Colloquium with László Dobszay

[NorthernTenor]

I guess I'm trying to suggest that SC's final comment, while an improvement on what preceded it, still takes an ad-hominem poke at particular individuals. There are places where that's fine and entertaining, but I hope it stays out of this board's scope.

[Reginald]

I know that the sleeping dogs are meant to be left alone, but on the hanging out to dry of Alcuin Reid by 'Worship' it would seem that the Catholic Herald has a piece this week in which Dr. Reid responds to said critique of his work. It's quoted over at the New Liturgical Movement http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/04/alcuin-reid-considers-fr-john-baldovins.html

Incidentally - we've reached that part of the academic year where our Year 10s are taught that we as a Church are One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic. Just unpacking the meaning of our one-ness can be challenging - trying to live our one-ness harder still.

[NorthernTenor]

Reginald wrote:

Just unpacking the meaning of our one-ness can be challenging - trying to live our one-ness harder still.

Indeed. The labelling of those one disagrees with as "[original deleted - moderator]", the questioning of their right to [original deleted - moderator], the ominous yet non-sepecific questioning of their motives, accusations that they don't know what they're talking about, talk of their views being "hung out to dry" by "respectable" journals - none of these encourage that one-ness, or reasonable debate. I hope I will not see them here again. Rather, I look forward to the open-minded and informed discussion that many here have shown themselves capable of. As Dr. Reid writes in his response to Fr. Baldovin, "Who knows what further dialogue will bring?".

[Please do not circumvent moderation by quoting the unmoderated original text - Musicus, moderator]

[musicus]

I hope I will not see them here again.

I too had hoped not to see them here again.

[Southern Comfort]

As Dr. Reid writes in his response to Fr. Baldovin, "Who knows what further dialogue will bring?".

I agree with this absolutely. Over the years I have become convinced that dialogue is the only way to go - if it is possible. The major problem in my experience is that it is impossible to have a dialogue with some, alas, because they are convinced that they have the fullness of the truth. No other opinion is possible for them.

When (as is the case) some of those I have commented on seem to be unable to find any merit whatsoever in the positions of others, and furthermore are nothing less than vitriolic in their comments on their blogs or (more objectionably) in their published writings, it does make it rather more difficult to keep the bridges and the conversation open . (You will notice a certain understatement there.) Perhaps that is why some of us (and I certainly include myself) find ourselves losing patience and becoming more intemperate in our reactions to those who appear to be incapable of accepting that anyone could or should hold a different point of view.

I should add that I speak as one who found one who initially found it difficult to accept - or perhaps understand would be a better verb - where Vatican II was taking liturgical music. I struggled a lot during the late 60s and very early 70s, so I think I can empathise with those for whom anything postconciliar is anathema. Where I am now is probably in a position of some intolerance towards those who have remained at the point that I risked getting stuck in, because they both cannot open their minds to other possibilities and cannot find it within themselves to dialogue with civility with those whose opinions are different from their own.

Yes, I am impatient with them (and I know I shouldn't be), and yes, I know I should keep trying to love them as fellow-Christians. But it is hard. Sometimes I slip into voicing what I think of them.

Having said that, I think that Northern Tenor's remarks about ad hominem attacks are out of place. I don't think any of us on this board know - not even the moderators - where the line comes between expressing an opinion about someone's views, and degenerating into abuse. The adjective "poisonous", for example, is not libellous. It is an honest evaluation of the extreme intolerance of someone else's attitude to anything that person disagrees with, and the way in which they express it. There are many out there who do not consider that we belong to the true Church, nor that our liturgical praxis is valid; and they don't hesitate to say so.

It's only too easy to raise the ad hominem flag when you don't agree with what someone else has said about one of your heroes. I happen belong to a number of other liturgy forums where people are free to express opinions about the positions of others (mostly but by no means always people who do not belong to the forum in question) or challenge their statements without anyone coming down heavily on them in what appears to be a do-gooder type of over-reaction. No one has ever been accused of libel or ad hominem attacks on those boards. Indeed, many have commented on how good it is that honest and open dialogue continues to take place. Little or no moderation is necessary.

I continue to hope that it will be possible to live in this sort of healthy environment on this board.

Perhaps I could add that I have also been in the position where some who were much further "to the left" than I were equally unable to listen to what I and my colleagues had to say, let alone have a discourse about it. I simply want to indicate that this problem is not confined to the "traditionalist-progressive" antagonism, which I think is a gross oversimplification of where people are.

My apologies for going on at such length, and somewhat off-topic, but I think it is important that we air these issues. Where else if not here?

[NorthernTenor]

I'm sorry, Southern Comforrt, but if you can't see the fault of unsubstantiated public accusations of toxic* behaviour of named individuals, and of the unfitness of one of them to teach in a seminary, then I don't know what to suggest. Your attacks on them have been entirely ad-hominem: you have played the men rather than their arguments, and that in a rather unpleasant way, of which I venture to suggest Messrs. Draper and McBride would have been proud. Observations as to practice elsewhere and your own personal journey don't excuse this.

* Euphemism employed in deference to Musicus.

[musicus]

I am now going to lock this thread until after the colloquium on 1 June, after which I shall unlock it in the hopes that we might debate the issues raised therein.

[NorthernTenor]

Here's a link to an account of the Colloquium, written by one of the organisers.

And it was good to meet John Ainslie.

[NorthernTenor]

There - that wasn't threatening, was it?

[mcb]

I'm curious as to what this means:

His own appreciation [...] of adaptations of vernacular language and folk music to existing chants are both challenging and controversial.

(I hope my ellipsis doesn't mangle the author's intended meaning.) Can you shed any light, NT?

[John Ainslie]

I have to take my hat off to Dr Dobszay's scholarship in musicology and liturgical history, to his meticulously prepared and delivered lecture (actually three lectures, punctuated by tea), and to his commitment over decades to make liturgical music - mostly but not exclusively Gregorian chant - available to parish and school groups in his native Hungary with widely differing skills, and in Hungarian as well as Latin. It is interesting, apparently paradoxical, that he proposes chant in the vernacular as a means to appreciating and using chant in Latin!

Dr Dobszay considers the texts of the Graduale Romanum as being canonised by tradition and therefore obligatory as a basis of the sung Proper of the Mass. But he recognises that when it is impossible to sing the original Gregorian melodies, something simpler is needed. The Graduale Simplex was a failed attempt in this direction, apparently now used only in St Peter's, Rome, the one church for which it was not intended, since it is sub-titled 'for the use of smaller churches'! Dr Dobszay has set the entire Graduale texts to the simple melodic formulae of the antiphons of the Divine Office to be found in the Antiphonale Romanum (and Monasticum) - in both Latin and Hungarian. (Although there are different settings for each Sunday, repetition on a seasonal basis is also proposed.) Now he has started to do the same for English, and is looking for an English assistant to help him. At the colloquium we sang a number of examples together and went away with plenty of printed matter to try out - or to try to work out.

I admire the pastoral purpose of the project, but have reservations about its liturgical, linguistic and musical application to English and to this country. One must bear in mind the diversity of both liturgical and musical traditions between Hungary and Britain. The musical examples Dr Dobszay produced were according to the Esztergom tradition, which dates back to pre-Reformation times and is therefore comparable in age to our erstwhile Sarum rite: many of the chant transcriptions are in what he calls 'Hungarian pentatonic dialect' and therefore differ from what you will find in Solesmes books. As for performance, we were enthralled by a recording of a Christmas Alleluia verse being sung by a boys' choir to an interpretation of Gregorian chant which owes nothing whatever to Solesmes (Thomas Muir, you would have been delighted!).

In the course of his lecture, Dr Dobszay gave a brief synopsis of how he would see the musical programme of a Mass: start with a popular hymn as a Gathering Song, then the introit from the Graduale to original or simple chant, in Latin or the vernacular... the Gradual and Alleluia (or Tract in Lent - no mention of the 1969 Lectionary)... a hymn between the Gospel and homily (John Wesley would be delighted!), another after the Offertorium text has been sung to chant or polyphony... a popular hymn before or after the Communion antiphon, and another at the very end. The use of hymns in an apparently paraliturgical role in addition to traditional liturgical texts caused some gasps of astonishment from some of those present, who may have been looking forward to hearing hymns being declared abolished from the liturgy altogether. But you must remember that, in Eastern European countries, the retention of popular hymns sung from memory was a vital element in the life of the Church during decades of communist rule, when it was impossible to publish new music or anything religious at all. Liturgical tradition and its renewal after Vatican II have evolved quite differently in Eastern European countries, even since the end of communist rule in 1990, compared with our experience in Western Europe. Nonetheless, I think it would be fair to say that Dr Dobszay has a distinctive personal approach to both liturgy and music. It is interesting but sad to note, as he himself admitted, that the hierarchy and clergy of his country have been largely indifferent, sometimes hostile, to his efforts to bring liturgical music to the people of his country. But then, when questioned on a matter of rubrical correctness, he did say that "good practice does sometimes need a little disobedience" - a statement greeted with stunned silence.

Dr Dobszay is a leading promoter of the 'reform of the reform' movement. If you missed his earlier book, 'The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform' (CMA of America, 2003), you can wait for his new book, 'The Restoration and Organic Development of the Roman Rite', due to be published in December 2009 by Continuum. However, as a number of people said to me at the meeting, the musical initiative that he announced is not tied in principle to one form of the Roman rite or the other. Something similar could perhaps be applied to the texts of the new ICEL translation of the Missal...

...and indeed the new executive secretary of ICEL, Fr Andrew Wadsworth, who is chaplain to the Society of St Catherine of Siena, was present at the meeting, so I tackled him on the availability of the ICEL texts of the Proper. Yes, they are available, but (a) they are password-protected, (b) it is up to each Bishops' Conference, not him, to decide on their release.

I introduced myself to Dr Dobszay and thanked him for his article in Music and Liturgy ('A Living Gregorian Chant', in vol 33 no 4, Winter 2007). He greeted me warmly and thrust the draft of his Latin/English 'Graduale Parvum' into my hands, hoping for an English collaborator? I'm sorry, but not me.

[alan29]

One of the main problems in English of setting the vernacular to chant is the mismatch of stresses that seems to do violence to both. Is there less of a problem in Hungarian, I wonder.
Alan

[John Ainslie]

One of the main problems in English of setting the vernacular to chant is the mismatch of stresses that seems to do violence to both. Is there less of a problem in Hungarian, I wonder.
Alan

The whole point of using antiphons is that, with some exceptions, they are built on simple flexible melodic formulae, not ad-hoc tailored melodies. This enables the chant to be accommodated to the words (of potentially any language), not vice-versa. Dr Dobszay makes it clear in his article in Music and Liturgy that Gregorian chant is first and foremost a language, and only then a repertoire built up using it.

[alan29]

So he isn't using pre-existing antiphons but in effect composing new modal ones in English out of fragments of chant. So does he envisage the liturgy being full of what would be in effect reponsorial psalms? How else would the assembly learn the antiphons? Or is that why he would add hymns to the mix - to give the assembly something a bit meatier to sing?
I seem to be not "getting" something here.
Alan

[festivaltrumpet]

In the course of his lecture, Dr Dobszay gave a brief synopsis of how he would see the musical programme of a Mass: start with a popular hymn as a Gathering Song, then the introit from the Graduale to original or simple chant, in Latin or the vernacular... the Gradual and Alleluia (or Tract in Lent - no mention of the 1969 Lectionary)... a hymn between the Gospel and homily (John Wesley would be delighted!), another after the Offertorium text has been sung to chant or polyphony... a popular hymn before or after the Communion antiphon, and another at the very end. The use of hymns in an apparently paraliturgical role in addition to traditional liturgical texts caused some gasps of astonishment from some of those present, who may have been looking forward to hearing hymns being declared abolished from the liturgy altogether.

So it would seem position is not either/or but both/and. Is this envisaged as an interim musical programme, phasing out the hymns once the faithful have become accustomed to the use of the Graduale?