The Recovering Choir Director

An article from Susan Benofy, published in the November 2007 edition of the Adoremus Bulletin with the title  “Singing the Mass: we cannot say that one song is as good as another”, is making the rounds at the MusicaSacra Forum and the New Liturgical Movement.  Read the article here.

The focus of the discussion centers on the follow passage, reproduced below with links and emphases:

Abandoning the traditional music and texts of the Mass was clearly not the intention of the [Second Vatican] Council, whose Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), decreed that “the treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care” (SC 114).  This principle was further clarified in 1969 by the Consilium (the group of bishops and experts set up by Pope Paul VI to implement the Constitution on the Liturgy), who responded to an inquiry on whether the permission for singing vernacular hymns at a low Mass — given in the instruction De musica sacra et sacra liturgia of September 3, 1958 — was still in effect.  (Before the Council the hymns sung at low Mass did not replace the prescribed Mass texts, but were an addition to them, and were considered only an “indirect” form of participation.)

The Consilium’s response was very clear:

That rule [permitting vernacular hymns] has been superseded.  What must be sung is the Mass, its Ordinary and Proper, not “something”, no matter how consistent, that is imposed on the Mass. Because the liturgical service is one, it has only one countenance, one motif, one voice, the voice of the Church.  To continue to replace the texts of the Mass being celebrated with motets that are reverent and devout, yet out of keeping with the Mass of the day amounts to continuing an unacceptable ambiguity: it is to cheat the people.  [You can't get much more pointed than that!] Liturgical song involves not mere melody, but words, text, thought and the sentiments that the poetry and music contain.  Thus texts must be those of the Mass, not others, and singing means singing the Mass not just singing during Mass.^[1]

The Proper of the Mass was to be sung. This ruling was utterly ignored, however.  Almost forty years later the average Catholic at Sunday Mass will join in singing “something” at the Entrance, at Communion, and perhaps the Offertory.  Almost never will the actual texts prescribed for these processions be heard.

I have described the practice of selecting hymnody — even hymnody whose texts are thematically linked with the celebration of the day — as being an imposition of personal devotion upon the faithful, whether intended or not.^[2]  If hymns are to be used, they ought to be used in addition to the propers, but not in lieu of them.^[3]

In his NLM commentary, Jeffrey Tucker writes (emphasis added),

What this means is striking to say the least.  The idea here is that the postconcilar period has removed permission for hymns to be sung at Low Mass and replaced it with a positive obligation to sing the propers in the postconciliar Mass.  [Not to say that music directors in charge of music for the Mass in the Extraordinary Form are off the hook.  I think it is clear that — in light of the documents preceding and following Vatican II (the above passage from De musica sacra excepted) — the Missa Cantata is the celebration of Mass towards which to strive.]

Amazed?  I am.  Truly.  The implications are rather astounding actually.

He goes on to quote the BCL passage in question, the preface to which I reproduce below (with comments and emphases):

In spite of these efforts to promote the sung liturgy [which efforts?], preference continues to be given to singing during the Mass instead of singing the Mass. In fact many of the faithful [mistakenly] interpret singing the liturgy to mean singing hymns or songs.  Thus those involved in liturgical preparations oftentimes [erroneously] confine themselves to the selection of hymns as their first priority and neglect the singing of ritual texts.  Likewise many composers [ignorantly] give preference to the composition of hymns and other sacred songs rather than to the ritual texts of the liturgy.  [And many entities continued to promote hymnody, cults of compositional personality, and wheel-spinning workshops to the detriment of the liturgy.  It was a formula that seemed to work, so why question it?  "Cheat the people," indeed!]

So, if you were a music director in charge of music for the Mass in the Ordinary Form, desired to move from singing at Mass to singing the Mass, and had the pastor’s blessing and active support to undertake this task — after all, among other duties he is the principal liturgist for the parish — how would you go about doing so solely in terms of repertoire selection or creation?^[4]

Some answers tomorrow…