Snapd
ragon
THE
P RTAL
October 2016
Page 5
Music and the Liturgy
Snapdragon has been thinking
Music is
on the mind at the moment and your correspondent has just bought copies
of Merbecke’s Office for Holy Communion Noted and Shaw’s English Folk Mass to sing at
masses in the Ordinariate Use.
It’s well over a hundred years since
Pope St Pius X wrote his motu proprio
known as Tra le sollecitudini (“Among
the concerns”)[1]. In its General
Principles, the Pope wrote:
Sacred music, being a
complementary part of the
solemn liturgy, participates in the general scope
of the liturgy, which is the glory of God and the
sanctification and edification of the faithful. It
contributes to the decorum and the splendour
of the ecclesiastical ceremonies, and since its
principal office is to clothe with suitable melody
the liturgical text proposed for the understanding
of the faithful, its proper aim is to add greater
efficacy to the text, in order that through it the
faithful may be the more easily moved to devotion
and better disposed for the reception of the fruits
of grace belonging to the celebration of the most
holy mysteries.
Sacred music should consequently possess, in
the highest degree, the qualities proper to the
liturgy, and in particular sanctity and goodness of
form, which will spontaneously produce the final
quality of universality.
It must be holy, and must, therefore, exclude all
profanity not only in itself, but in the manner in
which it is presented by those who execute it.
It must be true art, for otherwise it will be
impossible for it to exercise on the minds of those
who listen to it that efficacy which the Church
aims at obtaining in admitting into her liturgy the
art of musical sounds.
But it must, at the same time, be universal in
the sense that while every nation is permitted to
admit into its ecclesiastical compositions those
special forms which may be said to constitute
its native music, still these forms must be
subordinated in such a manner to the general
characteristics of sacred music that nobody of
any nation may receive an impression other than
good on hearing them.
And who can argue with that?
Tra le sollecitudini contained other exhortations,
including noting the primacy of plainchant and
banning the use of the piano. Times move on, though,
and although pianists would be able to make sense
of an organ, the instruments are different enough
that the lack of an organist can cause problems and
using the piano is actually the better alternative. But
plainchant and chant-like music can easily have its
place in the sacred liturgy, even if the congregation can
only manage the Alleluia at the gradual.
Pope St Pius X sought to rid the Church of showy,
operatic Masses which obscured the liturgy and
diverted attention to the music per se. Just as the priest
uses a humeral veil at Benediction to hide himself in
order that people see only the sacrament, so the music
at mass should allow people to see the sacrament and
not be distracted. The same surely applies to other
genres apart from classical-music settings: does the
music of the liturgy enhance it or not?
Pope St John Paul II noted in his chirograph[2] on
the centenary of Tra le sollecitudini that Chapter 6 of
Sancrosanctum Consilium[3] re-stated this principle,
and expanded it to include the participation of the
congregation which the showy classical masses
discouraged:
The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as
specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore,
other things being equal, it should be given pride
of place in liturgical services.
But other kinds of sacred music, especially
polyphony, are by no means excluded from
liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with
the spirit of the liturgical action.
Religious singing by the people is to be
intelligently fostered so that in devotions and
sacred exercises, as also during liturgical services,
the voices of the faithful may ring out according
to the norms and requirements of the rubrics.
As time goes on, more and more composers
contribute to the wealth of musical settings available
to us: mainly for the Novus Ordo, but also for the
... continued at the foot of page 8 Ø