The Recovering Choir Director

Excerpts from the official English translation of the Holy Father’s April 24, 2008 remarks at Paul VI Auditorium after a concert held in his honor (links and emphases added):

Certain of interpreting the sentiments of everyone present, I address my heartfelt congratulations to the “Giuseppe Verde” Symphony Orchestra and Choir of Milan, beautifully conducted by Mr Oleg Caetani, who have played and sung with extraordinary talent and effectiveness. I likewise extend my appreciation to the conductor of the Choir, Ms Erina Gambarini. I express a cordial thought of gratitude to the directors of the praiseworthy “Giuseppe Verdi” Foundation, encouraging them to continue on the prestigious path of art and culture on which they have set out, whose value, as I know, is also enhanced by their commitment to bring music to alleviate situations of human difficulty, such as those that occur in hospitals and prisons.

We have had the joy of listening with attentive participation to demanding compositions by Luciano Berio, Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven. I would like to emphasize that the music of Brahms enriched with religious trust Hölderlin’s “Song of Destiny”. This factor introduces consideration of the spiritual value of the art of music, uniquely called to instil hope in the human spirit, so scarred and sometimes wounded by the earthly condition. There is a mysterious and deep kinship between music and hope, between song and eternal life: not for nothing does the Christian tradition portray the Blessed in the act of singing in a choir, in ecstasy and enraptured by the beauty of God. But authentic art, like prayer, is not foreign to everyday reality although it requires us to “water” it and make it germinate if it is to bring forth the fruit of goodness and peace.

The masterful interpretations we have heard also remind us of the value and universal importance of the artistic heritage. I am thinking especially of the young generations, who can approach this heritage with ever new inspiration in order to build the world in accordance with works of justice and solidarity at the service of humanity, by employing the multiform expressions of world culture. I am also thinking of the importance for young peoples’ formation of education in authentic beauty. Art overall helps to refine their minds and orients them to building a society open to spiritual ideals.

The festivity of song and music are likewise a constant invitation to believers and people of good will to commit themselves to giving humanity a future rich in hope.

(Via NLM)

Jeffrey Tucker assigns this lofty title to the late chant scholar Mary Berry in his eulogy to her on NLM:

Working nearly alone, she sustained the interest in Gregorian chant after the postconciliar meltdown. Actually, she did more than sustain it. She inspired many people to the point that they took up her cause in academia and in parishes all over the English-speaking world.

He also challenges those in the sacred music world who would complain about the current difficulties in promoting sacred music to consider all that Mary Berry accomplished in an era even more hostile to it than today (my emphases in boldface):

Can one person make a difference? My goodness, yes. And consider the times. Think of the intellectuals, musicians, priests, and liturgists who had obtain mastery over their craft in the late 1950s, working diligently and productively to improve the Church and its worship. Think of the institutions they were building and the great things they were achieving for the glory of God. Now imagine these same people ten to fifteen years later in the turbulent times following the Second Vatican Council, and put yourself in their place. If you have ever spoken to one of these people, you have to marvel at what they saw, which was essentially this: their whole world was swept away, seemingly over night, buffeted and finally wrecked by the crazy confusions and disastrous fashions of the day, which led to an abandonment of all that was revered as holy and true in the past.

We think we have it hard now. Imagine having lived through it all. Would you despair or have hope that truth will eventually prevail? Would you fight or relent? How would your decision work out in practice: with patience and prayer or anger and protest? And how lonely might you have been? Would you find yourself an outcast among your peers and possibly then decide to change directions along with everyone else? Or would you have been steadfast and continue to build in every way you could? These are extremely difficult questions and I’m only happy to not face them with the severity that this generation faced them. But Mary Berry faced them with great courage and hope. It’s almost as if all the experiences of her life lead her to do this.

Mary Berry, pray for us.

The short answer: No, he cannot; motivation must come from those he serves. In this Catholic Herald article, British composer Webster Young suggests a general revival of musical amateurism (in the best sense of the term) will help effect a revival of church music. (My emphases in boldface.)

Much of church music is today maintained by volunteers and involves the participation of the congregation rather than a choir. Notwithstanding the good efforts of many people, Catholic music - especially outside of England - is not what it once was. Pope Benedict XVI (who is a literate musician: he reads music, knows the literature of music from Gregorian Chant to the Classics, and plays Mozart at the piano) has been calling for a restoration of high standards. His remarks on music make it clear that he believes that the touchstone for judging the appropriateness of sacred music is Gregorian Chant and sacred vocal polyphony…

But implementing a major change in Catholic music today will involve both a strong will to make changes and a marshalling of resources to carry them out. There has been a hope among members of the Roman Curia that a “grass-roots” movement among parishioners will arise - in the same successful way that one helped to re-invigorate in some countries the practice of more frequent confession - and that this will help to bring about the needed changes in music.

A growth in enlightened musical amateurism might well provide some support for a grass-roots movement in music.

The remainder of Mr. Young’s article gives a few tips on breathing, listening to oneself while singing, and proper enunciation/diction. The piece is worth sharing with clerics and choristers.

(Courtesy of Mary Jane Ballou via Scelata)

The National Catholic Register has published part II of Robert Rahaut’s interview with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, the pope’s older brother and former director of the Regensburger Domspatzen, the oldest choir in continuous existence. Below, Msgr. Ratzinger addresses two questions about music (with my emphases in boldface).

Music is your passion. You directed for so many years the Regensburger choir, one of the most famous in the world. What criteria should liturgical music fulfill?

Liturgical music must lead towards prayer and meditation. It has to calm one, to enable one to concentrate on God, on the essential.

The basic attitude, adoration, is essential in the liturgy. It has to help in that. What does not help is obviously not suitable.

What kind of music do you prefer?

For me, Gregorian chant is strongly associated with the early period of Christianity — unsentimental, unspectacular, simple, concentrating on interiority, but also classical, vocal polyphony and classical music like Haydn, Mozart and Schubert.

Part I of the interview is also available on the National Catholic Register’s website.

Tallis Scholars director Peter Phillips calls attention to Vox Zambezi, a Zambian chamber choir which decided to perform sacred polyphony of the English Renaissance.

He recalls a conversation in which Dr. Paul Kelly, Vox Zambezi’s founder, reveals an episode that helped lead to the choir’s formation:

When I asked what gave him the idea of starting the group in the first place, he quoted something I have heard several times before in differing contexts: years ago the Registrar of Societies in Zambia declared that classical Western music was not for the common people, it was an irrelevance. The poshest version of this kind of high-handed, inverted paternalism that I ever encountered was when the Secretary of Chamber Music New Zealand stood up in front of an Australian audience and declared, ‘New Zealand people do not like early music.’ Out of such irritations good things can come.

A self-deprecatory remark from a column by a Cincinnati priest regarding the music at the Washington D.C. Papal Mass.

[Calls to WBOIHWACD* (White Boys Of Irish Heritage Who Actually Can Dance) were left unanswered.]

(Via Rich Leonardi)

*doesn’t exist

The Daily Mail (UK) reports:

Dr Alan Watkins, a senior lecturer in neuroscience at Imperial College London, revealed that teaching people to control their breathing and applying the musical structure of chanting can help their emotional state.

He said: “We have recently carried out research that demonstrates that the regular breathing and musical structure of chanting can have a significant and positive physiological impact.”

The research involved five monks having their heart rate and blood pressure measured throughout a 24-hour period.

Results showed their heart rate and blood pressure dipped to its lowest point in the day when they were chanting. [FULL ARTICLE]

No studies as of yet have been conducted on the stress levels of Catholic ‘netizens’ when they argue about exactly how Gregorian chant’s “pride of place” ought to be manifested at the parish level…

Recently I upgraded my computer to Ubuntu 8.04 and discovered that the latest version of the Rhythmbox music player includes links to what seems to be the entire Magnatune.com music library. Like Naxos before they went to a paid subscription model, Magnatune allows Rhythmbox listeners to hear entire tracks before purchase.

There seems to be a few albums of Eastern Church music in the Magnatune library, whose unique sounds have always captured the essence of the Church Militant. I’ll be sure to highlight some of them in the future.

And for all of us who dare call ourselves Catholics, really.

Tim Drake at the National Catholic Register’s Pope 2008 blog reports:

In light of Rudy Giuliani receiving the Eucharist during the Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the Archdiocese of New York released the following comment from Cardinal Edward Egan this morning. I received the statement from Joe Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese.

The Catholic Church clearly teaches that abortion is a grave offense against the will of God. Throughout my years as Archbishop of New York, I have repeated this teaching in sermons, articles, addresses, and interviews without hesitation or compromise of any kind. Thus it was that I had an understanding with Mr. Rudolph Giuliani, when I became Archbishop of New York and he was serving as Mayor of New York, that he was not to receive the Eucharist because of his well-known support of abortion. I deeply regret that Mr. Giuliani received the Eucharist during the Papal visit here in New York, and I will be seeking a meeting with him to insist that he abide by our understanding.

Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Lawrence posts an insightful essay on the NLM in which he questions the collectivist view of music history:

…The practice of looking at music history in the collectivist or telescopic way cheats much great music of its timelessness. To look at a work of art as “Medieval” or “Baroque” is to lay the groundwork for the thinking that sees, for example, Gregorian chant as appropriate for people who suffered from scabies and the Black Death, but not fitting for advanced modern man. This view renders music — and, to an extent, its hearers — zeitbedingt, i.e. time-bound.

It seems to this writer that we should be paying more attention to the individual attributes of the composers and less attention to the categories into which thinkers have placed them. We should be looking at music from the inside out, not from the outside in as is done in the telescopic view. More careful study of this sort will help us to avoid musical generalizations — including generalizations about what constitutes “sacred” music. Finally, our observation of composers as individuals will allow the voices of these composers to be heard, and perhaps, divorced from the theoretical baggage which we have heaped upon them, they will say things we’ve never heard before.

Read the whole piece.