Sung Masses

[organist]

Over the last 2 days I have been at 3 masses. At the first the priest seemed to be doing more than his role - singing the Alleluia, directing reader to the ambo - it was a funeral Mass. At the second which was a full Nuptial Mass at Westminster cathedral mostly in Latin including the Eucharistic prayer and lasting 1 hour 50 minutes (is this a record?) I was struck by the beauty of having so much sung especially by the celebrant. Perhaps we have lost some of the mystery and awe by having so much said? Maybe the Orthodox have it right with so much singing? At the third, the celebrant sang the Eucharistic prayer and the deacon sang his lines too - what a difference it makes if it is done reverently and well! At the end the organist gave us Bach's great Prelude in C minor (same as at the wedding).
At our interfaith group at the cathedral we were discussing the Love of God and what we mean by it and comparing the Muslim reverence at communal prayers with our often slipshod approach at Mass. Several of the group harked on about the old days and how reverent everyone was not speaking in church, etc. While I would not want people to stop greeting each other before and after Mass, I do think we have lost something. Maybr it's that sense of the numinous my priest/teacher at school used to go on about?

[nazard]

Please don't be sloppy about the way mass is prayed. A few weeks ago my teenage son walked out of mass because it was so carelessly done. He did go to mass elsewhere afterwards, but it was a very disturbing event for me. If we do not act as if we love mass, how can we teach or children to love it?

[Southern Comfort]

Maybe the Orthodox have it right with so much singing?

Having everything sung is all right if you are coming from a position of thinking that singing adds a sense of mystery or solemnity, as the Orthodox do. However, there are other considerations.

Music highlights what it touches. If you sing everything, everything is highlighted. There is no light and shade, and the very structure of the rite is obscured. We haven't yet thought enough about singing the most important parts of the Mass (e.g. the Eucharistic Prayer, as organist points out).

Another question is whether in some cases singing actually gets in the way of what should be communicated by the rite. For example, singing the ministerial dialogues can make them come across as routine or even insincere, depending on how they are sung.

[asb]

I have heard the opinion expressed (I have a feeling that it might have been by Christopher Walker) that if the priest sings the opening Greeting of the Mass, it says to people something like "....ooh, it must be ok to sing, Father's doing it!"

[mcb]

Music highlights what it touches. If you sing everything, everything is highlighted. There is no light and shade, and the very structure of the rite is obscured. We haven't yet thought enough about singing the most important parts of the Mass (e.g. the Eucharistic Prayer, as organist points out).

Another question is whether in some cases singing actually gets in the way of what should be communicated by the rite. For example, singing the ministerial dialogues can make them come across as routine or even insincere, depending on how they are sung.

Not sure this really rings any bells with me. 'Routine' sounds an entirely implausible complaint for sung dialogues - surely a bit of offhand mumbling would be a more effective way to make them seem routine?

'Insincere' is the wrong word too; at least, you could argue that it's no great part of the celebrant's role to communicate the sincerity of the greetings, blessings etc. uttered by him - as if sincerity was his to impart or withhold. On the other hand, it can be a problem when a celebrant feels obliged to project 'personality' into the spoken parts of the Liturgy proper to him. Singing the dialogues takes away that temptation (unless a priest were to sing them in a very mannered way, which I'm pleased to say I haven't come across). The result, I suppose, can be thought 'impersonal', rather than 'insincere', and I'm not sure it's a bad thing: in being sung maybe the words are more fully allowed to 'speak' for themselves?

Something that has been reasserted by the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms is that the Mass is inherently a sung celebration. Singing the dialogues can be an effective sign of this, especially compared to a typical parish in which everything that matters is spoken, and the only singing is the hymns in the gaps.

M.

[docmattc]

Something that has been reasserted by the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms is that the Mass is inherently a sung celebration. Singing the dialogues can be an effective sign of this, especially compared to a typical parish in which everything that matters is spoken, and the only singing is the hymns in the gaps.

I was going to make the point mcb makes in the first sentence here. But the problem is that for so long it hasn't been a sung rite (having only hymns in the gaps) that making it a sung rite is alien to most people. I know people who dislike any singing in the Mass and would really object to sung dialogues. My father purposlely goes to a Mass with no singing, and I get an earfull down the phone if the PP decides to sing any of the ordinary or proper. When the curate sings the Preface (which is odd when followed by a said Sanctus but thats another issue) he gets accused of 'just showing off'. If this became regular, dad would look elsewhere for a non-sung Mass.

When we had a parish survey inviting feedback on all aspects of the parish, one comment was that we shouldn't be singing the acclamations, only the hymns. We still have a prevailing attitude that in singing, there are the hymns first, and then the 'extra bits'. In effect its still a two tier mentality of a low Mass, which is said, and a High Mass, which is sung. People feel they have a right to choose which suits them.

We need to move carefully and with catechesis in adding the dialogues and prayers even though Musicam Sacram says they have equal status with the Acclamations for Gospel and Eucharistic Prayer.

[Southern Comfort]

'Insincere' is the wrong word too; at least, you could argue that it's no great part of the celebrant's role to communicate the sincerity of the greetings, blessings etc. uttered by him - as if sincerity was his to impart or withhold.
Something that has been reasserted by the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms is that the Mass is inherently a sung celebration. Singing the dialogues can be an effective sign of this, especially compared to a typical parish in which everything that matters is spoken, and the only singing is the hymns in the gaps.

I think you've missed my point, which is that when the presider sings the dialogues it can very easily sound as if he doesn't really mean the words he is singing. Not always, but very easily. His duty is to establish a relationship with the community that he is leading into prayer. Singing the ministerial dialogues, particularly at the beginning of Mass, can render this problematic.

I agree that the Mass post-Vatican II is inherently a sung celebration, but this doesn't mean that everything needs to be sung (which is where this discussion actually started). Just because the ministerial dialogues were top of the tree in Musicam Sacram doesn't mean that they need to be today. MS was published (1967) when the Tridentine Rite was still in use, and can be construed as looking backwards rather than looking forwards to a participatory post-Vatican II liturgy. For example, MS had the Gospel Acclamation at the bottom of the list of priorities of things to be sung, which would be unthinkable today.

[organist]

docmattc wrote "When we had a parish survey inviting feedback on all aspects of the parish, one comment was that we shouldn't be singing the acclamations, only the hymns. We still have a prevailing attitude that in singing, there are the hymns first, and then the 'extra bits'. In effect its still a two tier mentality of a low Mass, which is said, and a High Mass, which is sung. People feel they have a right to choose which suits them".

Sounds a bit like democracy? Or march with your feet! My point is that sung or said the celebrant should approach Mass prayerfully and aim for clarity. He is there to enable us to celebrate together which means that cantors, readers, servers, ministers all take their proper place and role. I still think that singing can enhance. I well remember a new young priest of around 30 singing the Marty Haugen Eucharistic prayer at his first Mass. What a thrill it was! It was like hearing the text for the first time! And the acclamations made sense too in that context.
At the nuptial Mass I described there were no hymns but the congregation had a full part to play in singing and saying our responses.By contrast the funeral mass had 5 hymns and the acclamations were not sung which simply did not make any sense at all as there was an organist and a singing congregation present!

[mcb]

I think you've missed my point

Hmm... Either that or I disagree with you.

There's a good account of what the Introductory Rites aim to achieve, by Bob Hurd in the introduction to the collection Ubi Caritas. ISTR it argues for sung dialogues. I don't have it to hand, but I'll pull it off the shelf tomorrow and remind myself of how he puts it.

Just because the ministerial dialogues were top of the tree in Musicam Sacram doesn't mean that they need to be today. MS was published (1967) when the Tridentine Rite was still in use, and can be construed as looking backwards rather than looking forwards to a participatory post-Vatican II liturgy. For example, MS had the Gospel Acclamation at the bottom of the list of priorities of things to be sung, which would be unthinkable today.

Agreed, the order of priorities is a different matter altogether, and it would seem bizarre to have sung dialogues and not sing the Eucharistic acclamations or the Gospel acclamation. But I don't think anyone here has argued for that.

On the other hand, the strictures of Musicam Sacram do seem to have persisted to the present: In the choosing of the parts actually to be sung, however, preference should be given to those that are of greater importance and especially to those to be sung by the priest or the deacon or the lector, with the people responding, or by the priest and people together. (GIRM, 40). At least this is nuanced compared to MS (if memory serves), in also singling out the items sung by priest and people together, which I suppose means the major acclamations?

M.

[John Ainslie]

I believe that it is important for the priest to sing as part of the liturgical rite. Here are some considerations:

1) Until Vatican II, a priest was required to sing the dialogues ("Dominus vobiscum", etc.), the Collect and other prayers, the preface and the Pater noster (then a solo) at every Sung or High Mass. If he refused to sing, a Sung/High Mass could not take place. The only alternative was a totally non-sung Low Mass - that is, until vernacular hymns were permitted. So every priest had to learn how to sing the ritual plainsong at seminary. The genuinely tone-deaf had to master at least a maintained monotone. The results were not always very inspiring to listen to, but it did mean that the priest's role at Sung/High Mass was, inter alia, a musical one.

2) If nowadays the priest does not sing at all - and some do not sing with the congregation when they should - it gives the impression that liturgical music is just an optional added extra for the people, nothing to do with Father. This flies in the face of the Vatican Council's statement on the importance of music, viz. "that, as sacred melody united to words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy" (SC 112). Music should integrate the worshipping community, not divide it between different ministries.

3) In the vernacular liturgy as it has developed since Vatican II, dialogues, greetings, invitations and 'admonitions' in the liturgy have acquired a new significance and effectiveness in communicating the words they contain as well as fulfilling a ritual function. "The Lord be with you" can come across in all kinds of ways to those to whom it is addressed, depending on how it is spoken by the priest - or sung. I agree with Southern Comfort that the greeting at the beginning of Mass is best spoken because of its role in both signifying and effecting a bond between priest and people as one worshipping community. But the dialogue introducing the preface can bring it special attention if (together with the preface and 'Holy, holy' acclamation) it is sung by the priest in dialogue with the people; singing this part of the Mass adds to its ritual significance as introducing the central part of the Eucharist. So much the better if the words of Institution (consecration) are also sung with their acclamation, and the doxology with its 'Amen'.

4) Do not ignore the possibility of singing the 'Our Father'. In my parish we do so to the Rimsky-Korsakov tone, unaccompanied by organ, with the choir providing the harmony - and have done so for some time. Now the whole congregation joins in, and it is a wonderful uplifting sound. Singing it forces a slower recital of the words and this too adds to its prayerfulness.

[Southern Comfort]

4) Do not ignore the possibility of singing the 'Our Father'. In my parish we do so to the Rimsky-Korsakov tone, unaccompanied by organ, with the choir providing the harmony - and have done so for some time. Now the whole congregation joins in, and it is a wonderful uplifting sound. Singing it forces a slower recital of the words and this too adds to its prayerfulness.

The problem is that there are several different versions of this around.

"In the beginning", Joseph Gelineau made a French adaptation of RK's setting.

Then Fr Dan Higgins (anyone remember him? - he taught at St Edmund's Ware, and was at one stage precentor at Westminster Cathedral) was on sabbatical in the southwest Paris suburbs and came across it. He brought it back to England and made the first (and still the best) English version of JG's setting. It was used at Westminster, and spread from there outwards.

Then along came Kevin Mayhew who, in order to avoid copyright or perhaps out of sheer ignorance, got Robert Kelly to do a not-so-good version of it, altering the melody and harmony in a number of places. Quite a few people use this one.

Then along came Stephen Dean, and lo and behold we have yet another version (e.g. Laudate 587) which, while better than the Mayhew rendition, is still not as good as Dan's original.

So now we have the same problem as with the "Caribbean" Our Father (remember that one?!) - several different versions, so that when a variety of parishes or people come together they can't pray as one because they all know something slightly different..... Grrrrr!

Perhaps this is one reason why the England and Wales Bishops' Document Music in the Mass - the 1987 version, not the later one which has several problems - says of the Our Father "This is first and foremost a prayer, not a sung form. If it is always sung, some people may be excluded from it."

[organist]

I remember Fr Dan Higgins very well. He was a great friend of Fr Peter Farmer and came to St Chad's South Norwood. The choir from South Norwood sang at the cathedral twice.

[mcb]

I dug out my copy of of Bob Hurd’s Ubi Caritas (OCP 1996), to remind myself of what he says about sung dialogues, especially in the introductory rites, in the preface to the collection.

He has good and interesting things to say: the 1969 Order of Mass produced a complicated, overloaded rite, mostly recited (i.e. spoken) and cluttered with informal commentary by the presider.

The formal greeting “The Lord be with you” is often followed by an informal “good morning”, indicating, if only subliminally, that the formal greeting didn’t really count. … Even if we sing this or that bit of the rite, the unity of the whole tends to be lost in shifting back and forth between spoken and sung bits. … Consequently an unfortunate pattern sometimes takes hold: presider and assembly do not sing the ritual, but rather at the edges of the ritual. … One’s chances of bringing out the momentum of a rite are greatly diminished if it is routinely reduced to a verbal recitation without music.

Part of the solution for Hurd lies in singing the dialogues:

Once we acknowledge that the rite is a unity, is meant to flow, and has something to say, the crucially important role of ritual music comes to the fore. … When the texts of the rite are sung in dialogue by presider and people, what they have to say is proclaimed in a heightened manner. In this way music brings out the powerful potential of the rite, engaging people on numerous levels at once. … Since each of these ritual options [i.e. the various alternative forms of the introductory rites –mcb] is a window on the paschal mystery, each has a depth that we can go on plumbing throughout our lives.

The whole article is definitely worth reading, especially if you’ve never thought before (as I hadn’t) about the significance of this part of the Liturgy. Hurd’s discussion is in the context of the proposed reforms to the Missal that were rejected when Rome suppressed the old ICEL. He was expecting the rites to be slimmed down, e.g. for the Kyrie and the Gloria to be made alternatives rather than to always follow each other. (I summarised the rejected reforms once upon a time here).

To judge from references on the web, Bob Hurd’s article was reprinted in Worship: Robert Hurd (1998) 'A More Organic Opening: ritual music and the new gathering rite'. Worship 72: 290-315. Well worth a read if you can find one version or the other.

M.

[Claire B]

I play the organ at Sunday morning mass (without a singing group) once a month. My remit has been the 4 hymn sandwich. I resolved, prayerfully, to try to extend the music further into the liturgy this year. Twice a month mass is lead by the music group, with piano, guitars annd cantor who sing most of the usual bits of the mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Psalm, Gospel Acc., Sanctus, etc)

Starting in February, I have played the Celtic Sanctus, and part of it for the Amen. First outing, the Amen sounded rather stranded, so I have added the Wiener Our Father. This is part of the parish repertoire, but led by guitars.

Perhaps this is one reason why the England and Wales Bishops' Document Music in the Mass - the 1987 version, not the later one which has several problems - says of the Our Father "This is first and foremost a prayer, not a sung form. If it is always sung, some people may be excluded from it."Southern Comfort

Posts: 40
Joined: Sat Feb 23, 2008 1:31 pm

So this has touched a chord. The level of paticipation is not as great as I get with 'Soul of my Saviour', my benchmark. I have had the comment that it sounds different with the organ. Thinking about that, I thought to change registration this month and play the tune on an 8ft stop, instead of a 4ft dominated swell. But now, am I trying to take people where maybe the guides say not to? And If the Our Father has been pronounced a prayer and somehow different to other parts of the mass, why are they highlighted with music? Is there more in that document from the bishops to help?

Life is very much easier when you have a group of singers to rely on!

[Reginald]

Isn't there something that says that we should be able to sing the Credo and Pater Noster in Mass? Has this been taken to apply only to Masses in Latin?