More evidence that times are changing
Here is an advertisement that runs in the new issue of Today's Liturgy, the largest circulation periodical dealing with Catholic parish music, and the one that dictates to thousands of parishes how their Sunday liturgies will sound and feel. The publisher has spent decades either belittling or ignoring the chant tradition, but now, evidentally, editors and buyers sense that the moment has arrived. And note the headline, with its implied acknowledgement that the chant has vanished from nearly all Catholic liturgy: "Introduce your community to the rich and ancient tradition of Gregorian chant."
4 Comments:
Peace, Mr Tucker.
Don't you think "belittling or ignoring" is a bit stronger than needful? I've been a subscriber to Today's Liturgy on and off for twenty years, and I always remember chant suggestions being dictated to me. Do you have a specific instance of "belittling," or is it just in your perception? Chant has disappeared from all Catholic liturgy in parishes -- it was so fifty years ago in this country, too.
Todd:
If chants were dictated (or suggested, if you will) in "Today's Liturgy," I should dare say they were not the Propers of each Mass. Having encountered TL in a previous church position, I know this to be the case.
Mr Tucker's words are quite well chosen. One can pay lip service to chant whilst still denigrating the tradition whence it springs. In fact, there's no surer way to relegate chant to the role of "one option among many" than by including a few classic hits every now and again. And there's certainly nothing wrong with suggesting the occasional "Ubi Caritas" on a random Sunday, for instance. But if, as the Church has said, chant is privilged in the realm of sacred music, then any one piece of music for use at Holy Mass must be considered not as part of a smorgasbord of equal options, but rather as part of a hierarchy which has the chant as its source and head. The closer the music adheres to the aesthetic of the chant, the better.
That said, it is most encouraging that OCP has seen fit to begin selling the Solesmes books. No lip service here: these chant books contain the Ordinaries and Propers that are integral parts of the Mass, not dollops of nostalgia to be tossed like bon-bons every now and again. One can only hope and pray that such a marketing move portends a sea change.
Incidentally, an excellent analysis of the disappearance of Propers from the Mass appears in the Winter 2004 issue of "Sacred Music," and again in the recently released "The Bugnini-Liturgy and the Reform of the Reform" by Laszlo Dobszay. See http://www.musicasacra.com/publicat.html.
Yes, there is no point in slogging through back issues but I do want to point to their the publication's recently-ended series on Vat 2 which was openly celebratory about postconciliar musical shifts (so much so that it embarassed even pop-music partisans) and another series earlier this year on the new GIRM managed ten thousand plus words and no mention of the sentences in the GIRM that speak directly to the music appropriate to the Roman Rite. Actually, the latter accomplishment was remarkable--analogous to writing on the US Constitution without mentioning that it establishes three branches of government.
Peace, all.
At the risk of getting into a he said/she said type of discussion, OCP disposable and permanent hymnals have indeed included Mass ordinaries in Latin for several years. I think the blame game by advocates of traditional music gets rather old, especially considering that chant was virtually unheard of in most American Catholic parishes before Vatican II. Before the council, I suppose OCP wasn't too busy printing tracts to respond to anti-Catholic literature in the northwest to "belittle" or "ignore" the chant tradition.
Let's face it: unprepared and uneducated church musicians, helped by apathetic pastors and bishops kept American Catholic church music in the dark ages in a lot more places than enlightened musicians flourished under visionary pastors while the people sang chant.
Is it that hard to accept that a much-villified publisher is making inroads today? Or must every grudging dribble of praise be accompanied by recriminations (not always, accurate, I fear)?
Post a Comment
<< Home