Chant Café

What you will not likely hear from ICEL and the USCCB is something terribly obvious: the forthcoming translation is a vast improvement on the old. There are reasons why you won’t hear this. No one in an official position wants to be seen as putting down the translation that has been in place for forty years.

In fact, the truth is so shocking that hardly anyone wants to utter it: the existing translation is hardly deserving of the name. It is more like a loose paraphrase that embeds the theological and liturgical agenda of one generation (think 1970!) and its departures from the Latin are so extensive and so egregious that the truth discredits those involved in making it happen.

This is a very painful reality, so painful that one has to give credit to everyone who was involved in effectively admitting the error and moving forward to the new one. We all know that it is hard to say “Ok, I was wrong,” and it is even harder for institutions to do this. For this reason, we can expect that the USCCB will do its best to treat this the way a software company treats the rollout of its version 2.0: “even better than than version 1.0 that you already loved!” Of course everyone knows otherwise.

In some ways, then, this new translation is a miracle, even if it had to be more-or-less forced by Rome. It is to the great credit of both ICEL and the USCCB that they made the turn around and did the right thing. Yes, the casualties of the past 40 years are immense. It is frightening to think of them. It is best to just look forward to new day, which will be here before we know it.

If you are interested in reviewing all the details, see Fr. U.M. Lang’s article in the new Adoremus Bulletin. If you don’t know what is wrong with the current translation and why the new one is an obvious improvement, this is a piece for you. It is marvelous.

One of my favorite passages:

In the older version, there is a remarkable tendency to leave out certain qualifying adjectives: beatae passionis is rendered as “His passion” (new: “the blessed Passion”), in caelos gloriosae ascensionis as “His ascension into glory” (new: “the glorious Ascension into heaven”), plebs tua sancta as “your people” (new: “your holy people”) and Panem sanctum vitae aeternae as “the bread of life” (new: “the holy Bread of eternal life”).

An amusing sidelight is that the new translation will immediately date and make irrelevant 40 years of attacks on the “Novus Ordo” by traditionalists who think along the lines of crackpots at The Remnant (and its now affiliated magazine Latin Mass). If you look carefully at their often-valid criticisms, they are very much bound up, not with the normative edition of the Mass, but with its unfortunate translation to English. If nothing else, this will require the traditionalists to make stronger and more robust arguments than they’ve been accustomed to making all these decades.

I’m in frequent correspondence with parish music directors who are doing their best to move us from an age of pop songs to an age of Mass propers, with greater solemnity, dignity, and stylistic integrity. One resource keeps being mentioned again and again: the Anglican Use Gradual.

It really is a marvelous resource for directors who face constant pressure of preparing chants for the Mass. For them, one Gregorian chant per week is as much as their choirs can handle, so for offertory chants and entrances, there needs to be a resource available to provide dignified music in a pinch.

Adam Bartlett and his team are working hard to put together a plainsong Gradual for the year. Others are working on similar projects, including Fr. Samuel Weber. I feel sure that we are going to see an outpouring of these over the next few years – and it is long past time for this to happen.

In the meantime, it makes sense to have the AUG on your shelf. The book is easily criticized for its repetitive modes and patterns. But, to me, that’s not quite the point: these are not to be used for every proper, every week. They work best for occasional use. When you need them, they are there. Even if you use it only once every two weeks or once per month, it serves its purpose.

The additional issue concerns the language, which is not modern. I don’t really have a problem with that at all, and I actually like it simply for the reason that liturgical language should be more elevated that casual speech. It’s primary purpose is not communicative cognition. Even so, I grant that it can be a bit obscure at times.

I doubt many people prepared the Moses offertory this week. In this case, it works really well to do this piece alternating cantor and choir.

See the petition to the Holy Father.

There is a wonderful story in the Chicago Catholic newspaper about a young director of music who was inspired his chosen path by attending the Sacred Music Colloquium of the CMAA. Jacob Bancks is highly trained, an expert composer and all-round musician who is working in a real-world environment to move the parish toward ever more solemnity and reverence.

Next weekend’s communion chant for the 25th Sunday of the Year is Tu Mandasti, and we worked on it last night in our schola rehearsal. I just have to confess that it is one of my absolute favorites, and for two reasons.

First, the chant is about how we’ve been commanded to keep God’s commandments, which you might think would yield a chant that is solemn and stern, since we are being told about law.

But look: the chant is in mode 5, a major mode, a joyful mode, a mode that evokes a sort of carefree celebration of life. Why? Why did the monks choose a happy mode in which to set this text from Psalm 118? Well, if you know monks, you know that they are the happiest of people, quick to laugh and light in their demeanor. It must have always been that way. What liberates them from the cares of the world? The law of God, the order of their day, the rule.

The rule and the guidelines is what grants the sense of freedom: one of the greatest paradoxes of the Christian life. It is something we can all enjoy provided we cling to the rule. The law is what gives us freedom. Here it is in song.

Second, look at the second half. “That I might be firm in the ways of keeping your statutes.” Now look at the way the notes are arranged on the last line. It looks like a path, doesn’t it? It sounds like a path, the way you might arrange stones in your backyard, one stone this way, another one that way. It covers very little ground side to side (see the repeated use of the la te figure) but the motion is always forward, in a way that is comfortable to walk on, one foot in front of the other, sometimes almost as if skipping with glee. Here is the musical path, all the way to the end.

Wonderful, isn’t it? You can say that this is my wild imagination at work, but once you see it and hear it can you forget it?

Here is a hard copy. And here is a book of communion antiphons with Psalms.