Saturday, April 23, 2005
Pope Benedict and the Aspiration for a Traditionalist Springtime
Hope, like its counterpart love, can explode on a person. I remember the feeling, distinct from love, when I knew I was going to be married. There was deep love for my fiancee Anita, yes. But I also had a different sense and feeling, namely that my life was going to be changing for the better. It wasn't so much the thinking along the lines that someone was going to share a household and make life easier for me. It was the sense that I was on the threshhold of a much better life. I would still say that marriage, despite its general and particular traumas, has justified my hope.
My musical colleagues at Musica Sacra and elsewhere have new hope. I do not deny their feeling that they have been wandering through a desert of sorts for the past forty years. But I think those who expect the expressed authority of a pope to be the means, even the catalyst for a sacred music renaissance are deceiving themselves. False presumptions are in play here, and acting on the basis of such presumptions is bound to stifle future hope and entrench the current wave of bile and stubbornness in the various Catholic musical camps.
My response on a recent Musica Sacra post by Arlene Oost-Zinner:
... I must admit being mystified over the expectation of a top-down renaissance of sacred music. Have not the particulars of church presentation always been in the hands of the local musician? It would seem to me that if some or many parishes languish on a level lower than reasonable expectations, that will not change by simple fiat from the top. Quality and artistry cannot be commanded like turning in a report on time. Such things need to be cultivated in the human spirit, beginning with the music student, and continuing with people who are in positions of music leadership. I would hope traditionally-sensitive musicians would realize the opportunity for teaching and mentoring good church musicians has always been with us. No one has ever legislated against that.
I realize a lack of hope can adversely affect our ability and willingness to cultivate other church musicians. But the many of the problems in Catholic church music can be addressed by we musicians, right here, right now. Dennis Smolarski's book How Not To Say Mass is a good read for presiders. Maybe someday I'll write a similar book, How Not To Reform Liturgical Music. I would like to start with a few "How Not To" principles and then open up the comment boxes to more of your own.
How Not To Reform Liturgical Music
1. Publicly criticize others. This organization, and others like it, should close shop. Sample quotes: "that @#!#!#" "cancer" "these clowns" "diabolic threat" "may cause diabetic shock and coma" reveal to me this is more about childish bitching (and maybe jealousy). A few signatories on the list should be ashamed they associate themselves with such indulgence; this is way beneath them. One comment I found telling: "It would be interesting to find out what music Catholics WOULD like to hear during liturgy...we gripe a lot about what we don't like, but I don't hear much about what we DO like." It would be interesting indeed, because we might find that a significant fraction of what one of us does like would find its way to the "cancer" list of at least a third of our friends. The problem with activities like this society is that you always wonder who's next. A good rule of thumb is to say nothing at all if you can't say at least two or three positive things about something.
2. Keep your music students in your studios. One of the best ideas that plopped itself in my lap was when we hired an organist from another county. She came on board after an elderly sister left our parish for retirement in Dubuque. We outfitted a basement room of the church with a studio piano, and Millie was able to offer a day's worth of lessons before choir practice. Her piano students also had a six-week intro to organ. What a charming recital at the end of the season: families crowding into the choir loft for their kids.
3. Wait for (insert your favorite authority figure here) to kick butt. Right. Remember these are the same guys who keep most Catholic church musicians underpaid and overworked. I had a friend who was once told by the new pastor a half-hour before the Saturday night Mass his services as organist were no longer needed. The musicians who have clergy footprints on their behinds? They're not the bad musicians, just the unlucky saps who happen to be under the wrong pastor at the wrong time. The Soviets clearly showed what happens when authorities are put in charge of purges. See point one and be careful what you wish for; you could be next.
4. Let the school personnel and DRE's handle the kids. Our parish couldn't do a VBS last summer because of the school repair and cleaning schedule. So I gathered some of the VBS volunteers and some musicians and we held a "Young Person's Music Retreat." Last year's children's choir peaked at 22 members. We had 95 child retreatants. This year's children's choir peaked at 43 members, about one-third are boys.
5. Attend sacred music concerts instead of organizing them yourself. One nearby parish has a concert series. It's a significant effort for John, the music director, and I've heard it might not continue in future years there. But if your parishioners seem satisfied with pedestrian music, maybe it's because they don't know any better.
6. Play the blame game. It's a corollary of point one. You and a few others share the inside joke about Carey Landry or Bugnini's cabal to destroy the liturgy. But to the person in the pew, it looks more like water cooler gossip. Think about it from the view of music student parents. If they hear a church musician sniping at someone, do you think they're going to let you teach their kid or encourage her or him to join your choir? Do you think your business manager or pastor really cares about the crap you think sits in those 500 hymnals sitting in church? The seduction of blaming others is that as it is indulged, a person is often less able to look honestly at the self. If you want the blame game in full cultural swing, go to talk media and watch Victim-o-rama in full swing. The problem with playing a victim is that eventually the sympathy runs out, and you've not moved to the next step of taking personal responsibility for what is within your power to change.
If people are going to sit back and let Pope Benedict do all the dirty work, nothing will improve and things will likely deteriorate even more. But if you have true hope for the future of sacred music, my hope is that we will all keep working hard just as we did last month, last year, or ten years ago. Only the last leg of a relay team enjoys the personal elation of the ribbon flying around their torso after an event well run. We all must realize that none of us are running the anchor leg of this race. Our job is to take the baton, run as well as we can until it is time to pass the duty on.
Any other How Not To's?
