New Mass text and music

[presbyter]

......where the new translation successfuly moves away from the ditty-like tonic poetry that mars the old in places....

And that's not just in the parts for the people...

ti-tum-ti-ti-tum-ti-ti-tum-tee
ti-tum-ti-ti-tum-ti-ti-tum-tee

no prizes for guessing the Eucharistic Prayer

[musicus]

And if anyone doesn't know where to see the texts - they are here http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/missalformation/peoplesparts.pdf

And, again, here, with some explanatory text: http://content.ocp.org/shared/pdf/gener ... nt2010.pdf

[Nick Baty]

Posted here but then moved it to a new thread viewtopic.php?f=4&t=908 Still can't work out the syntax for doing this on here!

[organist]

John Ainslie has an excellent reply in this week's Tablet.

[NorthernTenor]

John Ainslie has an excellent reply in this week's Tablet.

John's letter includes the following:

The music issued by the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (Icel) contains only those chants to be sung by the priest or deacon and requiring the response of the congregation.

Perhaps I've misunderstood the scope of John's assertion, but it would seem to be innacurate - the drafts include chants for the Ordinary. This takes ICEL beyond what they've previously issued.

[John Ainslie]

The only pieces in the new ICEL collection that are not strictly minister/people are: the settings of the 'Lord have mercy'/'Kyrie' (for use with the first and second Penitential Rites, the third being minister/people) and the 'Lamb of God'/'Agnus Dei', which is 'as a rule, sung by the choir or cantor with the congregation responding' (GIRM 83), though the priest usually starts it off if it is said. The 'Gloria' is included because it 'is intoned by the priest or, if appropriate, by a cantor or by the choir' (GIRM 53), similarly for the Creed (GIRM 68), where only the intonation is given, with 'musical settings of the English translation forthcoming', so it says.

The fact that, for the Gloria, five Latin intonations and one English are provided, suggests to me that a healthy variety of musical settings for this text is to be encouraged.

[NorthernTenor]

John,

Thanks for the clarification. I'm glad I began with a qualification which seems to have been born out by your answer, in which you explain that you class the intonation of a chant, followed by its collective singing, as a kind of dialogue.

I noted the issue because it raises a significant point. In its drafts, ICEL goes well beyond its previous approach, which was essentially to give ministerial chants and the people’s responses. Now, it appears to be aiming to provide Gregorian-style chants to the extent that they are provided in the Missale Romanum. In this, it is proving faithful to the Church's repeated calls for chant to have 'pride of place' as the music 'proper' to the liturgy. It is also consistant with the focus on the Latin original in the new translation; both reflect the renewed recognition of the linguistic and musical continuities of our liturgical tradition.

I would suggest that these developments are a sign of a growing maturity in our understanding of liturgical practice and development, after the revolutionary and reactionary turbulence of the last 40 years.

[Nick Baty]

The Tablet's inaccurate reporting was repeated in Friday's Catholic Herald.

[NorthernTenor]

The Tablet's inaccurate reporting was repeated in Friday's Catholic Herald.

The Herald doesn't report the significant news that ICEL is to greatly extend the range of chants offered, and that all of them are based on Gergeorian models, but it does quote ICEL's guidelines where they say that the aim of the exercise is to:

preserve and recover the tradition of unnacompanied singing in the Roman Rite.

To that extent, the report is not so much inaccurate as incomplete.

[Gabriel]

In its drafts, ICEL goes well beyond its previous approach, which was essentially to give ministerial chants and the people’s responses. Now, it appears to be aiming to provide Gregorian-style chants to the extent that they are provided in the Missale Romanum. In this, it is proving faithful to the Church's repeated calls for chant to have 'pride of place' as the music 'proper' to the liturgy. It is also consistant with the focus on the Latin original in the new translation; both reflect the renewed recognition of the linguistic and musical continuities of our liturgical tradition.

The Herald doesn't report the significant news that ICEL is to greatly extend the range of chants offered, and that all of them are based on Gregorian models,

This statement has caused me to look at our current edition of the Roman Missal as well as the 2nd and 3rd editions of the Missale Romanum. The implication of the above is that ICEL is only now following the lead of the Holy See and including chant settings in the Missal. The actual books paint a different picture.

In the 2nd edition of the Latin Missal there is no music in the body of the text; there are only two short appendices with basic chants, 2 sample prefaces, incomplete settings of the Eucharistic Prayers. The second appendix gives two sample collects and the Exultet and Blessing of Water from the Easter Vigil.

Our current English Missal has music in place for the Triduum (such as the Exultet but also settings for Good Friday etc.) Basic chants within the Order of Mass for items such as the Preface dialogue, introduction to Memorial Acclamation and doxology. The Order of Mass is followed with a fuller musical setting including music for all the prefaces and complete chants for the Eucharistic Prayers.

The 3rd Latin edition includes a similar amount of chant to the current English text. One of the good things is that more is incorporated in place - so that the Order of Mass now contains more music which will hopefully, in the forthcoming English translation provide either a setting that is good to use or at least a reminder about the integral and normative place of music within the celebration.

If one wished to be polemical about one might suggest that the Holy See in its 3rd edition has learnt from ICEL and other vernacular editions.

[NorthernTenor]

If one wished to be polemical about one might suggest that the Holy See in its 3rd edition has learnt from ICEL and other vernacular editions.

And why should you not be if the evidence suggests it? Thanks for the correction, Gabriel. It was not my intention to suggest that ICEL were somehow lagging behind the Missale Romanum; rather, to note the significant development in approach, as an implementation of the Church's teaching that the mass is to be sung, and that chant should have pride of place in that activity, as the music 'proper' to the liturgy.

[Nick Baty]

Is seems to me, Gabriel, that both publications were unaware of how much chant was already in the Missal and the fact that it has always been promoted.

The Tablet is reporting this as though it's something new – as though chant is only just being promoted and will be used to remove the worst excrescences of the last 40 years. It's almost suggesting that Israeli Mass and its ilk are being banned which, of course, it isn't as it was never allowed in the first place. And why on earth do they go to one particular publisher? Are they also unaware of what has been going on for the last 40 years?

The Telegraph blog is celebrating this as a great reform yet there is nothing in ICEL's introduction to the music which doesn't exist in earlier documents.

Ah well, looks as though Christopher Walker's (IMHO gorgeous) setting of Eucharistic Prayer III will still work with the new translations.

[NorthernTenor]

Is seems to me, Gabriel that both publications were unaware of how much chant was already in the Missal and the fact that it has always been promoted.

The Tablet is reporting this as though it's something new – as though chant is only just being promoted and will be used to remove the worst excrescences of the last 40 years. It's almost suggesting that Israeli Mass and its ilk are being banned which, of course, it isn't as it was never allowed in the first place. And why on earth do they go to one particular publisher? Are they also unaware of what has been going on for the last 40 years?

The Telegraph blog is celebrating this as a great reform yet there is nothing in ICEL's introduction to the music which doesn't exist in earlier documents.

Ah well, looks as though Christopher Walker's (IMHO gorgeous) setting of Eucharistic Prayer III will still work with the new translations.

I'm afraid Nick's missing points that have already been raised here (it's one of the dangers of his use of the magic button to ignore those he disagrees with), and ignoring common practice. Yes - the church has repeatedly decreed that the music proper to the liturgy is plainsong and its derivative, polyphony. Unfortunately, as far as most parishes and parish musicians in England and Wales were concerned, this might have been a dead letter, because it was felt to be a thing of the past, out of tune with The Spirit of Vatican Two, boring, not relevant ... (perm any one cliche from many). At best it was largely ignored, at worst villified. This has even been true of the liturgically educated: Nick, for example, apparently with no sense of irony, chides the Tablet and Herald for not aknowledging the Church's existing teaching on the primacy of plainsong, then blithely goes on to recommend the adaptation of a Christopher Walker mass to the new translation - and this in the midst of a discussion of the increased extent to which ICEL is encouraging us to sing plainsong.

[Gabriel]

I am not sure that ICEL's task is to 'encourage' the use of plainsong and actually the ICEL introduction says To  preserve  and  recover  the  tradition  of unaccompanied  singing  in  the  Roman  Rite - a subtle difference but still a difference.

Surely ICEL's task is to translate the Latin liturgical books accurately and faithfully into English. One aspect of that is to make sure that the text is suitable for singing. Alongside that ICEL have chosen to provide Bishops' Conferences with adaptations of the chants provided within the Missale Romanum to the English text for inclusion in published editions of the Altar Missal.

As I pointed out above this is something that ICEL has done throughout its history so therefore it has always encouraged the use of plainsong. And if that is so why has it not been used? This is not a flippant remark. Looking at the settings of the Eucharistic Prayers - which as has been noted oscillates between two notes - I wondered why would you sing it? I'm not sure my PP would - though he happily sings other settings.

I am not sure it is enough to say that we should use it because it is there surely we should use what is good and worthy. Take a look at the Kyrie (page 8 of the Introduction) the English setting is far duller than the simplest chant setting of the Greek text

[Nick Baty]

And it is being cited as though it is being imposed. One reason I cited Walker's EPIII is that it is a simple yet sublime chant, informed by our plainsong tradition, exactly as composers have been asked to do for decades.