Music for the ICEL Missal

[John Ainslie]

As reported on another thread, I had a chat with the Executive Secretary-elect of ICEL last week. This made me curious about what I might find on the ICEL website, so I tried http://www.icelweb.org/news.htm, which led me to http://www.icelweb.org/ICELMusicIntroduction.pdf.

We should all be interested in this. I have some views but I will keep you guessing until this thread gets going...

[VML]

Thank you for that John, it will make very interesting reading. The little I have looked at so far appears sensible and useful, even if some of it is, IIRC, what I remember from the Requiem Mass.

[JW]

The vast majority of priests or readers will not be confident to use these settings - the existing settings in the missal are rarely used. How often do we hear a reading sung in a parish Sunday Mass? If they really expect the chants to be in common use, dioceses should be planning compulsory training for priests, readers and musicians - not a one day tick-box affair but proper residential courses to build confidence and fluency.

I suspect what will in fact happen is that our composers will set the new words in a more modern musical idiom and that we will use those settings instead - in much the same way as we do now. I look forward to the impetus this will give to creative musicianship in our Church.

[docmattc]

There are several instances where the drive to get to the chanting note on the second syllable makes word stresses, well, different. Page 5 for instance, the preface will start "It IS truly..." rather than a more natural (to me) "It is TRUly"

Similarly in the sign of the cross, moving to the chanting note on 'The' rather than 'namer (In THE name of...'

ICEL seem to be taking a lot of time in this document to justify their position. They clearly expect criticism of what they've done.

JW is right, most won't use these, but it is a good opportunity to remind folk that the missal tone exists. (or even to remind them of the sung nature of the Mass (there is still a 'music as an optional extra' mindset). I used the current missal tone acclamations in Lent and they were really successful.

[JW]

A good innovation in these days of computer notation would be an affordable organ accompaniment. There are a lot of people/priests who like sustained chord to help keep them on the right tonal path. I know that chant was intended for a cappella voice but one of the objectives in the foreward is to enable priests and people to sing.

I agree with Doc that there could well be criticism on a variety of fronts and some of the stresses may be debatable. Perhaps whatever they came up with is a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't.

[NorthernTenor]

I sense two problems here that don’t have anything to do with the virtues of the settings as such: the feeling that Rome (or its agency) has spoken, so it must be so, down to the tiniest detail; and the belief that we should prefer new music to an attempt to adapt the old.

The proposed setting won’t have the same status as the Roman text and its authorised translation – I think the given adaptation works well on the whole, and if there are exceptions people should feel free to modify according the needs of the text and the guidance of a good ear. Hang loose. Chant is not and never was a monolithic entity, handed down from on high, fixed under threat of discipline. It’s a living tradition.

As for preferring new to old – well, that’s a false antithesis. As Pope Benedict and others have pointed out, chant is the music proper to the Roman Rite and its variants, and as such it is a treasure of inestimable beauty and value; but new music in other styles is encouraged, too, within the constraints of suitability and competence.

[contrabordun]

Yes, I broadly agree with Northern Tenor. I thought the document was a clear and useful attempt to demonstrate that they'd thought through what they were doing - they will inevitably be criticised from as many directions as there are different opinions but I think they've done a perfectly defensible job even if I agree with docmattc that some of the stresses are a bit unnatural. (But they're not set in stone.)

It's very positive that they are at least trying to suggest that readings should be sung.

[dmu3tem]

I note that some respondents - following existing precedent - are already suggesting that musicians might prefer to use new compositions instead of these. My impression, from what I have heard so far (especially the new versions of the GIRM), is that the authorities would like to forbid this and compel us all to use either these settings, other settings from plainchant or only those new settings that have been approved by a three person commission of musicians. This would particularly apply to the Responsorial Psalm, Entrance and Communion Antiphons and Ordinary of the Mass. Is this correct or have I entirely misunderstood what I have been hearing?

Note that if my impressions are correct then the instrument for enforcement will be copyright law. ICEL holds copyright on most parts of the Mass, the Grail/Collins holds copyright over Responsorial Psalms. All these bodies have to do is refuse copyright permission to any composer writing new unapproved settings. This would, at the very least, prevent publication and recorded performance of such new works.

Thomas (Muir)

[alan29]

Sung English readings? Why? Weren't they originally sung to make the sound carry further in large cathedrals etc before mikes etc were invented?
All sounds a bit "smells and bells" C of E to me.
An ironic development from the most Roman of all sources.
Alan

[NorthernTenor]

Sung English readings? Why? Weren't they originally sung to make the sound carry further in large cathedrals etc before mikes etc were invented?
All sounds a bit "smells and bells" C of E to me.
An ironic development from the most Roman of all sources.

Intonation of religious texts is employed well beyond the CoE, indeed well beyond Christianity. It has an emotional and spiritual function in addition to the practical requirements of audibility. Its relative scarcity in our liturgical life is another way in which the deadening hand of materialism cuts us off from the riches of our religious tradition, which are not confined to words alone, but involve our senses, too.

As musicians, we should be sensitive to this complexity. Microphones demonstrate it well - even when they don't set the teeth on edge they can help focus attention on the man at the front, rather than the Object of our worship.

[alan29]

Maybe if they are intoned so well that the act of singing them doesn't come between the word and the listener ........................
Otherwise it seems like an unneccesary adornment (and prettification) of the plain message.
No?
Alan

[quaeritor]

Oh how you pluck at the strings of my prejudices!

I look forward to the impetus this will give to creative musicianship in our Church.

. . . only if we sort out the lamentable situation over copyright of the texts - a propos of which I used to think that our other-worldly Bishops had been given the run-around by those sharks at ICEL, until I discovered that our other-worldly Bishops are in fact ICEL

There are several instances where the drive to get to the chanting note on the second syllable makes word stresses, well, different.

. . . but does it matter? - one of my greatest pleasures is singing in folk clubs - that would be the "proper" folk clubs where the singing is not dominated or constrained by the twanging of guitars etc (are you spotting a pattern here?) where it is regarded as a positive virtue if the "tune" is bent to fit the natural rhythm of the words of perhaps the seventeenth verse. Surely the defined "tune" is really only a guideline; what matters is the sensible and sensitive rendering of the text - as felt by the individual rendering it on that individual occasion.

I sense two problems here that don’t have anything to do with the virtues of the settings as such: the feeling that Rome (or its agency) has spoken, so it must be so, down to the tiniest detail; . . .

. . and why is it that I am always so unlucky? - every time "Rome has spoken" about something which I instinctively find a bit difficult it is definitely "Rome has spoken" and "nec nominetur in vobis", but when Rome happens to speak something with which I am instinctively in sympathy like for instance the GIRM it's, well, "we don't really have to go along with that" (even to the extent of publishing the GIRM with the accompanying CTM to explain what Rome really ought to have meant.)

Note that if my impressions are correct then the instrument for enforcement will be copyright law.

. . sorry, Thomas - I started fulminating before I spotted that you had already highlighted the copyright issue.

Maybe if they are intoned so well that the act of singing them doesn't come between the word and the listener ........................

. . . which is exactly the ethos of the aforementioned "proper" folk clubs.


Oh dear - I'm being dogmatic again - it'll end in tears! - I'll get my tin hat!

Q

[contrabordun]

How many clergy, faced with what fans of the Parish Psalter would call 'bloody awful pointing', will adhere to it? Rather few, because (sadly) 90% of them will continue to say it all anyway and the remainder are mostly very musical (else they'd be in the 90%) and so will adjust it on the fly anyway.

[Nick Baty]

My impression...only those new settings that have been approved by a three person commission of musicians. ...if my impressions are correct then the instrument for enforcement will be copyright law. ICEL holds copyright on most parts of the Mass... All these bodies have to do is refuse copyright permission to any composer writing new unapproved settings. This would, at the very least, prevent publication and recorded performance of such new works.

Intelligence is that, as Thomas suggests, new settings will have to be approved by a committee but this really is good news for composers. All this committee will be approving is that the correct texts are being used and that, for example, you haven't omitted the Resurrection from the Creed – at least that's the case with ICEL. And with the psalms going to GIA surely, again, good news: no more trying to explain to HarperCollins why you're only producing the verses from the Lectionary rather than the complete psalm.

I think like will be much easier.

[NorthernTenor]

Maybe if they are intoned so well that the act of singing them doesn't come between the word and the listener ........................
Otherwise it seems like an unneccesary adornment (and prettification) of the plain message.
No?

How very Jansenist of you, Alan. The possibility of trhe abuse of a good thing shouldn't prevent us from doing it. The setting of a religious text to music can be mere 'pretification' that adds nothing and distracts from the text. That's why tradition actively discourages music that does so. On the other hand, it has also condemned those who (like the iconoclasts and the Jansenists) would restrict the use of the physical and senses in worship.