PANEL decisions

[Nick Baty]

But I did hear of one publisher who was told he would have to go via the Panel – not sure if it was the same publisher, though.

[Colin Mawby]

I would like to clarify my position on the censorship panel.

No one will question that the Bishop's have the penultimate responsibility for the celebration of the liturgy (the ultimate authority is the Holy Father's), however, I remain convinced that the manner in which they have chosen to exercise their responsibility is totally wrong.

There is a basic principle involved that goes far beyond liturgical music. Many had hoped that the old authoritarian church, the cause of so much scandal and suffering, had finally disappeared. Unfortunately this is not so and the censorship of liturgical music is yet another example of the misuse of ecclesiastical authority. (I make a clear distinction between the many fine pastoral clergy I have been priveleged to know and the power seeking placemen who are unfortunately to be found within the church bureaucracy; the former follow the teaching of Christ and the latter the law of self preservation and personal aggrandizement.) All authoritarian structures, of their very nature, seek to preserve their own power and authority and often crush people in the process: this has been an unfortunate characteristic of the church for centuries. The last example of this has been the abuse scandal - the desire to cover up anything that has the potential to destroy the church's authority. The bureaucratic view that the preservation of the church's temporal position is of greater importance than the suffering of the abused (witness the recent Irish Government sponsored report on abuse in the Cloyne Diocese) and the desire to do anything to achieve this end. There are many other examples and no amount of Episcopal spin can hide these unpleasant facts.

I feel It wrong in principle and conscience to take part in any procedures which preserve or extend the church's old fashioned power structure and I have no doubt that Catholics should refuse to participate in them. This is essential if ecclesiastical bureaucracy is to learn the humility that is necessary for the development of the church's work of evangelisation and the salvation of souls. The arrogant Catholic Church must become a thing of the past.

I am also deeply saddened that there are men and women, presumably musicians, prepared to take part in an anonymous process of censorship and, in doing so, cooperate in the preservation of the old style church: people who obviously consider their position as"censors" as more important than the odium of their professional colleagues.

I am an old man, 76 next year, who has been intimately involved in church music since I was nine and who has endured much suffering at the hands of the church's power structures - (Yes, I
was abused as a boy). I ask the members of the panel to reflect upon their position and show themselves as people of principle rather than as unpaid agents of the bureaucratic, old fashioned church.

There are many other things that distress me, not least the complete lack of trust that the Bishops appear to have in their composers and publishers, but these are minor considerations in comparison with the first principle involved. I again call upon all composers and publishers to ignore this censorship process.

Colin Mawby

[Nick Baty]

Colin, and others, believes the panel is censoring submissions on musical grounds. Yet many of us haven’t experienced this.

Earlier in the thread, several of us posted examples of panel feedback, all of which were to do with textual felicity. Might those who are claiming musical censorship do the same? At least then we can stop the toing and froing over whether this is censorship or not.

I’ve certainly not suffered any musical censorship – there have been musical “observations” – should this include guitar chords, is that the right tempo marking, etc – but, as observations, they can be ignored by the publisher.

However, others believe they have been knocked back for reasons other than textual felicity. Might we be able to see a few examples of these feedback comments?

[keitha]

I sympathise with many of the points made by Colin in relation to the Church generally, but I really cannot see that the 'Panel' is part of an attempt to retain temporal power.

In my view, the Panel process has not been properly thought through, and this has led to the several flaws that have been identified on this forum. By all means have a panel to ensure that there is felicity to the approved text (and so ensure that we can avoid the dreadful paraphrases that we have seen). By all means let it provide non-enforceable comments that it thinks might be helpful (textually and musically). From what I have seen and heard, this is what the Panel is trying to do. I have seen no example where a piece has been rejected on musical grounds. I have seen one large'ish collection with many musical styles go through the process, and there has been no attempt to censor the music itself. I will repeat Nick's exhortation for examples to given where this has happened, if it has.

The flaws in the process are (i) the self-determining appeals process, which I think is being fixed, (ii) the lack of common parameters that operate throughout the English-speaking world (so that something approved in the US, for example, can be used in the UK, even though it would have 'failed' the Panel processes in the UK) and (iii) the limitation of the restriction to 'publishing' as opposed to 'use' - which has rendered the whole thing a nonsense. So, for example, James MacMillan could write a Mass setting in Scotland that would be approved under the Scottish Bishops' Conference requirements if it were submitted in Scotland, but because he is published by Boosey & Hawkes in England (and probably contractually bound to them), it would have to go through the English & Welsh Panel process, which it could then fail. To take the example further, If Booseys decided to take Colin's favoured approach, ignore the Panel's existence, and publish and be damned, I cannot see how they would be damned! There seems to be no sanction. If I then used this notional MacMillan Mass in my parish (and my PP either didn't know, or wasn't bothered), I cannot see what could be done to stop me. It doesn't take much time to think of even dafter examples of what can happen.

I repeat, in my view, having a vetting process for textual fidelity is a good thing. This one is, however, badly flawed and ill thought-through.

In case anyone is wondering, I am not ignoring the issue about the anonymity of the Panel members - but I cannot make up my mind whether this is a good or bad thing!

[Calum Cille]

Certain principles cannot be universalised to all circumstances because their effects can invert their purpose. Secret meetings designed to protect abusers are not equal in nature to secret ballots in universal suffrage. In the latter instance, secrecy is designed not to protect abusers but to protect the person holding authority from abusers. This is why voters should have the right to keep their voting intentions secret even though they, as ordinary voters, are exercising political power and authority in that particular action.

While Colin has not made the point I will next comment on, it will do no harm to elucidate it. When I apply for a job, I might not even get invited to interview, nor even know the identity of the people who turned me down. Prospective employees are not being abused when they are not selected for employment, and composers are not being abused when their work is rejected, no matter how unfair or discriminatory it may be. The only meaningful allegations would be those such as unfairness or discrimination.

I can however see the sense in employers not naming whoever it is that decided someone else should get the job. This helps protects them from me potentially abusing them as individuals in a fit of revenge.

As we all know, physical or sexual abuse is not the same thing as unfairness or discrimination. At the moment, the only protective procedures relating to abuse that might need to be in place here would be to prevent abuse of the panel from composers (or possibly the members of the panel from each other)!

Censorship is not a universal evil in itself nor is anonymity, therefore we have the TV watershed and undercover police. Were a composer to think that he has been treated unfairly or discriminated against, then keitha's criticism (i) can perhaps be raised.

[NorthernTenor]

The argument that the Panel will not pass or fail according to musical criteria alone is a bit of an Aunt Sally – I don’t think anyone has seriously suggested this after considering the matter. On the other hand, as I've already indicated on this board, I had a setting rejected on grounds other than the stated purpose of the process: textual felicity. Permission was held from my mass setting because it did not comply with the statement in the Composers' Guide that all of the Eucharistic acclamations should be set in a musically unified manner (I set the Sanctus alone). Now, you may think that a good idea or not - I would suggest it confuses the role of the composer with that of the liturgical musician, and is too specific in a matter open to informed judgement - but sure as eggs it isn't a matter of textual felicity. Nick would have been aware of this evidence had he not filtered out my comments, which disturb the balance of his equanimity. I assume Keith didn't notice it amidst the welter of comments the process and panel have engendered.

The origin of the problem lies in the terms of reference (see the Guide, Appendix 1), which are seriously flawed. They begin with an unambiguous statement of purpose: "To review musical settings for conformity to the published liturgical text." Frankly, little more needs to be said, but unfortunately someone decided to stipulate under "Criteria" that "Guidance for both composers and the panel can be found in 7. Roman Missal: a Composer’s Guide." - a document that has little to add about textual felicity and much to say about non-textual matters, many of which are arguable (by which I don't mean "wrong", but matters open to judgement and honest difference of opinion). The problem is compounded by the set of "Summary Principles" also listed in Appendix 1, which include statements about non-textual issues that are arguable or capable of various shades of interpretation.

I’m afraid it looks as if someone has deliberately used the process as a means to turn the Composers’ Guide into something akin to law, without being open about it. This suspicion is strengthened by anonymity of those involved and the apparent desire to build up a body of “case law” relating to the process. I am prepared to consider suggestions that this is not so, but the alternative explanation – incompetence – is scarcely less damaging, though at least it doesn’t call honesty into question. Either way, it’s a dog’s breakfast that will do nothing for the interests of liturgical music in England and Wales, and could do much to damage it.

[Southern Comfort]

Colin, and others, believes the panel is censoring submissions on musical grounds. Yet many of us haven’t experienced this.

Earlier in the thread, several of us posted examples of panel feedback, all of which were to do with textual felicity. Might those who are claiming musical censorship do the same? At least then we can stop the toing and froing over whether this is censorship or not.

I’ve certainly not suffered any musical censorship – there have been musical “observations” – should this include guitar chords, is that the right tempo marking, etc – but, as observations, they can be ignored by the publisher.

However, others believe they have been knocked back for reasons other than textual felicity. Might we be able to see a few examples of these feedback comments?

I have seen no example where a piece has been rejected on musical grounds.

Nick keeps coming up with this. "I haven't suffered at the hands of the Panel, therefore no one else has." Nick, plenty of others have suffered from decisions which are not the Panel's to make, as NT keeps pointing out. I can point to a composer, one of whose new settings of a Sanctus was rejected on the grounds that there were too many Holy's and too many Hosannas, while in the same Panel session a revised setting of another Sanctus by the same composer, with the same number of Holy's and Hosannas, was approved. (Another revised setting by the same composer, containing even more Holy's and Hosannas, was approved in a subsequent session.) While this sort of subjective inconsistency continues, the Panel will earn no respect.

keitha seems to be confusing musical idiom with musical grounds. What composers are complaining about is not an opinion on the grounds of musical style or idiom, it is about the freedom of composers to respond to the text in a musical way which may differ from the way in which some Panel members might respond to it. That is a wholly different question. "Herr Bach, too many Sanctuses in your B minor Mass setting. Approval withheld!". That, it seems to me, is a decision which is not the Panel's to make, any more than comments such as "This setting seems to be driven by the music rather than the text. Approval withheld". Those are decisions which composers and publishers should be making, not the Panel. The Panel, in commenting on the fact that some revisions seem to be trying to fit the text to the music, rather than vice versa, have blithely ignored the fact that in the original settings the composer did exactly the same thing, in order to provide balance in the musical form and more importantly singability and memorability for the assembly, so there is nothing new here. It was OK then, so why not now? Once again, these are decisions for the composer and publisher, not for the Panel.

I do not believe that the Panel's remit should run anywhere beyond checking the text for fidelity to the original, and certainly not to the way in which the composer has chosen to set the text. Doing the latter is nothing more than an impertinence.

A second problem is, as keitha and others have pointed out, the fact that the Panel's attitude is much more stringent than that of corresponding bodies in other countries. There are numerous examples of approved settings in other countries (USA, Australia, New Zealand) which contain features (especially textual features) which would in England and Wales would earn an "Approval Withheld" notice. I find new American examples on an almost daily basis. The kind of things they contain are not major issues, but any issue seems to be a major one for our Panel. While this kind of inconsistency obtains, the Panel will, once again, earn no respect. The process needs to be equitable across the board. Yes, the various episcopal conferences have the right to regulate settings, but yes also, those undertaking this task on their behalf need to understand that liturgical music publishing is now an international phenomenon, not a parochial one. The England and Wales process is out of line with all the others.

Thirdly, the Panel seems to take no account of the successive versions of the Order of Mass which have contained variations in capitalization and punctuation. Composers who have worked with earlier versions may have minor detail differences of detail in this regard.

To give just one example, Memorial Acclamation 1 originally ran "We proclaim your death, O Lord,...." following standard publishing practice of minimum capitalization. The final version (August 2010) changed this to "We proclaim your Death, O Lord,....", the reason given being the fact that the Latin has a capital letter. This blithely ignores the fact that the Latin word "Mortem" has a capital letter because it the first word in the sentence in Latin and not necessarily for any other reason than Latin word order!

Additionally, settings given approval in another country under a previous version (pre-August 2010) will differ from the latest incarnation of the text. In mature, adult publishing practice, the answer received would be along the lines of "Approval granted, on condition that these tiny minor amendments are made". What actually happens is "Withheld editorial", with a requirement to resubmit to the Liturgy Office. I say again, in the world of publishing, that is nothing less than childish. It is treating publishers like infants who cannot be trusted to do the right thing; and it needs to stop.

Fourthy, it is a fact that the Panel has succeeded in approving settings which contain egregious errors (Margaret Rizza's setting was a notable example, since the Panel insist on including references to the Missal tones, which is not a requirement in any other country; the revised reprint of her setting still contains a significant error) or which do not conform to the Guidelines for Composers (I am thinking of the requirement that all Eucharistic Acclamations make use of the same musical material — a requirement which I approve — but notwithstanding that a setting by Mike Stanley was approved which apparently does not follow this guideline at all). Once again, inconsistency/inaccuracy does not earn respect from those on the receiving end.

Overall, the impression is that the Panel have things totally out of proportion. They are looking at things through the wrong end of the telescope, and thus are making mistakes. While I am not in sympathy with Colin Mawby's suggestion that all publishers and composers boycott the process, I do understand where he is coming from. The present process is an abuse of authority precisely because it has got things out of proportion. Its remit needs to be re-examined (see below) so that all can respect the process and go along with it.

I am not ignoring the issue about the anonymity of the Panel members - but I cannot make up my mind whether this is a good or bad thing!

All I can in regard to this is that, last time round in the late 60s/early 70s, everyone knew who the National Music Commission members were who were vetting the settings. There was no anonymity, and people were able to talk to the members and have intelligent discussions with them (they were all members of the CMA, the Church Music Association, so meetings of that body were interesting, to put it mildly).

The whole process blew apart then not only because none of the members was a composer (though the popular perception was that they were all "Wannabe Composers" !) but for several other reasons as well: (a) letters written to The Tablet; (b) the volume of material, which the members were simply not able to cope with; (c) the fact that classically-trained composers of national and indeed international repute were having their works rejected by the censors, who were undoubtedly not qualified to do that (which is Colin Mawby's point); (d) a realization that the process was making a negative rather than a positive contribution to the future of liturgical music in this country. Yes, the requirement for a Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur for hymnbooks continued into the mid-1970s and beyond, but the requirement for NMC approval for Mass settings had already lapsed by 1971.

------------------------

I have gone on about all this at some length, and no doubt repeated some things I have said earlier in this thread, because I understand that a re-examination of the entire process is due to take place next month and I think it important that all the relevant data be available to those who are due to discuss this. I hope that this post will be one such document.

There seem to be two solutions to the present situation: either abandon the process altogether as superfluous, as not touching the targets which really need to be tackled (paraphrase settings and the like), and as deleterious to the art of liturgical composing in this country, or alternatively radically overhaul it so that it actually does the job it was originally intended to do, in a way which is consistent not only with itself but with the equivalent processes in other countries.

[Nick Baty]

Nick keeps coming up with this. "I haven't suffered at the hands of the Panel, therefore no one else has."

Sorry, SC. Can't see that anywhere.

[Nick Baty]

"Herr Bach, too many Sanctuses in your B minor Mass setting. Approval withheld!". That, it seems to me, is a decision which is not the Panel's to make

Isn't that to do with textual fidelity although, as you say above, the number of Holy's approved appears to be inconsistent.

Additionally, settings given approval in another country under a previous version (pre-August 2010) will differ from the latest incarnation of the text..... What actually happens is "Withheld editorial", with a requirement to resubmit to the Liturgy Office.

Yes, but not a requirement to resubmit to the Panel. Two mins to amend, 10 seconds to email – new certificate issued before you've had time for three ejaculations!

the Panel insist on including references to the Missal tones, which is not a requirement in any other country)

What's the problem with this? It just means that in England & Wales any priest can come along and sing his bits.

[Southern Comfort]

Nick keeps coming up with this. "I haven't suffered at the hands of the Panel, therefore no one else has."

Sorry, SC. Can't see that anywhere.

Sorry, Nick. Every time I see you post, you seem to be saying that you haven't had any problems, that the Panel's comments were very helpful, etc, etc. The strong implication is that everyone else must have had the same experience as you. It ain't so. I hope my post above will clarify what others have experienced.

[Nick Baty]

Not at all. I keep asking that those who say they've been knocked back for reasons other than textual fidelity to share the feedback, that's all. I have only had textual problems and have shared that info. If others are experiencing different feedback then I'm sure we could all benefit from it.

Your yourself have cited a composer who's been knocked back for doing the same in one setting that s/he'd done in another. Fair comment. Although I do know that the Panel treats rewrites more leniently than new settings.

[NorthernTenor]

Nick keeps coming up with this. "I haven't suffered at the hands of the Panel, therefore no one else has."

Sorry, SC. Can't see that anywhere.

I can. How else to explain:

I can provide proof that the Panel is not "censuring" as Colin, and other, would have us believe.

It isn't possible to prove a negative, so one can only interpret this as meaning that Nick is simply generalising from his own experience.

I keep asking that those who say they've been knocked back for reasons other than textual fidelity to share the feedback, that's all.

And when they do he ignores it.

[Southern Comfort]

Additionally, settings given approval in another country under a previous version (pre-August 2010) will differ from the latest incarnation of the text..... What actually happens is "Withheld editorial", with a requirement to resubmit to the Liturgy Office.

Yes, but not a requirement to resubmit to the Panel. Two mins to amend, 10 seconds to email – new certificate issued before you've had time for three ejaculations!

It's the requirement to resubmit at all for such minor trifles which is childish. Some publishers would find it insulting. If publishers are to trust the process, then the process must demonstrate some trust in the publishers.

the Panel insist on including references to the Missal tones, which is not a requirement in any other country)

What's the problem with this? It just means that in England & Wales any priest can come along and sing his bits.

I have no problem with requiring reference to the Missal tones per se. What bother me is the fact that we require it when no other country does. If they don't, why should we? Our requirement came a considerable time after approval processes in other countries were already up and running which do not have this requirement (and do not have other requirements that we have, either). Consistency of approach across the English-speaking is what I am asking for — surely not too much to ask, given that most publishers are selling in more than one market.

[Nick Baty]

It's the requirement to resubmit at all for such minor trifles which is childish. Some publishers would find it insulting. If publishers are to trust the process, then the process must demonstrate some trust in the publishers.

With that I can agree. But one only has to see what some publishers have done in the past to understand why the Panel is being, perhaps, overly cautious and why they are asking to see final page proofs rather than earlier drafts. I must admit that I found it irritating at first – then I realised I was getting a free proof-reading service. Can't grumble at that.

I have no problem with requiring reference to the Missal tones per se . What bother me is the fact that we require it when no other country does. If they don't, why should we?

Or we could be proud of what we're doing and hope that other countries follow suit.

[NorthernTenor]

Or we could be proud of what we're doing and hope that other countries follow suit.

This is how ostriches behave.