Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Hymnum Dicite Deo Nostro, Alleluia


"Praise and worship" need not amount to a ol' fashion Holy Ghost throwdown with a revivalist preacher at a Wednesday Bible Church service. The sung praise of God comes from Holy Writ itself, but before it was written it was sung. The canticles of the Scriptures and the psalter are not recorded events like most of the Bible, but actual hymns meant to be sung by posterity to the God Who revealed Himself to mankind.

Catholics owe the utmost respect to sacred music, both in its composition and its proper implementation. Music often saves a troubled parish, whereas the 1962 liturgy may not. The English Oratories, St. John Cantius in Chicago, and St. Mary's in Norwalk all have notable music programs which revived meddling parishes and imbued into the faithful an understanding of what is beyond our three dimensions and five senses.

Above all sacred music must be humble, and not pretend to be something it is not. The Roman Church nearly decided against polyphony during the Renaissance, when most composers—notably the Venetians—wrote to the same rhythmic patterns of contemporary dance music. Polyphony can be beautiful, however it is easily overdone and makes the wrong impression when sung underwhelmingly. Chant should be the normal music of the parish church: it is easily singable, possessive of a changing quality according to feast and season that is palatable to man's need for variety, does not require any special talent to sing respectfully, and is a music uniquely owned by the Church. Chant can be sung, screamed, hummed or stuttered by anyone; it began in the basilicas of the great metropolitan sees, adapted to medieval parishes, and crystallized under its daily use by monks whose talents reflected the full gamut of vocal ability. The conventional Roman Masses (I, IV, VIII, IX, XI, and XVIII) are all quite usable and no parish with a regular sung Mass should not be able to sing the seasonal chants; the Missa de Angelis every week is inexcusable. However, polyphony should still have a place in the musical life of the Church.


I recently had the opportunity to attend a performance of Rachmaninoff's setting of the All-Night Vigil in the Byzantine Office. A local chorale held the concert at a protestant church and provided transliterations of the Slavonic. I found myself singing Sviatey Bozhe, Sviatey Kripkey during the Great Doxology between instances of smoke irritating my eyes. At the Polyeoleos, or whatever the Slavs call it, several singers unconsciously began to sway from side to side as they sang Praise the name of the Lord, alleluia/Praise Him in the heights, alleluia. Chant is the normative music of the Church because it is singable. Polyphony should only replace chant when it can render the faithful speechless. Unless this writer finds himself in Moscow he is unlikely to hear this opus ever sung in its proper context, yet his second time hearing Rachmaninoff's Vigil in viva voce reminded him that polyphony must be humble enough to capture the nature of texts they vivify; polyphony cannot be reduced to ornamental fluctuations and descants.

There is even a place for very simple music. Who can speak ill of the little parish that draws 60 or 70 souls and, bereft of a proper music proper, sings the standard tones? This sort of music deserves more honor than the overreaching choir we have all heard, for it does not feign to be something it is not.

Music can be many things: a key to opening up more of the liturgy than just the Eucharist, an injection of life into a dire parish, or portal into the unseen element of what transpires in a church.
"What state can be more blessed than to imitate on earth the choirs of angels? to begin the day with prayer, and honor our Maker with hymns and songs? As the day brightens, to betake ourselves, with prayer attending on it throughout, to our labors, and to season our work with hymns, as food with salt? The consolation from hymns produces a state of soul that is cheerful and free of sorrow."—St. Basil the Great

11 comments:

  1. I might be alone on this but I cannot stand polyphony. Whenever I attend a Mass with that type of music I remember the words of Voltaire, "a poor man's opera...".

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    1. A small degree of polyphony outside of Mass i can stand - like Allegeri's Miserere.

      But seeing so many Masses announced on NLM or similar sites, featuring orchestras and all that jazz makes me wanna harm myself.

      Chant all the way!

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  2. Rachmaninoff's Vespers is one of my all time favorites, notably the Nunc Dimittis piece.

    I wouldn't propose to hold my Alma Mater, St. Mary's, Kansas, as an ideal model of matters liturgical (yes, better than most SSPX centers), but I will say that during my matriculation there, they achieved an optimal balance of polyphony vs. chant. I don't know what it is like now, but 20 years ago, polyphony was only used thrice a year: the opening Mass of the academic year, the feast of S. Thomas Aquinas, and the baccalaureate Pontifical Mass at year's end. Ergo, the principal liturgical feasts, including Pascha, retained the seasonal variety of Ordinary chants.

    I think we have too much of it where I am currently (my esteemed pastor would disagree), but not terribly out of proportion. Still, we hardly if ever sing Mass II owing to nearly every Double First Class feast being polyphonized.

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    1. The local TLM parish only does polyphonic Mass settings for First class feasts; outside of that, only Mass VIII and Credo III on Sundays, though this year, Mass XVII was said from Septuagesima Sunday to Palm Sunday. The plan to just starting to introduce Credo I for the remainder of this year and Mass XI next year just made me quit ultimately, since this is just one baby step at a time. If people can sing Mass VIII well, why can't they chant the others like Mass IX or Mass II (admittedly a bit more difficult but just a bit more than VIII). The choir's focus is too much polyphony and just 45 min before Mass for covering the Chant propers!

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    2. Mass VIII is the most obnoxious to me. It sounds like bunch of women whining without end.

      Sanctus from XII (Pater cuncta) is one of the most beautiful in my opinion.

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    3. I used to share your opinion of Mass VIII, then I walked into a Gothic church for a Saturday Gregorian Chant Mass in the Pauline Rite. I was so moved by it that I didn't recognize it was Mass VIII until I looked down at the music handouts.

      It did help that it was a small choir of only four or so men.

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  3. And I can't stand Agnus Dei settings that go on to the next liturgical season delaying the Mass (or worse, still being sung while Communion is being distributed because the priest grows impatient).

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  4. While I generally agree with much of the article (and I personally have little personal interest to perform myself most of the music after 1600 in liturgy) it does smack of archeologism in a way. Or rather, of uncritically accepting the ideas of Solesmes reform and it's idealized vision of what the mediaeval music and chant in particular was like.
    Traditionally the divide between polyphony and chant simply wasn't all that great. We have treatises on how to improvise the second voice to plainchant from 9th century!!! We know how singers were trained throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance and improvised counterpoint was taught right as one of the very first things along with plainchant.
    Not to mention a VERY different sound ideal of the Middle Ages. My favourite example (and one of the most blatant ones) of how Solesmes (whether knowingly or not) deformed and falsified the historical record and the tradition is Credo IV, or how it was traditionally known, Credo Cardinale.

    This the rhythm we have in all the historical sources:
    https://youtu.be/zjeeIcj_jvk

    And this is what Solesmes invented:
    http://www.ccwatershed.org/media/audio/12/07/17/16-38-22_0.mp3

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    1. FYI, The Rad Trad hates Solesmes, so I don't see how this article is supportive of Solesmes.

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    3. Pity... Solesmes is quite beautiful when sung right. We just have to prevent falling into the trap of "this is the way things were ALWAYS done", that some Trads and Chalcedonian Orthodox fall into.

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