The Recovering Choir Director

Making the perfect the enemy of the good is always a temptation in music; so much more can it be when the most appropriate sacred music is used within the context of divine worship. And yet, when human frailty manifests itself within the execution of sacred music, sometimes the result can be illuminating for the singer, conductor and listener.

Case in point: Sunday’s Offertory antiphon and motet, whose words are taken from Psalm 16:5-7:

Pérfice gréssus méos in sémitis túis,
ut non moveántur vestígia méa:
inclína áurem túam, et exáudi vérba méa:
mirífica misericórdias túas,
qui sálvos fácis sperántes in te, Dómine.

Perfect thou my goings in thy paths,
that my footsteps be not moved:
incline thy ear unto me, and hear my words:
show forth thy wonderful mercies,
thou who savest them that trust in thee, O Lord.

Modes III and IV - which happen to be my favorite modes - proved challenging to more than a few chant choirs over the week of the CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium. Last Sunday was no different. The schola meandered through the melody of the underlined text uncertainly, but gamely achieved the cadence of the phrase and continued the chant through the end without incident.

As an appropriate coda, the polyphonic choir started the Di Lasso setting of the same text, stopped before the completion of the words “Pérfice gréssus méos” and started it again, this time without incident.

A perfectionist would have pilloried the efforts of the schola and choir. (In a different, less mature time in my life, I would have done so, without a doubt alienating those who put so much time and effort into it.) Of course everyone wants to do better next time and allow the correct melody, rather than errors in execution, to draw attention to the words. But upon reading the underlined text, isn’t it somehow appropriate that the schola started to waver - and recover - exactly where it did? And isn’t it somehow fitting that the choir had to start over after singing those first three words?

This brings me to an important point that Fr. Frank Phillips, C.R., founder of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius made in his insightful, humorous and inspiring presentation last Wednesday:

When I directed the choir, I always told them before Mass…I’d say: “Once Mass begins, there are no mistakes, because what you are offering is your very best to the honor and glory of God.”

And sometimes, like last Sunday, mistakes serve to call even more effective attention to the words. I find both occurrences really quite appropriate - even providential - for the first Colloquium in Chicago, and looked at a certain way, they can provide a lesson for all choirs both now and into the future. Let us never lose sight of the ultimate recipient of our musical offering.