The Recovering Choir Director

No matter what chant we are working on, the problem is the same in each case. We move too slow when we are first learning one, dragging out phrases and hanging onto notes too long. In this stage, we are still working with the text and getting a sense of the meaning and phrase. In this stage, attempting speed and agility is really rather hopeless. It only becomes muddy and the singers adopt an imitative pose that doesn’t lend itself to clarity later on.

But as we get to know the chant, the opposite problem presents itself: tendency to burn through the line as it becomes clearer and the phrase takes on it own shape. We find that in this stage it becomes necessary to impose a rather strict tempo in oder to slow it down so that it doesn’t sound too zippy or frenetic but rather retains its inner peace and discipline. It is only at this stage, when we can adjust the speed at will and create a different sensibility with each singing, that we feel that we truly know the chant and it is ready to sing.

Then of course the final stage comes: the liturgy. And here the tempos in reality turn out to be dictated by the space and feel of the liturgy of the day–how much silence the celebrant permits, the general mood of the space, the integration with the other music, and many other factors that just can’t be fully anticipated.

This is why it is so necessary to spend as much time as possible on the chants ahead of time, and there is never ever enough time. Ideally, we like to them sound and feel like music that has been memorized so that the ear can sense where the phrase is going at every step. Whether that is fast or slow really depends on so many factors.

From June 1999 to August 2003, I was organist and choirmaster at Holy Name of Jesus Church in Providence, which has two Masses in English, and one Tridentine Mass. The Tridentine Mass was High Mass year round, except for Summertime and most Holy Days of Obligation.

The Ordinary was usually VIII, with Credo III (we used Mass XVII during Advent and Lent). Though singing from the pew was optional in 1962, many did sing.

Anyways, we did not so much vary in tempo, but in organ registration. Unlike most parishes I knew that played much of the chant on 8′ stops at best, I did this:

KYRIE:
8′4′ flutes on great on first Kyrie; 8′ strings/celeste on swell on second; 8′4′ flutes with 8′ principal on great on third.
Same with the triple Christe
First two of the last triple Kyrie was as the first triple Kyrie, then add a 4′ principal on the final.

GLORIA:
8′4′2′ on great up to “Domine fili unigenite Jesu Christe”
play 8′4′ on swell from “Domine Deus, Agnus Dei” to “Qui sedes ad dextera Patris, miserere nobis”
back to 8′4′2′ on great for the remainder, and add chorus reed for Amen

CREDO:
similar pattern to the Gloria, with the part on swell going from “Et incarnatus est” to “et homo factus est”, back to great on “Crucifixus etiam pro nobis”

SANCTUS:
well-registered 8′4′2′ on great, with swell spots being “Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloriam tuam” and “Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini”.

AGNUS DEI:
rather mellow - pattern similar to the Kyrie:
1) 8′4′ flutes on great
2) 8′ strings/celeste on swell
3) great flutes, plus 8′ principal (add 4′ on “dona nobis pacem”)

Tempos were not rushed by any means on any of these chants. My successor pretty much keeps the same tempos I did. My predecessor, OTOH, went way too fast, IMHO. The congregation seemed to really like the interpretation we used.

BMP