Liturgical music update
Amy Welborn has cornucopius thoughts and links on the liturgical music debate going on in Rome and, next week, at the bishops’ meeting Baltimore. She links to a post by Jeffrey Tucker at the New Liturgical Movement site titled Top Ten Unknown Truths About Sacred Music. Tucker and Amy clearly have their POVs on the topic, and don’t finesse them. But they seem to point toward a Roman liturgy more along the lines of an Eastern Orthodox celebration, in which a mass is sung, and that’s it, musically speaking. As Tucker argues:
“Vatican II hoped to see that vernacular hymnody would decrease and the sung Mass would increase. Full, conscience, active participation in the Mass means: it is up to the people to do their part to sing the parts of the Mass that belong to the people.”
Or, as Amy Welborn puts it:
“It’s what the movers, shakers and futurists like to call a paradigm shift. You’ve heard of it, I presume. Can we have one, please?
Not sing at Mass….sing the Mass.”
Maybe, if every church were St. Peter’s. But I think even John Paul allowed “profane” music–that is, more than an organ and human voices–to be used once during a Mass. Perhaps it was conducted by Van Karajan. Anyway, this is not my field by any stretch, so perhaps others can explain where Welborn/Tucker et al stand on the spectrum.
My remark here applies also to the earlier thread on liturgical music.
I Msgr. Grau’s proposal for an “official” Rome- approved list of acceptable hymns, the I don’t know how not to giggle. Has the Vatican so few problems that its functionaries have to seek to create new ones?
Of course there trashy music. But also, at least in the U. S. and in parts of Europe, by no means excluding Italy, there is scant evidence that bishops and pastors care much about the quality of the music used in churches. I’d like to know how much money (actually how little money) most parishes, including cathedral parishes , spend to pay qualified musicians to develop good music programs. I’ve got $100 that I’ll bet that the percentage is less than 25. Any takers?
Not much of an update; sounds like the same background hum to me.
It might be a news flash to Tucker and his reform2 allies, but all the way back in the 70′s the St Louis Jesuits were composing in the traditional Roman style of antiphon plus psalm verses. Oh, wait a minute … the problem was the use of the guitar. Wait again … didn’t Monteverdi use plucked string instruments?
I suspect some of the undercurrent in this debate is envy, pure and simple. Certainly there’s a good amount of music that could and should be far better. Undoubtedly many worthy composers haven’t cracked the publishing industry, and they might deserve to .
But Amy’s hoped-for shift is far more likely to take place on the local level, where a bishop might actually do some constructive things to improve liturgical music, like pay a decent wage or found a liturgical institute to train church musicians. Bishops could group together and commission outstanding composers to write for the Mass. They could encourage wealthy parishes to share personnel and resources with smaller urban and rural parishes to ensure a stronger standard.
Found a new Vatican department for music? Sorry, but that’s a lazy way to a paradigm shift. Church musicians have been rolling up their sleeves and working in the trenches for the past several decades. We don’t need ex-DRE’s and fussy conservatory musicians to tell us how to get it done.
No dice, Bernard.
There’s a provision (concession?) in the Vatican II Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy for “other suitable songs” to replace the proper antiphons at key moments of Mass, such as the Introit, the Offertory, the Communio.
The “suitable song” option is exercised nowadays almost exclusively. Ask the music director at your average parish what the Introit of the day is, and they’ll look at you like you have two Latinate heads. But Vatican II indicated that the Introit is the first, better choice in most cases.
The Introit for Nov 11 (32nd Sunday OT) is “Let my prayer come before you, Lord; listen, and answer me.” (Psalm 88:3)
Communio: “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want. In green pastures he gives me rest, he leads me beside the waters of peace.” (Psalm 23:1-2)
I would be all in favor of the people singing the people’s parts of the mass. Actually we do that in the church I attend on Sundays. I just wish the music were better and did not go in for witless repetitions and elaborations. For instance why “Jesus, Lamb of God…” as one setting has it.
In the same vein I think the Offertory and Communion hymns are particularly notable atocities–at least the ones I put up with and refuse to sing, The former distracts from the offertory prayers and the latter simply provide a racket as background to communion. It would also be helpful if our lead singer did not say “Jesis” and “victum” whenever the occasion arises.
Am I beginning to sound like a certain Maid? Oh dear!
I guess I hate to see Catholics get too exercised about music and liturgy, and I think too much is said on the matter.
Then again, I look at the Mass as what is to sustain us as we go out to do God’s work.
The “show” in my neck of the woods is often disappointing, sometimes fails to inspire, but the important thing is that the show goes on, despite the unfortunate hymn choices, the unenthusiasm with which the congregants sing, the poverty of the preaching and the enunciation of lectors and cantors.
I’m beginning to prefer the stripped-down weekday Mass, where there is no singing or much preaching. Those masses are less about the show and more about people seeking Christ for whatever reason has motivated them to carve that inconvenient hour out of their day to receive.
Sorry–got a kid down with a bad cold, and was called out to make some honey tea.
Didn’t mean to imply that the Mass is a show, but it’s got “show” elements, and, in my opinion, I think we sometimes are too critical of the show and not appreciative enough of the fact that God shows up whether the show is any good or not.
And said cold victim just got up singing …. “Come to the Table of Plenty,” changing the words, of course, from “God will provide for all that we need” to “God will provide mom with honey and tea.”
Hmm. Food for thought?
We got a lot of kids growing up now who are going to be plenty cheesed that their favorite hymns are going to be taken away from them and “improved.”
You don’t have go to the Orthodox to understand the ideal. You don’t (although you could and maybe even should to round out your perspective of what Catholic liturgy is, globally) even go to the Eastern Rites.
All you have to do is head down to your local monastery, where, chances are, there is very little hymnody within the Mass, the propers are chanted, as is most of the Mass. And, in most monasteries I’ve been to, it’s all in English. NLR. No Latin Required.
The paradigm shift of which I am a passionate advocate is oriented toward the goal of moving us away from issues of taste to, first, above anything else, understanding what the Fathers of Vatican II envisioned, the context of the various strains of the Liturgical Movement, in which the Mass is prayed as an organic whole.
Chant is the primeval “language” of prayer in every religious tradition.
” Full, conscience, active participation in the Mass means: it is up to the people to do their part to sing the parts of the Mass that belong to the people.”
Silly me, I thought the ENTIRE Mass belongs to the people, not just the collection.