Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Great Expectations
Magister reports on Chiesa an address given by Valentino Miserachs Grau, president of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. One highlight:
(T)he almost outright ban on Latin and Gregorian chant seen over the past forty years is incomprehensible, especially in the Latin countries. It is incomprehensible, and deplorable.
From the perspective of art or tradition, perhaps. But liturgical music and the people who sing it or lead it are more than artists. We are also political people, surely as we are artistic. Those who resisted the Council identified themselves under the banner of Latin and chant, and those two aspects still retain a degree of taint (perhaps undeserved) not only from the wild progressives, but from mainstream Catholics.
These Catholics never had a good hearing of chant, as it was likely presented in a much worse light than the abilities of middling church guitarists. Mediocre music can come alive with the verve of good musicians, a spirit of hopeful and optimistic worship, and the willingness of pew people who are able, at last, to express the faith which has come alive for them.
I still hear fairly good musicians take VENI VENI IMMANUEL at a horribly languid pace. I have no doubt Grau and his confreres could make chant come alive in most parishes. But most parishes don't have musicians of that caliber. Most parishes don't have pipe organs. Most don't have professional musicians leading music ministry. And many professionals have a very limited view of chant. To top it off, harmony sounds better and is easier to achieve well than unison singing. Then consider that many church musicians don't give a hoot what comes out of the pews.
Grau and others like him labor under the misconception that every church's choir loft contains a treasure chest waiting to be opened. A director only need wave her or his arms and beautiful chant will spring into life fully formed like Aphrodite from the head of Zeus.
Grau forgets SC 11 in calling for a legislative crackdown:
" ... when the liturgy is celebrated, something more is required than the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration ..."
He's not going to get better liturgy by hierarchical fiat. Like political pro-lifers, he fails to grasp that a long and arduous road lies ahead. He misperceives people are ready to follow a pope, bishop, or music director in liturgical lockstep. He forgets that pastors have other priorities, in America, most notably schools. He forgets that the best musicians pass up church jobs in order to build careers and support families. He forgets that many church musicians are woefully undertrained and undersupported. Many of them would quit in the face of marching orders to chant.
As a fellow professional, I feel for him. I really do. But this conversation is thirty to two- hundred years behind the times. The reality is that great liturgy depends on two things: the worship of God and the sanctification of the faithful. We can do both without chant. Brutal, but true.
Chant might be the easiest road for all I know. But just getting to that road involves a difficult route--and most parishes aren't anywhere near what's on Grau's map. In my experience, chant hymns are not well-received. For my efforts, I'm probably seen as a conservative force in my parish, vaguely tolerant of alternate musical styles our parish musicians prefer, but quirky in a classical sort of way.
My crunchy con detractors in the Blogetariat might be shocked to consider I might well be their last best hope, at least in one fairly conservative parish in middle America. And if I'm the best available, Rich and a long line of others might well consider lining up to big-O Orthodoxy for all the action their future might hold.
