The Recovering Choir Director

Posted on another website, slightly edited here.

I wish to take the focus off of styles of music for Mass, if only for a moment, and try to tackle this issue from a different angle.

This is a pragmatic question based on current parish culture and a liberal reading of the recent General Instruction of the Roman Missal as well as the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy from which it flows. I’m not going to proof-text, but what follows is documented in multiple Church missives. Still, prepare to be disappointed in the dearth of references. If you don’t trust me, feel free not to.

I’m still waiting for composers of all styles to base their compositions on the proper antiphons of the Mass instead of reworking and composing hymns that are more or less scripturally based. For those unaware, the proper antiphons of the Mass are prescribed by the liturgy. If you follow the Order of Mass in most disposable missalettes, you will find the ICEL translations of the Entrance Antiphon and the Communion Antiphon. These are meant to be sung, responsorially, with verses from the same psalm (or a thematically related psalm or canticle if the antiphon is from elsewhere in the Bible). The Offertory antiphon can be found in the Graduale Romanum, the Church’s official songbook*. (Unofficial) translations for all antiphons can be found in the Gregorian Missal for Sundays, a missal that incorporates the Gregorian propers for Sundays and holydays.

Why these texts (original Latin or approved translation) are overlooked as bases for composition is puzzling. These are the texts for the Mass, the first, most preferred options for sung worship, the bases for composition.

Nick Alexander, who some might be aware of, is a leader of a P&W band at his church. He has taken these texts and set them to his specialty genre of music. Is his congregation accepting of his compositions? Absolutely. Would St. John Cantius’ Novus Ordo congregation be as accepting of them? I dare say “not hardly”. Still, whether it be Nick Alexander’s stylings or the Gregorian Chant heard at Cantius, these are by and large the same texts, the same message is being transmitted (hopefully effectively in both cases), and style is not a stumbling block for either flock.

Believe me, I’m an aesthetic snob. However, I will not ram my preferred style of music down anyone’s throat so that they associate the sublimity of the music with my aesthetic terrorism, and be forever turned off of it because of my attitude. Yes, chant and polyphony are beautiful, but if your marketing gets in the way of that beauty, you won’t have a leg to stand on. Your marketing must be as beautiful and sincere as the product you’re selling—in this case the Church’s preferred genres of music for worship—even if it is rejected by your audience. Nay, especially if it is rejected by your audience.

But I digress.

Simply put, the liturgical texts for the entrance, psalm, Gospel acclamation, offertory, and communion are already prescribed. “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” is not.** Would that we move closer to that realization, regardless of the style of music employed. We can and will quarrel about musical style on other threads till Kingdom come, and perhaps afterwards.

*Unfortunately, like many things officially sanctioned by the Church regarding the liturgy, this too has gone generally unnoticed.

** However, as a metrical adaptation of the Te Deum, it makes sense to sing it at Benediction (all verses, please) or even as a recessional hymn—which is not prescribed by the liturgy.