Chant Café

My first real attempt at writing hymns arose directly out of theological error.

I was on retreat, and opened up a hymnal, published with ecclesiastical approbation, and found the section of hymns recommended for Communion time. It was appalling. Page after page of nothing but bread, wine, wheat, fields, grain, wine, wine, wine…. Any uncatechized person reading this hymnal would have no earthly idea that the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ. They would, however, have a pleasant idea of agriculture.

I couldn’t begin to count the number of times I have complained about a text that is frankly heretical, only to hear–sometimes from good theologians–“It’s only a song.” It’s only a song. It’s only a homily. But songs and homilies are the means by which error or truth can spread.

In my frustration, I wrote a bad hymn. It was bad because I am not a composer. But the text was all right. Soon I was told how to write hymn texts to Public Domain tunes, and haven’t stopped writing since.

Early on in my writing, I took the pen name Ephrem after the great Syrian Doctor of the Church, St. Ephrem, and I took the same tactic. St. Ephrem wrote at the time of the Manichean heresy, which held St. Augustine’s mind in bondage for some time before he found the truth. The heresy spread, in great part, by heretical hymnody.

St. Ephrem took the same melodies and wrote doctrinal hymns. Those accustomed to singing error–teaching themselves error by singing error–had a medicine to apply to their minds: the truth.

In his impromptu homily at the Prayer Vigil Saturday evening, the Holy Father alluded to a long-standing aspect of the Tradition. Bonum est diffusivum sui: The good diffuses itself towards others. This is a teaching that is at the heart of nearly all of Pope Francis’ preaching about the mission of the Church. It is very fitting for God–perfect Love and Goodness–to pour out that love and goodness. It is not at all necessary that They did–but it was aptissimus: very fitting indeed. And this is how we and all creatures came to share in being. And as a Church, we are called to go out of ourselves in a similar way.

How many people in our Church have ever been taught to consider the Trinity, or the contingency of creation? Are these considered normal topics for homilies? For how many decades have these topics been considered too difficult and theological?

And the music in most of our parish churches teaches the emptiest of lessons: “I’m ok; you’re ok.” Without even beauty to challenge us, we are lulled to sleep, in an era that more than anything else needs disciples who are alive and awake.

Let’s say a cohabitating couple decides one morning to go to Sunday Mass. “All Are Welcome” is the opening hymn. Sounds good, doesn’t it! Sounds like we could keep living in any way we choose, and still be Catholic.

They go to Communion.

They go home and do what cohabiting couples do.

They do not go to Confession.

They may or may not go to Mass next Sunday. And no one tells them any of their actions might be harmful for them.

Does anyone care enough about the souls of uncatechized people to truly shepherd them, to teach them the truth, to lead them to meet the Lord in the fullness of the sacramental life?

Does anyone care enough to remove the obstacles–the skandala–that keep them from the encounter with the living God?

CMAA members in the Washington DC area will be interested to know of a beautiful priestly anniversary.

Rev. Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth was ordained 25 years ago this Wednesday, September 30.

Please join me in wishing him many happy years!

Sunday 27 4:21 pm EDT

Tune in to EWTN or another outlet to hear an excellent example of what a largescale Mass can be.

Currently the deacon is chanting the Gospel.

A few thoughts from my not evil twin.

*How refreshing, enervating and humbling to hear our Pontiff and others employing the sacral language of Latin in these most recent Masses. When first I heard the orations my heart was unburdened from distraction, and even the oft-fertilized polarization of the OF to EF disappeared as does a blanket of fog that parts to reveal the Golden Gate Bridge in SF/Marin.

*Obligatory shout out to Fr. David Friel, CMAA compatriot and CCW contributor.

*Even tho’ it seemed a skosh underwhelming, the  Rev.Schiavone’s psalm setting, the contributions of Anglophone contemporary composers as my old classmate Dr. Nestor, Dr. Latona and our British cousin Philip Stopford, among others showed that there is a maturation after cultivation of composers who “get” the conciliar mandate to seek inspiration from the two named genres regarded as principle and secondary milieus that are the font of our musical sacred treasury. And to think, maybe the next papal go ’round we may actually enjoin the worship with music by Dr. LaRocca, Richard Rice, Jeffrey Quick, Paul Jernberg, JMO, Kevin Allen, Heath Morber or even Dr. K with a host of other composers working within the fold to create honest sacred music, that also is academically informed and
genuinely beautiful.

*Overall, I think the work of CMAA and those of a similar inclination has managed to bring a balance back to adjudicating the brilliance of music according to “sacred, universal and beautiful,” as the balance of genres/styles seemed in greater measure more balanced than the last three papal tour liturgies. Even with performance practice, issues of texture and taste were mitigated from venue and personnel to the next. That is complimentary to Americans choosing to embrace the responsibilities of performance practice of the ars celebrandi (ie. chant with distracting vibrato v. a schola united in principle through the medium of chant presenting the ideal of human worship via the greatest instrument, the voice.

*Along a similar tack- it has been refreshing to notice that the employment of orchestral augmentation to the pipe organ wasn’t employed at virtually every moment of all liturgical actions at all Masses from DC to NYC to Philly. The arrangement of “Hail Holy Queen…” actually enabled the ear to rest and compare/contrast aural textures through both instrumental orchestration and the deft use of Latin and English.

*Also, thanks to the planners at Philly for demonstrating the “Mahrt” conception of circumambulation at the Introit. I think that having the ministers process from the sacristy down a side ambulatory to the main aisle ought to be a staple at even just one weekend Mass in any parish whose size and attendance could support this approach to the entrance.

*As the liturgies went along and opened up, it seemed that both the style of the “cantors” and their amplified uber-presence was mitigated from archdiocese to archdiocese. But, I won’t ever endorse the employment of any “songleader” when a choir is present. Canting lay readers and psalmists, yes. Touchdown, big vibrato’d Carusos/Callas’ need not apply anymore, thank you.

*I can Richard Chonak calling out to me now: “That’ll do, donkey, that’ll do.”

Soli Deo gloria.

What can be said about our vocations? What needs saying? What should or shouldn’t be said out loud in the public square?
I’ve been a conductor since the age of 18. Forty two years later I haven’t changed my choral philosophy after decades of real study of both the physiology and the craft of beautiful singing, as well as how to acquire, prepare, perform and expand the repertoire base of what sacred choral music serves. When I first returned to the Central Valley in ’87 as DMM of the Fresno Cathedral I had the opportunity to sit front row at a concert by Capella Sixtini under then Msgr. Bartolucci in my hometown. My rector, my wife and I winced at the excruciating (think about that word, think Lotti’s magnificent “Crucifixus for 8v) bellowing of the men, the little boys strained and squealing tone like little fledgling birds screaming at momma bird for a piece of the worm, and lastly the wild gesticulation of the conductor, the ferocity and tension of his body magnified a hundred-fold on his face.
Our beloved Pope Emeritus obligingly provided Bartolucci not only the honor of finishing his pilgrimage as a Prince of the Church, but also a renewed platform to express his views about his disdain for effeminate (his words) interpretation of sacred choral works, and that if the choral world was his, all choirs would sound like opera choruses, in other words: muscular and manly. Singing in the Tudor style, or the Christiansen/Noble Lutheran manner, the Swedish style of Erickson, or any other refined and tested pedagogy was an insult and ignoble to properly rendering to God this most perfect art by which we worship.
But back in ’87 I knew I was completely out of step with the other 99% of that concert’s audience. They had just listened to two hours (Palestrina Song of Songs) of a Bugs Bunny parody (Bugs as “Leopold” torturing the tenor soloist into exploding) and then rose to their feet cheering, whistling and hollering. All of that dissonance came back to haunt me again yesterday at the nominal Vespers Service at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Why does everyone, from Raymond Arroyo to pastors to PIPs in the pews actually love the amplified (in so many different ways) bel canto, volume knob at 11, pushed pedal to the metal brutality of an opera chorus in the quire gallery, and mean it when they swoon “It was so beautiful, ahhhh.”? Is it a knee-jerk reaction to the reality that most of them go to their home parishes and they have to endure a thin-voiced little ingénue singing a Sarah Hart or Maher tune accompanied by whatever instrument(s) are handy? So, when they hear this ROMAN CATHOLIC MUSCULAR PROWESS ENSEMBLE in this magnificent Manhattan sonic venue, the only reaction can be “Wow. Was that good for you too? Wow!”

I fear for my soul, literally, feeling that something is dreadfully wrong. And, as said earlier, this odd differentiation of mine predates my involvement with CMAA by three decades. It’s nice to know via forum and FB, that there are many other Catholic choirmasters in my lonely little boat who share my frustration and concern.

Our dear Richard Rice put it nicely on FB responding to Jeffrey Morse’s eloquent initial critique by simply saying that faced with a papal Mass, music directors tend to get all wonky and discombobulated, and thus throw convention into the window, caution to the wind and everything else into the kitchen sink of planning the ordo. (Can’t help but think of Richard Dreyfus in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” throwing garden soil, plants, trees, wood and metal garden fencing through his kitchen window into the sink in order to build his vision, his Devil’s Mountain.)

I suppose this last question will never receive a proper answer: Who is the buffo in all of this?

“This is what I think about the Latin and the chant: They are masterpieces, which offer us an irreplaceable monastic and Christian experience. They have a force, an energy, a depth without equal. All the proposed English offices are very much impoverished in comparison — besides, it is not at all impossible to make such things understood and appreciated. Generally I succeed quite well in this, in the novitiate, with some exceptions, naturally, who did not understand well. But I must add something more serious. As you know, I have many friends in the world who are artists, poets, authors, editors, etc. Now they are well able to appreciate our chant and even our Latin. But they are all, without exception, scandalized and grieved when I tell them that probably this Office, this Mass will no longer be here in ten years. And that is the worst. The monks cannot understand this treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when seculars, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this incomparable art.”