Lectionary Blues

[john garrick]

I thought I'd start a new topic to pull together comments and suggestions (positive where possible!) on the New Lectionary.

I notice in passing that for tomorrow's psalm "Happy" after a controversial introduction but eventual acceptance, is now out and "Blessed" is back in - but is that one syllable or two?
More importantly, what exactly does " . . but the way of the wicked will perish" mean? I can understand the concept that those who follow the way of the wicked will perish, but that "the way" itself will perish seems somewhat meaningless unless it be that if we just wait a bit that particular risk will be no more!
?

[Ros Wood]

My interpretation is that things that are not of God will not last.

[Nick Baty]

My interpretation is that things that are not of God will not last.

Can't help feeling that, if this were of God, it would be in rather better English.

[Southern Comfort]

The Lectionary has been a disaster. Not a day goes by without some infelicity, erroneous translation or other irritant making itself known. The Tablet continues to carry correspondence on a weekly basis. I do not recall seeing a single letter in favour of what has happened. George Stack and Vin Nichols should be hanging their heads in shame.

[dmu3tem]

My feeling is that, whatever translation is made, someone will always find fault. With any text everything depends on perspective:
[1] There is personal taste, which is utterly subjective. For a start the way I utter and pronounce words and phrases will often be different from someone else's; and that is before I inject my 'feeling' for what the text is about (Listen to the different ways people read from the Lectionary at Mass to hear this). Therefore my idea of what is 'poetic' may be different from someone else's; and this will keep changing depending on the context in which it is uttered.
[2] How many of us can read Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek originals? Only those who can (and I am not among them) are in a position to judge the accuracy of a given translation; indeed as anyone knows there will always be argument even among specialists. The basic divide here is between a literal approach and one that assesses the 'intent' behind the original (note that there are several 'originals', some of which differ from one another). Judging 'intent' must surely at times be a hit and miss business, as the opening remarks on this thread indicate. In any case there is the difference between the society (or societies) for which the psalms were originally written and modern day attitudes. Note that, at the very least, we are transposing texts that in many cases were written for Jewish Temple worship into modern Christian Parish contexts.
[3] Are we approaching the Psalms as musicians? In most cases Psalms were originally written with music in mind. So they are incomplete without music. Yet there is a meditational aspect which involves digesting a text in a completely different way. There is also the divides between music-chant-declamation of the text. Chant comes in many forms; but essentially it is a variable hybrid between spoken declamation and singing. Solesmes scholars like Pothier regarded chant as inflected oratory, and a 'sung' declamation' oscillating around a basic reciting note is only a step away from this. If you have a chant built around a chord sequence (e.g. Gelineau Chant) then you are much closer to 'music'.

Once again we should be clear about whether we are aiming for 'authenticity' or not. 'Authenticity' that consists of reproducing Jewish temple performance is likely to be irrelevant for modern day users, and the same might be argued for reproductions of medieval monastic practice (plainchant), especially at a parish level. In any case it kills any idea of writing new psalm music stone dead; yet the scholarship that has 'reconstructed' 'original' Jewish psalm chants is limited and tendentious. For practical purposes we are driven to write original music of our own; and squaring it with a supposedly authentic text translation is potentially contradictory. This implies that a modern translation must be devised with modern musical attitudes in mind.

A key point is that once we use 'music' we can end up changing the meaning of text, or at least the emphasis put on certain ideas at the expense of others. Many argue that you should sing a text as you speak it; but this breaks down due to the different ways we each utter text. 'Modern' musical approaches involve a 'stylisation' of text, if only because we insert it into a grid pattern of regular bars and measured note lengths. Mixing time signatures and sophisticated notation can alleviate this, as can a 'flexible' chanted approach; but the latter still collides with the different ways we utter things. In any case 'flexible' time always poses problems for coordinated congregational singing (That is why 'old fashioned' four-square or modern hymnody built around a rigid chord sequence is usually more effective). This drives one in the direction of accepting - and making a virtue of - the tension between textual and musical rhythm. The Solesmes method of singing plainchant promoted by Mocquereau between c. 1904 and the early 1970s (before Cardine) did just this, even if the scholarship that underpinned it can be questioned.

[dmu3tem]

I should add just one addendum. My remarks concern psalms only; not other parts of the Lectionary.