Congregational singing of hymns

[londonchurchman]

After attending two more silent masses last Sunday (one in a parish that apparently has good congregational singing!) I found this article that I thought I would post for comment. (I know it is written about US experiences, and slightly tongue in cheek)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingon ... hymns.html

[Nick Baty]

The piece is interesting. But some of the replies are scary: Haugen is Crap, Thomas Day knows what he's talking about etc etc etc....

[Nick Baty]

Interesting comment from Colin Mawby in those most recent edition of Vivace:

I cannot stress enough that the needs of the congregation should have priority. After all, the choir has other things to sing, the people only have hymns.

Hm!

[Southern Comfort]

Interesting comment from Colin Mawby in those most recent edition of Vivace:

I cannot stress enough that the needs of the congregation should have priority. After all, the choir has other things to sing, the people only have hymns.

Hm!

He's clearly forgotten about psalm responses, acclamations, litany responses, Taizé and Iona chants, rounds, Psallite and other antiphons......

It's strange that many Anglicans think that all the congregation is capable of is hymns. We got away lightly at the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service yesterday. In my archives I have an order for service for a big "do" at St Paul's some years ago in which the congregation sang no less than seven strophic hymns, and nothing else. Imagine how deadly that must have been.

[Nick Baty]

In other words, SC, he's forgotten about the assembly singing that which is "rightly theirs".

[londonchurchman]

Interesting comment from Colin Mawby in those most recent edition of Vivace:

I cannot stress enough that the needs of the congregation should have priority. After all, the choir has other things to sing, the people only have hymns.

Hm!

He's clearly forgotten about psalm responses, acclamations, litany responses, Taizé and Iona chants, rounds, Psallite and other antiphons......

It's strange that many Anglicans think that all the congregation is capable of is hymns. We got away lightly at the Jubilee Thanksgiving Service yesterday. In my archives I have an order for service for a big "do" at St Paul's some years ago in which the congregation sang no less than seven strophic hymns, and nothing else. Imagine how deadly that must have been.

I love hymns so that sounds like my idea of heaven. The Anglican churches near me all use congregational mass settings, some chant the full psalm to Anglican chant and the Creed to Merbeke which I absolutely love, and the Sursum Corda and first part of the Eucharisitc prayer is almost always sung. I must say that I detest responsorial psalms.

[Nick Baty]

I love hymns so that sounds like my idea of heaven.

I love hymns but I honestly don't believe they have a place in eucharistic liturgy – with one or two notable exceptions.

I must say that I detest responsorial psalms.

You're not the first person I've heard say that. I'm wondering if there is a reason for this. We are, after all, responding to the first reading in song. What's there to hate?

[londonchurchman]

I love hymns so that sounds like my idea of heaven.

I love hymns but I honestly don't believe they have a place in eucharistic liturgy – with one or two notable exceptions.

I disagree - I think if well chosen for the point in the service and appropriate for the season or feast day in question they can really enhance the Eucharisitc liturgy, if the propers aren't sung or chanted. For example I can't imagine Good Friday without "When I survey" or Epiphany without "As with Gladness" to name two simple examples.

I must say that I detest responsorial psalms.

You're not the first person I've heard say that. I'm wondering if there is a reason for this. We are, after all, responding to the first reading in song. What's there to hate?

I would much rather we all chanted the whole Psalm together. I don't think the repetition of the response adds anything at all and in fact it detracts from the main body of text from the Psalm, also very few seem to bother joining in. And it's even worse when the person leading starts waving their arm up and down.

[Southern Comfort]

I love hymns so that sounds like my idea of heaven. The Anglican churches near me all use congregational mass settings, some chant the full psalm to Anglican chant and the Creed to Merbeke which I absolutely love, and the Sursum Corda and first part of the Eucharisitc prayer is almost always sung. I must say that I detest responsorial psalms.

There's no tradition of hymns in the Roman tradition of the Eucharist, only in the Divine Office.

If you detest responsorial psalms, you clearly haven't heard any good ones!

[Nick Baty]

I don't think the repetition of the response adds anything at all and in fact it detracts from the main body of text from the Psalm

Or it explains why that particular psalm has been chosen. Refrains vary according to the reading the psalm is responding to.

...also very few seem to bother joining in. And it's even worse when the person leading starts waving their arm up and down.

Then your complaint is about your cantor/animator rather than the responsorial psalm.

[londonchurchman]

[There's no tradition of hymns in the Roman tradition of the Eucharist, only in the Divine Office.

If you detest responsorial psalms, you clearly haven't heard any good ones!

But just because there is no tradition of not doing something, is not a reason to not use hymns. If everything were based on tradition the liturgy would never develop. I read that hymns were permitted at Low Mass from 1947 onwards. The German Catholics certainly seemed to have embraced them to great effect

On responsorial Psalms, perhaps I haven't heard any good ones. Is there a site where good ones can be found?

[contrabordun]

Yes... while Nick may be correct in the technical sense of 'tradition', I think that's a bit beside the point when considering something that is the de facto norm in contemporary worship. You have a situation grown up that you want to reverse: you have to be more specific about why (otherwise we could argue that there is no tradition of vernacular liturgy...)

[Southern Comfort]

I would much rather we all chanted the whole Psalm together. I don't think the repetition of the response adds anything at all and in fact it detracts from the main body of text from the Psalm, also very few seem to bother joining in. And it's even worse when the person leading starts waving their arm up and down.

You may not think the repetition of the response adds anything, but the Church does. This particular form flourished for about a hundred years in the 5th and 6th centuries and then disappeared. The reason it disappeared is because the musicians got hold of it ! What had been a simple form became more and more elaborate, excluding the people. The purpose of reintroducing the simple form into the Mass after Vatican II was precisely so that the people would have at least a part of the sung psalm text in their mouths. For 1500 years the psalms had only been sung by monastic choirs, and later by church choirs (a practice taken over by the Anglican Church). The aim of the restoration of the form was to give something back to the people, in line with Sacrosanctum Concilium 14.

If you want the people to join in, they need encouraging. This means a very brief (30 seconds at the most) run-through before Mass, every week. What is needed is a consistent (week by week, month by month) effort to engage the people, to let them know what is going on, to entrust the response to them. Once they realise that you seriously want them to join in, that without them it will not work properly, then they respond.

If the arm-waving of the cantors you have seen appears naff, that is probably because they have not been well-trained. There are cantorial gestures, but indiscriminate arm-waving does not figure among them.

[Nick Baty]

Yes, I understand Contrabordun's point. But do we accept things simply because they happen? Were that the case, we could still sing Israeli Mass!

[londonchurchman]

You may not think the repetition of the response adds anything, but the Church does. This particular form flourished for about a hundred years in the 5th and 6th centuries and then disappeared. The reason it disappeared is because the musicians got hold of it ! What had been a simple form became more and more elaborate, excluding the people. The purpose of reintroducing the simple form into the Mass after Vatican II was precisely so that the people would have at least a part of the sung psalm text in their mouths. For 1500 years the psalms had only been sung by monastic choirs, and later by church choirs (a practice taken over by the Anglican Church). The aim of the restoration of the form was to give something back to the people, in line with Sacrosanctum Concilium 14.

If you want the people to join in, they need encouraging. This means a very brief (30 seconds at the most) run-through before Mass, every week. What is needed is a consistent (week by week, month by month) effort to engage the people, to let them know what is going on, to entrust the response to them. Once they realise that you seriously want them to join in, that without them it will not work properly, then they respond.

If the arm-waving of the cantors you have seen appears naff, that is probably because they have not been well-trained. There are cantorial gestures, but indiscriminate arm-waving does not figure among them.

I understand the aims of what Vatican II was trying to do, I just feel that "giving" them one line smacks of being patronising and suggests that that's all they can handle. I have heard antiphonal singing of a psalm with the congregation and cantor singing alternative lines to a simple setting at congregational Vespers at Westminster Cathedral and the level of participation is much much better, and it sounds just stunning. As I said before the musical settings for the resp. Psalms I have heard have been horribly ugly and not even particulalrly singable -often sounding like a commercial jingle - which defeats the whole object of participation. Is there a source for quality settings of the Psalms?