The Recovering Choir Director

Earlier this year on the MusicaSacra Forum, “Pes” makes a few observations about needless repetitions in the Roman Rite.

Some background: while repetitive elements such as the second Confiteor had already been omitted from the missal in the 1962 revision, other elements were subject to the pruning shears of the Consilium headed by Archbishop Bugnini, such as the ninefold Kyrie (reduced to six), the threefold “Domine, non sum dignus” of the celebrant and the people (reduced to a single utterance said together by priest and faithful), and the elimination of selected “Dominus vobiscum / et cum spiritu tuo” dialogs.

Footnotes, links, comments, and emphasis added.

I’ve often heard it alleged that the 1962 Missal had “needless repetitions” of text, greetings, and the like,^[1] and that these represented a kind of ritualistic accretion that Bugnini et al wished to eliminate from the Roman Rite.

History delights in irony. Today, the 1970 Missal is falling victim to what can be described (more justly than before) as thoughtless, needless repetition.  This time, the repetitions derive from the comparative chaos of liturgical practice. For example:

1. The responsorial Gloria.^[2]  *sigh* I know there is plenty of historical precedent, but the settings I have heard alter the text, which is illicit.  Some of the melodies actually sound “silly.”  All of them involve repetitions that needlessly lengthen the moment.  All of them make it very easy for congregants to tune out when it is not their turn to sing (alas) the same damn thing, over and over.

> Instead, intone the Gloria. Sing the Gloria straight through, distributing certain sections to the congregation, and certain sections to the choir/schola.^[3]

2. Our congregation appears to know at most three simple Alleluias.  Obviously, we know them by heart.  Do we really need to hear the cantor sing them entirely before we respond?  No.

> Intone the Alleluia, as of old. If the novelty of the tripartite Alleluia must be retained  [usually for pastoral reasons; one does well to catechize the faithful before moving to, say, a Gregorian melismatic Alleluia from the Parish Book of Chant], try some of the settings from the Graduale Simplex.

3. Out of apparently brainless novelty, the Responsorial Psalm refrain was repeated twice in its entirety this morning, every time it was sung. [Whether the culprit is brainless novelty or misdirected creativity, examples of this practice abound in the currently mainstream repertoire.^[4]] This repetition was composed (there was a deceptive cadence at the half).  It wasn’t a short text, either.  The effect of this turned the RP into a little song-fest, not “antiphonal psalmody.”  (The verse melodies were ludicrous.)

> Parishes offering the OF should use the Chabanel Psalms instead.

3. The Sanctus and Agnus Dei, like the Alleluia, were melodies we have heard a million times before.  There is simply no need for the cantor to sing them in their entirety before we respond.  [Indeed, in the case of the Agnus Dei, the melodies are often repeated three times due to its nature.]

> The Sanctus and Agnus should be intoned, as of old.

4. The “Great Amen” is frequently a ridiculous set-piece novelty, sung in its entirety by the cantor before the congregation. What is wrong with a simple congregational Amen, no cantor involved?  If it is sung recto tono (and on a common tone), the choir could put a halo of harmony around it.  Lovely. ^[5]

It would be one thing if these repeated sections were difficult or unusual.  They aren’t.  They usually involve trivial, silly, or well-known melodies.  If you eliminate their needless repetition, you will make the Mass less like the experience of hearing someone insist ad nauseaum on something painfully obvious to everyone else.

Moral of the story: the OF is falling into needless repetitions and stylistic accretions that have nothing to do with essentials.  If the goal of the OF is “noble simplicity,” prune them ruthlessly [!] away.