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Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

False Choices in Catholic Music

Recent experience has brought to light, in my own mind, some false choices that many of us in the Catholic music world carry around. As we make our way toward a musical framework of the Roman Rite that is more in keeping with what the Council Fathers of Vatican might have imagined, we need to think about some of these issues. Clearing away false choices is a crucial step toward realizing that there are solemn options out there that stand somewhere between the schlock that we’ve lived with for far too long and the all-Gregorian Mass that we all know is the ideal native to the Mass in all its forms.

As regards the entrance, offertory, and communion, the usual choice is a hymn of some sort, perhaps one thematically tied to the season. The other option that I and many others have promoted is the ideal, that is the Gregorian antiphon: introit, offertory, and communion chant. The problem here is that there is a world apart between them. One is metric with a beat, and the other is free rhythm. One rhymes, and one does not. One is in modern notes, the other in neumes. One is in English, and the other is in Latin.

Many people have a very difficult time going from one to the other. The distance is great indeed.
The switch is a big undertaking from a pastoral angle. People worry about the response from the people in the pews. Even good pastors who “get” the music issue can be squeamish. Hardly any schola is prepared to work up three large-scale chants every week unless they are ready to rehearse several hours during a week. Young scholas are not competent enough to handle this. The ideal can be so remote that it is never even tried.

So what is the fallback position? To do a hymn. But this can be very disappointing once you understand the role of propers, which are part of the structure of Mass, both in the textual and musical content. Once we understand that, the world of chant can appear almost like an unreachable Valhalla. It is something we might long for and dream of but we are unwilling to die in combat to get there.

Why is it that we carry around this idea that we must choose one or the other? It must be a leftover from preconcilar times, when high Mass meant the Liber Usualis and low Mass meant pulling material from the St. Gregory hymnal, since it was believe that it is not permitted to sing the propers for low Mass. Hymns were the suitable replacement.

I do wonder if many of us still believe this as a holdover from the old days. In any case, there are not too many examples of other options out there. Between 1969 or so and very recently, parishes nearly universally sang hymns; the few that did not (and there are famous and heroic cases!) were using full Gregorian propers. Models of anything in between were non-existent.

Plenty of folks extant, many of whom are associated with Catholic publishing houses, want Catholics to believe that we must make a choice now and forever between 1) sprightly, jazzy, go-get-’em, pop songs, or 2) dusty, dreary, dreadful music of the inquisition. If that is the choice, there is no question of the results. I hope that the image of chant is beginning to change with great exposure. But what we still lack is the trigger to make the switch from music that does not really belong at Mass to music is that is native to the Mass.

Today, there are in fact many options for the English propers. Most recently, Adam Barlett has been posting Simple English Propers that are highly successful for parish use. They can be sung pretty much on the spot or with a quick rehearsal before Mass. They sound thoroughly Catholic, and thoroughly accessible. You can add as many Psalms to them as necessary. They adapt to different singing styles and really do well in bringing out the text of the proper of the Mass. They are far preferred to singing a hymn with a text from from an outside source. Or they can be used in conjunction with a hymn. Pastors should be pointing their musicians to them. They are a fantastic bridge from one world to the next.

In addition, there are many settings of propers now available mostly online, some composed in the 1960s but others being worked on right now, by, for example, Frs. Samuel Weber and Columba Kelly. There are alternative traditions that are well developed in the form of the Anglican Use Gradual. Others are in preparation. These strikes me as the most viable method forward. And what’s great about all of them is not only their inherent textual integrity but their relationship to the chant. They all point the way forward toward the Gregorian ideal.

The objection to all schola-sung propers is immediately raised: what about the people and their expectation of singing at the entrance, offertory, and communion? I’ve come to realize that the belief that either the people sing or the schola sings might in fact be another example of a false choice.

We should know by now that by Protestant standards the singing of the Catholic people, even under the best of conditions (one of the four hymns that Catholics tend to sing; can you name them?), the singing is still comparatively tepid. It is nearly always the case that the cantor or schola is driving forward the production of music, while the people’s voices, among those who choose to sing, are a shadow of a reflection of the primary voice of the cantor or schola.

Now, when I say things like this, I always receive communications from people who tell me of some congregation somewhere that has hugely loud and robust singing, crowds of people in the pews who are giving it their all at full volume. I’m not in a position to dispute this but I’ve been to regular parishes in most parts of the country, and I’ve never once been taken aback at the incredible singing (except at the extraordinary form recessional when the choice is Salve Regina).

Most of the time, the congregation is divided between those who refuse to pick up a hymnal, those who pick up a hymnal and vaguely mouth the words, and those who make slight attempts to produce something resembling a melody. In every case I’ve ever been part of as a person in the pew, my own singing can pretty much dominate an entire congregation, eliciting looks of shock and awe in every direction, as if people are thinking: “what the heck is with this guy? Doesn’t he know that Catholics don’t do that?”

In any case, my point is that these propers I am speaking about are all structured to highlight the text, using melodies that are largely formulaic and repeated. Those who want to join in the singing have every possibility of doing so, as robustly or more so than they would be singing the hymns in the first place. For those who would rather just speak the words as the cantor sings, that is possible, because not as fine a line divides speaking from singing when it comes to this kind of music.

In the Catholic ideal, to sing the entrance, offertory, and communion chants is the job of the schola and not the people, while the people are later called upon to sing the ordinary chants of the Mass that are repeated every week. This reflects the great wisdom of liturgical tradition and the division of labor: it makes sense that non-specialists would sing what is familiar but not be called upon to sing what is unfamiliar. In this way, these English antiphons begin to socialize the congregation into a greater degree of liturgical comportment during these periods of the Mass, so that they can watch the processions or prepare for communion or otherwise be mercifully left alone.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

To Re-Traditionalize the Rite of Paul VI

Here is a fascinating interview – translated from French — with Fr Claude Barthe, a French Catholic priest, ordained by Archbishop Lefebvre and now regularized.  Journalist Daniel Hamiche interviewed him for  Monde et Vie 832.  An excerpt, but it is worth reading the entire interview.

I think first of all that it is totally unrealistic to believe that we can wave a magic wand so that all Masses are celebrated according to the former usage in every parish in the world. However, I note – with many others, some of whom are very high placed – that the missal of Paul VI contains an almost infinite possibility of options, adaptations and interpretations, and that a progressive, systematic or systematically progressive choice of the traditional possibilities it offers, makes its “re-traditionalising” possible in parishes, and quite legally (according to the letter of the law, and its spirit). This is a simple fact: of many parish priests (I have already compiled a quick list for France, which I am careful not to publish, but which is impressive) practicing this reform of the reform, often in stages, and in the vast majority of cases also celebrating the traditional Mass.

Posted on by Adam Bartlett

Introducing Propers to the Parish

My parish, at which I am the Director of Music, is about a year and a half into the project of introducing the sung processional propers of the Mass. The entrance and communion antiphon texts are routinely sung at virtually every liturgy at this point, but they have been slowly introduced in gradual and clever ways, and we certainly have much room to grow.

We began essentially with two options: either Fr. Columba Kelly’s antiphons, or the antiphon text sung to one of Fr. Weber’s psalm tones. In case the singers weren’t able to grasp quickly enough the Kelly antiphon, we had a pointed text ready to fall back on with a psalm tone. I also reinforced the learning of the Weber tones by using them with the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel Verse each week.

I learned very quickly that the Kelly introits were far too complicated for most of my singers, most of whom where very unfamiliar with the chanted style. We did try a few of the simpler introit settings, but they were rarely successful, and a few of them definitely bombed in liturgy! Needless to say, this was not a practice that encouraged us on in our journey, so we quickly defaulted to the psalm tone setting, even though this approach is so simple that it hardly seemed effective (the antiphon text was sung once, after a hymn).

After several months our parish adult choir began to get pretty comfortable with singing the Kelly communion chants, and I began pointing psalm verses for a cantor to sing in between repetitions of the antiphon. Because these are mostly syllabic, and short, they offered a great likelihood of success, although I sensed that many of the singers became frustrated that we would spend 20 minutes of rehearsal time polishing a chant that we might not see again possibly for another 3 years! At this point, though, most of our singers are familiar enough with the chanted style to sing the Kelly communions without too much difficulty, with success, and with joy.

After a year and a half of singing these proper texts week in and week out with a typical parish choir and cantors (even the “contemporary ensemble” sings them!) I would like to report that the Communion has taken hold very nicely, and has been integrated into the fabric of parish life with great success. We have smooth and clear waters ahead of us for the singing of more elaborate settings.

I cannot say that the introit has been equally successful. A part of this is its placement on the tail end of a hymn, and its lack of psalm verses. The not-too-distant goal is to sing the hymn and then sing a full introit that covers the liturgical action (procession), but even this is quite a journey for a parish that was singing ‘Gather Us In’ two years ago. Time will tell.

But just recently we made a major breakthrough in our singing of the introit. We’ve begun to sing the “Simple Propers” introits that have been posted on the Chant Café over the past weeks, and they have been the biggest blessing to my parish choir and cantors.

Here’s a quick vignette that illustrates the point:

Two weeks ago the Adult Choir, just back from summer vacation, and with about 15 new singers on board, sang this antiphon, which is from the “Simple Propers” project:


For those of you who can’t read this score very well, simply notice the heavy use of “reciting tones”, i.e. repetitions of the same pitch over and over again in a phrase, but also notice interesting shapes at the beginnings and ends of the phrases. The overall shape of the antiphon is very “Gregorian” in that it has contour, rise and fall, and is deeply rooted in the conventions of Gregorian “mode 4”.

Coincidentally, that same week we sang the Kelly Communion, which looks like this:


Notice that although this antiphon does not use “reciting notes”, the melody has generally the same melodic shape as the introit above. It only took me a second to realize that I had actually based the “melodic formula” used in the introit on this very antiphon several weeks before! (btw, I’m the editor of the “Simple Propers” project) If you are able to sing through these two examples you will see that they they have integrity individually, but they use many of the same elements of the “Gregorian compositional language”, which Fr. Columba Kelly, my chant mentor, understands so intimately and employs so well.

Well, just this morning, the same choir sang this antiphon at the entrance:


Note that this is the same “mode 4” melodic formula used in the first example, as set to a different text. Even if you don’t read chant notation very well, you can see the similarities. Notice the contours and ends of each phrase–the intonations and terminations are applied systematically to the text, taking into account the accent patterns in the English text.

When we sang this at choir rehearsal on Wednesday night, all were overjoyed, because they already knew the introit, although they had never sung it before! All sang it almost instantly, with confidence and assurance, and we spent a few minutes on it and moved on. When sung in liturgy the antiphon setting sounded even better than it did two weeks ago, because there was a greater lived familiarity. The cantors who sang it at the Saturday evening vigil Mass were even more spectacular. They were able to add expressive nuance to the text that just made it sail to the heavens, it was breathtaking. I’m sure that the next time we use this formula, even with yet another text, the results will be even better.

The point in this illustration is simple: I have found that, among the many complex factors involved, perhaps the single most important factor in introducing propers to the parish is singing them with success–it is consistently singing them well, in whatever musical setting they might employ. This accomplishes many goals: It encourages, not discourages singers–the last thing I want to do, I have found, is to bite off more than we can chew, spend enormous amounts of time in preparation, and then botch the introit in liturgy. This is depressing for everyone, most notably the singers who work so hard to make it a success. Singing successfully also helps with the formation of the parishioners. If the choir is struggling to sing the introit week after week, singing wrong notes, dragging at an unbearable tempo, false or late starts, and the list goes on, the parishioners are going to be confused and they are going to form or reinforce a negative association with the propers and with chant, which is the last thing that I want to happen, and this is not the kind of activity we want to have happening at the very beginning of Mass! Singing the propers with success builds momentum. It opens the way for the propers to become a part of the fabric of the parish’s liturgical life, not a botched experiment during Advent a few years ago. Successful singing of simple propers paves the way for a joyful exploration of the treasures of the Church’s tradition down the road. Singing with success makes everyone happy, including the pastor!

If we can sing the propers successfully from the get-go, it seems that the possibilities will be great. If we don’t begin with success, but try to get by week to week, singing music that is too much for our singers, habitually singing poorly, hoping that things will improve at some point down the road, I fear that we could be doing much more damage than we are doing good, setting ourselves up for more failure, not more success.

At least this has been my experience after a year and a half of working to bring the propers back into ordinary parish life.

What has been your experience? I would love to hear your stories in the comment box. We can surely all learn from each other’s experiences, and also help inform those who would also like to implement the singing of propers in their own parishes.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Become One Body, But Where Is It?

The Bishops of the English-speaking world cooperated on producing an interactive DVD to educate people on the New Missal (3rd edition): “Become One Body One Spirit in Christ.” It has been many years in the making.The idea is to avoid the great calamity of 1969/70 in which a new and dramatically changed Missal was suddenly foisted on the whole world, emptying parishes and smashing the ritual relationship people had with the faith for centuries.

This time, they are taking no chances. I’ve heard that a total of $500,000 was spent on this DVD’s production. There is a full website devoted to it. It’s been shown to at least one live audience. ICEL continues to talk about it. There is a youtube promotional available since April (231 views).

However, I can’t seem to find anywhere to actually buy this DVD. The USCCB lists it as backordered. The UK talks about it as if it is not ready. I can’t figure out the South African site (lots of stuff but no store). The New Zealand site is down. Maybe it’s my eyes but I see nothing about it in Canada. Australia doesn’t allow international orders. I guess no one thought to make it available on Amazon.

Do I have to buy it from Ireland, which seems to be the only source?