m sure you too know of a few.

The archetypes are common. There’s a drummer, a singer, a backup singer, a pianist, and a guitar player. None of them can play their instruments well. The singer can’t sing without being heavily miked and without musical emoticons strewn throughout. The repertoire is bubble-gum pop ballads with a Jesus theme. People fear going to Masses where they play, and they are the constant brunt of negative mutterings, though the players themselves are not aware of it.

Of course they have no idea what they are doing. No one has ever discussed with them anything about the musical demands of the Roman Rite. They know nothing about the proper orientation for making music at Mass. The liturgical calender is an abstraction. Terms like propers or dialogues are gibberish to them. Most of the players can’t even read music. To them it is an opportunity to see and be seen, a weekly talent gig, and they probably don’t mind it that people give them credit for their service to the parish.

The pastor and celebrant don’t like it any more than anyone else. But the parents of these kids are important people in the parish. The band doesn’t charge any money for their services, such as they are. The director of music has nothing to do with them, and no adults are really involved at any level. At least that teen Mass slot is covered, so, in the balance, it seems to make more sense to tolerate them and endure. Again, it is well known that they mean well, and surely that is enough.

I’m looking at this situation and it seems like an impossible nut to crack.

Some people might look at this and say that the answer is obvious: toss these ill-educated, amateur noise makers out on their ears. Well, that’s an interesting proposal if not exactly pastoral. In fact, I don’t think this approach really works. It does not foster a stable parish environment. It’s not realistic. It doesn’t draw on the existing talents in the parish – and they are thin indeed – and there remains the question concerning who or what would replace them. The Catholic world isn’t exactly crawling with Gregorian choirs waiting in the wings to sing.

So let’s say you had the opportunity to reform them. Keep in mind that this group is not particularly inspired to do more than show up once per week. I’ve thought about this quite a bit and even after all my writing and experience, I’m not entirely sure I would know where to begin. There needs to be a complete reestablishment of musical priorities. They have no idea what they are. And there is a precondition even to that stage: they need to get away from all the microphones, guitars, pianos, and drums, and come to understand that it is not their machinery that makes the music but their voices.

Once we establish the preeminence of the voice in liturgical music, there is another immediate problem. We need sheet music and we can hope that this would not just be yet another collection of junky hymns in a slightly different and stodgier style. We need real liturgical music that is connected intimately to the ritual. Otherwise, they will never come to understand the weightiness of their responsibilities or feel the satisfaction that comes with providing music for Mass.

Now, let’s say that I marched up to this group and handed them the Graduale Romanum and said: sing this! I don’t think I have to explain to readers that this approach is pretty much dead on arrival. In fact, I would suggest that this is true of any music in Latin. This material is absolutely terrifying to this generation. As tragic as this sounds, Latin might as well be German or Russian to these kids. They are nowhere near prepared for it. They barely speak English as it is. What need, then, is music in English, for starters.

Let’s see where we’ve come so far. We’ve led them to see that their voices are more important than their external equipment. We’ve seen that they need to apply their talents to singing not just any Jesus songs that they like but rather music actually connected to the ritual. We realize that this music must be in English.

Now what? If I worked at it I could probably cobble together enough resources to make it possible. I could print out this proper written in 1956 and this choral offertory written in 1992, plus this communion chant someone uploaded last week, and then also this responsorial psalm from a different website. They would all be 8.5X11” printouts from different files online, hard to find and hard to repeat week to week because the resources are so scattered. And let’s face it: a series of random links to scattered material here and there is no substitute for a coherent musical program.

Can you imagine how these kids eyes would glaze over at my explanation? How long would it take these kids to bail out of my great plan here and revert to their fun garage-style music making that everyone else hates and drives people to avoid their Mass time like their plague?

Readers who have been keeping up with the ChantCafe.com know what I’m getting to. I’m getting to the Simple Propers Project of Adam Bartlett and his coworkers. This is music in English in free rhythm, meaning that it does not play to that secular beat approach to music. It is liturgical chant. The editions provide enough music to cover the entire liturgy. They are propers of the Mass so it means that the kids will be contributing to the Mass structure, not behaving as a side show act. This makes their role more important. The music is entirely vocal. It can be sung by one person or twelve. It is a coherent and integrated program.

I’m absolutely beside myself in anticipation of their completion. As I’ve told many people, my dream is to hold that final book in my hands. With this book, at last there will be something to hand to groups like this and say: this is music that is appropriate for you to sing at Mass. It does require a bit of teaching. But how much? I think I could prepare even the kids I describe above to render all this music competently in a single teaching session, and perhaps one followup. This is essential for short-attention spans.

The Simple Propers will acculturate these kids to understand their responsibilities and to come to understand what sacred music feels like and sounds like. This is without long hectoring lectures and treatises and documents on the subject. We teach best by showing and having people do these. This is the best teacher of all. There is another benefit here: the Simple Propers are not an end in themselves. They point to more. They point to the Gregorian tradition because the modality and rhythmic approach is identical. Once having sung propers, choirs will accept no less, so we have here beautifully prepared ground for the re-introduction of the full Gregorian tradition. At some point, the Graduale Romanum will not seem like a book from Mars.

I’ve thought about this whole subject and this book extensively and I’m not exaggerating when I say this: this one book can be bridge for an entire generation to come to embrace the Catholic tradition of music. In this sense, I hardly think there is any more important musical priority for Catholics than this project right now. I’m so excited about it. I’m counting the days until they appear sometime in the summer of 2011.

Thank you again to everyone who has contributed to this marvelous project. We have glorious things to look forward to this Advent.