New Mass text and music

[Mithras]

My latest and probably to-be-unpublished (since I no doubt hold the record for submitting to-be-unpublished letters to the Tablet) letter to The Tablet on this subject has just been sent. DT of the DT and CH has already started a blog, but no surprise there.

M

[NorthernTenor]

The history of congregational singing is a topic for another thread, but Crichton certainly felt that the tradition of singing the Mass was absent in the experience of most.

By far the greater number of Catholics who went to Mass had no experience of it except as Low Mass. Nothing was sung...On this has been raised a very unsatisfactory Mass-with-hymns. People were so unacustomed to singing the Mass...

I would suggest that it was into this vacuum that such pieces as the Israeli Mass were introduced, sadly to remain to this day in many places. Mayhew's reply to John Ainslie suggesting that "he would favour some kind of censorship of the music used in liturgy" is rather amusing, as this is precisely what Liturgiam Authenticam called for (for texts anyway, if not tunes) eight years ago. Had Mayhew taken heed of this, he would no longer be publishing such pieces for Catholic congregations.

As I understand it, doc (and I stand to be corrected by our resident expert on pre-Conciliar Catholc music), the work of the musical side of the Liturgical Movement focused, in British schools and parishes as elsewhere, on chant, including the laity's ability to sing the Ordinary; and the foundation of the SSG was part of that effort. Anecdote tells us that coverage was patchy, but my own experience in the early 1980's was of older Catholics joining in the Ordinary with knowledge and gusto when given the opportunity. Perhaps the vacuum to which you refer was created as much by the year zero approach to liturgical music in those years as it was by the legacy of the low mass - by the deliberate cutting off of Catholics from their ritual and cultural roots. And perhaps (to bring us back to the topic before Mr. Bear intervenes) the text and music of the ICEL drafts are one of the Church's attempts to mend that rift.

[SOP]

I thought we were all trying to do our best with our God given skills.

NT - Is yourS arguing?

Mea maxima culpa - I missed out the 's' and was referring to God given skills. I did notice it but was too late to edit my post.

On this thread, I would love to hear the preparations people are making for the new Mass texts. As an area secretary for NNPM I am not running any workshops as I am waiting for new music to come along rather than encourage people to learn things that may be history within a few years. (I haven't run anything for around 4 years now but the first couple of years were because of other pressures in my life that had to be dealt with.) Like Nick, I found my latter workshops were the same people and as lovely and cosy as it was, I was no longer reaching those parishes that did not have any music at all. I was asked by a priest in my diocese to go along to his church for 6 weeks and cantor the psalm, alleluia, lead the Agnus Dei and generally encourage singing which I did. But he then got the idea that I would stay there forever when the agreed objective had been to encourage someone in the congregation to come forward knowing that they 'could do that' and hopefully think "I can do better than that". The result is that for a couple of years, whenever I saw that priest, he told me I owed him a cantor.

How do you encourage singing in a non-singing parish? There are those who will go along with it, enjoy it but are not prepared to assist in any way. There are others who hate it and go to another Mass, yet others who want to tell you how to do it without getting involved themselves. The latter group are usually the most vocal so I would sometimes come away with nothing but negative comments ringing in my ears. Luckily I know the parish so was able to ask the silent majority and knew they appreciated what we were trying to do.

[Nick Baty]

I would love to hear the preparations people are making for the new Mass texts.

There's a related thread at: viewtopic.php?f=4&t=908

How do you encourage singing in a non-singing parish?

This is probably a whole new thread, SOP. Should we start one? viewtopic.php?f=4&t=921

Love the red dress!

[alan29]

Looks like the USA bishops have released the new translation of the missal into pidgin.
http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/

[johnquinn39]

Looks like the USA bishops have released the new translation of the missal into pidgin.
http://www.usccb.org/romanmissal/

Will getting rid of 'Christ is risen' lead to a better understanding that Christ is risen?

[Nick Baty]

John, are you referring to Christ has died? In which case, it could still appear in the British Isles editions. But the resurrection hasn't gone from the acclamations: it's still there in 1 and 3 (if I've got my numbering right).

[johnquinn39]

John, are you referring to Christ has died? In which case, it could still appear in the British Isles editions. But the resurrection hasn't gone from the acclamations: it's still there in 1 and 3 (if I've got my numbering right).

Yes

[Nick Baty]

Yes

Then be assured. Christ has definitely risen.

[johnquinn39]

Yes

Then be assured. Christ has definitely risen.

He has risen indeed!

(But not in the new missal)

[Nick Baty]

Well unless someone has *beep* about with the Creed and two of the acclamations I think you might be wrong. John, your glass is half full! Stop worrying about the empty bit!

[mcb]

There are two music-liturgical establishments in England and Wales: one is represented by Westminster, the Oratories etc, and the other by the SoSG

This, I'm afraid, is hilariously wide of the mark. The largest bodies that might claim to be 'the establishment' as far as liturgical music is concerned are (i) the apathetic majority who have no idea how it's supposed to be done, and not the slightest inkling that it matters a jot; and (ii) the bigger commercial publisher(s) (I'm not sure there's really more than one) who plainly don't care how it's supposed to be done, but know what sells.

In contrast, the two groupings you mention have (sadly) very limited influence indeed. Westminster and the Oratories exert a benign influence on the schedulers of Radio 3, but on parish musical life around the country? Not a chance. And as for the SSG, the only person who believes that it exerts a strong influence nationally is that insane driveller who writes a blog on the Telegraph web site. Can't remember his name. Would that he were right!

and a network of composers and advisors.

Aha! A secret cartel of sinister and shadowy eminences grises who really pull the strings. I demand to be allowed to join. Can you give me their address?

Broadly speaking, and allowing for areas of overlap, the former is closer to the Roman liturgical tradition than the latter.

Nope. A better characterisation might be that the former grouping is driven primarily by a concern for good music, the latter by a concern for good liturgy.

[musicus]

Back on track now, please. Further OT posts will be moderated.

[dmu3tem]

As I see it, the key question is whether the new liturgies will provoke an upsurge of new compositions, as happened in the 1970s and 1980s after the introduction of the present liturgy. Much of this repertoire has come in for criticism; but - warts and all - I felt this was a period of musical vigour accompanied by a lot of interesting experimentation (e.g. the more widespread use of instruments other than the organ) and the sense of liberation from what I felt was a stifling pre Vatican II regime was something I appreciated very much.

I hope I am wrong; but the signs are that this may not be repeated. Indeed the current emphasis on plainchant suggests exactly the opposite. Plainchant, of course, has many beautiful items in its repertoire which are, of course, worth retaining; but too much of it not only produces a backward looking slant but represents a denigration of the possibility that composers in later periods, and indeed today, can produce stuff just as good if not 'better'.

This, of course, begs the question of what is meant by 'better'. Here it is important to recognise that, technical considerations aside (which can be measured), aesthetic judgements are ultimately a matter of personal taste. This means that the value put upon a piece of music depends on how appropriate it is for the group of people performing or listening to it. In turn this suggests that a given repertoire requires a constant injection of new material alongside existing stuff. Without this church music is effectively in a state of atrophy and unable to adjust the christian message suit changing stylistic trends.

You can, of course, have a situation where a revival of old forgotten repertoire represents in itself an injection of 'new blood' into the system. This, in effect, was what was attempted with the revival of Renaissance Polyphony in the late C19th and early C20th. The same might also be argued in connection with periodic attempts to revive plainchant. However it might also be argued that in the past such moves, while attracting some constituenecies, have at the same time repelled others. The most succesful revival of this sort in recent times was the adoption of much of the Anglican hymn repertoire into the English Catholic Church from the 1960s onwards

[Nick Baty]

I hope I am wrong; but the signs are that this may not be repeated. Indeed the current emphasis on plainchant suggests exactly the opposite.

I know I've said this before – and been shouted down – but there is no more or less emphasis on plainchant than there has ever been. Every document from Vat II onwards, reiterates the importance of the chant in our tradition. Anyway, few on here would argue against the use of (particularly) the earlier chants. (Those of us brought up on the later stuff like Missa de Angelis might well want to give that one a miss!)

Apart from the obvious change – the option of the vernacular – perhaps the biggest shake-up of 40 years ago was the concept that music was an integral part of liturgy – that there were some texts which, of their nature, should be sung. I'm sure I'm not the only one to remember the days when the only Mass with music of any sort was (in most, although not all, establishments) the last Mass of the morning, the High Mass, which was celebrated with all available resources. In my home parish, and in many neighbouring ones too, that meant perhaps just 25% of Mass-goers had any experience of singing at Mass, whether it was by the assembly or the choir. And even when we sang the later Mass in English, those celebrations at 8am, 9am and 10am didn't have a note of music.

Over the last 40 years, it has become fairly common (although perhaps not common enough) for those parishes with several Sunday celebrations to have different styles of music at each celebration. Now we are in the days of fewer Masses the challenge is how best to combine the various strands of our tradition. Paul Inwood wrote an interesting piece on this in M&L: Was it last year?

Thing is dmu, we most definitely do need "a period of musical vigour". It's taken a lot of time and experimentation to arrive at some of the more commonly sung English settings. And to some extent we are starting from scratch. The one thing's that different now from 40 years ago, is that more people are used to the idea of singing the Mass (even if they don't open their mouths). I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers the looks of shock and horror when we started singing at the 10am Mass and even at the early time of 9am! One PP I know remembers back in the 70s receiving a complaint from a parishioner, "But, Father, you're singing all the holy bits".