Church Music

by Bishop Edmund M. Dunne, D.D.

By the term Music we generally understand a succession of sounds pleasing to the ear. It may be regarded as a science or as an art. As a science, music investigates the relations of one note to another, and prescribes rules for their harmonious combination. Musical art is the technique or skill displayed in the application of those rules. Music is called vocal or instrumental, according as it is produced by the human voice or by an instrument. The artificial union of two or more voices singing different notes simultaneously is called harmony. If there be no union of voices, as alas sometimes happens, the result is not harmony, but discord. Melody is a pleasing series of single notes sung by one or many voices. Harmony is a succession of chords; whereas melody is a succession of single sounds. A melody, sung according to a measured beat or rhythm, is called figured or mensural music. If executed without any measured rhythm, it is usually designated as plain song or chant. Plain chant, however, is not devoid of all rhythm. Its melodies are sung according to the natural rhythm of spoken language. The rhythm of plain chant is declamatory, and the text is never mutilated, nor portions of it incessantly repeated for the sake of the notes, as is often the case in mensural music. The fundamental rule for singing plain chant properly is to sing the text with notes as you would declaim it without notes. If some of our good prelates and priests would keep this rule in mind when floundering through the Preface and Pater Noster, they would spare the congregation many an earache. A virtuoso on the violin, organ or piano, cannot sing Gregorian chant correctly, if he is not familiar with the pronunciation, prosody, and other peculiarities of Latin.

Father Haberl informs us in his Magister Choralis that an harmonious arrangement of different voices began to be applied to the chant in the tenth century. At first was simply introduced a second voice part accompanying the chant in fourths, fifths, sixths, and octaves. Afterward the accompaniment became more complicated. Discant, namely, a contrary progression of voices, was employed. In all these various forms of accompaniment the choral melody was designated as the cantus firmus or planus, the fixed or plain chant, to distinguish it from the different voice parts moving about in counterpoint. In those days the notes of the melody were called puncta, while the notes of the accompanying voices written directly above and below the melody were called contra puncta — counterpoints. Hence counterpoint is the art of harmoniously arranging different voice parts to a melody. In the thirteenth century came polyphony, a species of contrapuntal composition in which the different voices proceed independently yet harmoniously. For this kind of composition Palestrina was most famous. The composers of the fifteenth century usually selected a plain-chant melody for the theme of their church music. This praiseworthy custom, however, was soon abandoned, and inevitably led to many abuses.

I.

The ancient heretics found music a most expedient vehicle for the dissemination of their errors. Arius "clothed his heresy in common songs and tunes that were most melodious and catching. Thus he spread his doctrines among ignorant men who otherwise would have known nothing about his 'like substances,' and there was a time when He (Christ) was not," for these were the jingles that he sang. And men sang his songs at the mill, and sailors as they were hauling in their anchors at sea, and travelers beguiled their journey by singing the songs of Arius. His followers would march through the streets of Constantinople singing: "Where are those who say that the Son is as great as the Father?" They had also another hymn: "Glory be to the Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost." Thus many were deceived, not knowing that the words had been purposely changed by Arius, so as to give less glory to the Son. This gave rise to the Christian doxology Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost, in which equal glory is ascribed to the three Divine Persons.¹

The same author relates how Paul of Samosata, heretical bishop of Antioch, sought to introduce the pagan arts of theatrical display into the simple services of the Christians. "He had a choir of women in the middle of the church that sang most beautifully new songs . . . and he had claqueurs in the audience here and there to applaud him . . . . and others to clap the singing. And the songs his choir girls sang were not Christian psalms . . . for he said that this was mushroom music that had only sprouted yesterday." From the beginning the Church has endeavored to retain only such melodies as are conducive to piety, and to eliminate those sensual music elements tending to draw the attention of the faithful away from the sanctuary to the organ-loft. Right here come to mind two flagrant abuses against the perpetrators of which should, methinks, be fulminated some sort of a censura latae sententiae. First, the alleged organist who pulls out that shimmying tremolo register during the Consecration or in fact during any part of divine service. Second, the amateur violinist of either sex trying to accompany the choir through Mass or Benediction.

Theatrical music should never be permitted to enter the house of God and usurp the place of the liturgical chant. "Be far from us those florid songs and dissipated music that corrupt the morals" (St. Clem. Alex.). The Council of Trent decrees: "Let Bishops take care to exclude from the churches all musical compositions, whether for organ or for voice, in which anything lascivious or impure is mingled, so that the house of God may truly appear and be called the house of prayer." The same injunction was renewed by the second and the third Plenary Council of Baltimore. "We admonish all pastors to be vigilant in eliminating whatever abuses of music may have crept into their churches. We strictly command them never to tolerate the temple of God to resound with profane melodies. They must permit in the church only music that is grave, pious and truly ecclesiastical. For the attainment of this end we command that they entirely exclude from the Mass, music mutilating the words of the liturgy, or repeating them by too frequent iteration, or transposing them in such a manner as to completely or partially change their meaning."

Notwithstanding this plain prohibition, many of us have heard the Veni Creator sung to the air of: "Home to our mountains" (Il Trovatore), De Koven's "Oh promise me," plagiarized from Gastaldon's "Musica Proibita." During Benediction the O Salutaris has been wafted to our distracted ears in the melody of Campana's: "Let me inhale the fragrant breath that round thy lips is playing." And sometimes to the air of: "Alice, where art thou?" What a powerful stimulus to piety, how edifying especially to our separated brethren when hearing the Tantum Ergo harmonized to a stray melody from Maritana, Lucia di Lammermoor, or some other opera! What a soul-stirring incentive to prayer for the faithful when the O Salutaris comes stealing o'er them in the strains of that lovesick duet in Donizetti's Don Pasquale:

"Say once again I love thee;
Say I am thine, beloved,
When to my bosom
I press thee," etc. ad nauseam.

This kind of mushroom, sentimental balladry should be relegated to the theatre. Such profane melodies should never be tolerated in God's temple.

Music is employed during divine worship solely in order that the praises of God may be celebrated with greater solemnity and that the faithful may be incited with more fervor and devotion. Now in most of our concerted Masses who elicits more attention, the celebrant at the altar, or the soloist in the choir? How frequently do priest and altar become isolated objects! Often he must interrupt the Mass, waiting until Mam'selle la Soprano has terminated her vocal pirouettes on high G. Frequently he dares not proceed with the Holy Sacrifice as the liturgy prescribes, lest he should offend Signor Basso Profundo in his bellowing gyrations through the base clef. What a torrent of invective bursts upon him, if he cuts these hypersensitive musical gymnasts short by intoning the Preface or Pater Noster! It seems hard to convince our modern choirs that the music must be ancillary to the Mass, and not vice-versa. Melodies tending to lead the thoughts of the congregation away from the church to the theatre are an abuse and should be eliminated. Gregorian chant, if properly sung, is an incentive to piety and devotion. "Pious men rightfully prefer it to mensural music," says Benedict XIV. Although Gregorian chant has the preference and formal sanction of the Church, the use of figured music is permitted. Only the abuse of it has been condemned. Many well-meaning Catholics dislike plain chant. According to them, it lacks harmony and melody. It is not in keeping with the times, and the people do not want it. Let us briefly analyze these objections.

II.

Does plain chant lack harmony? Certainly, every single note of it. It was originally conceived as pure melody irrespective of the possibility of its being harmoniously arranged in different voice parts. Harmony implies the simultaneous union of several voices singing different notes. The melodies of St. Gregory admit of an harmonious arrangement, as may be seen in several compositions of Witt, Greith, Schaller, Keim, Ett, Stehle, Singenberger, and many others. No musical writer of any importance has ever pronounced plain chant devoid of melody. "The Gregorian melodies," says the Protestant Thibaut, "are truly celestial. Created by genius in the happiest ages of the Church and cultivated by art, they penetrate the soul far more than most of our modern compositions written for effect."

In plain chant the notes are invariable subservient to the text, and often help to convey its meaning. Take, for example, the Introit sung on the Feast of the Holy Name: " In nomine Jesu omne genu flectatur, coelestium [Do si-do do do] terrestrium [sol fa-sol sol], et infernorum [mi re mi do-re mi mi]. Observe how the melody indicates as it were the location "of those that are in heaven, on earth and in hell." What a contrast to the toboggan arrangement of "descendit de coelis" heard in most modern Credos! What melody in mensural music can compare with the plain-chant Requiem, Dies Irae, Te Deum Exsultat, or Preface? Mozart declared that he would give all his music to be the originator of the Gregorian Preface. The grandest conceptions of Bach are based on the simplest melodies of the ancient choral. "To compose true church music," says Beethoven, "we must consult the old chants of the monasteries." Luther made a compendium of choral melodies extant in his time. Many of them used today exclusively in Protestant denominations are rightfully ours, because they formerly belonged to our Catholic ancestors. "We have adopted," says Luther, "the beautiful music employed under popery on vigils, dead masses, funerals, etc., and mean in time to take more. Of course I have put other words to it . . . The song and the notes are very valuable, and it were a shame should they be lost." If the people do not want plain chant, it is either because their taste has become vitiated by the jazzy jingles and rag-time tunes heard nowadays on all sides and they cannot appreciate grave, pious, ecclesiastical music, or because the chant may be badly rendered. In the first case the fault lies with the people; in the second, with the singer; but in neither case with the song.

III.

It was reserved for our generation to behold occasionally non-Catholic organists in charge of Catholic choirs, directing them how to sing with piety and devotion Catholic tenets in which they themselves do not believe! We might as well employ a Mohammedan to teach our children how to pray. Qui cantat bis orat. "No matter how great his musical talents may be," says the Magister Choralis, "the choirmaster who cannot identify his way of thinking with that of the Church, . . . and who fancies that he adequately discharges his duty by merely making music whilst a religious function is being performed, is deficient in one of the most important qualifications for his position." "What you sing with your mouth, believe in your heart; and what you believe in your heart, confirm by your works." The non-Catholic members of our church choirs certainly believe not in their hearts what they sing with their mouths.

While the Church has never formally sanctioned the figured music of any particular composer, as she has the Gregorian chant, she welcomes music that is "grave, pious and truly ecclesiastical". She strictly forbids "music mutilating the liturgical words, or repeating them by too frequent iteration, or transposing them so as to completely or partially change their meaning". The allegro movements in the Masses of Haydn, Mozart, and a great many others, render them altogether unsuitable for the church. Their very movement, allegro, condemns them. In many of Haydn's Masses, the Kyrie and Dona nobis pacem, both prayers of supplication, sound like a musical derision of the words, and have no more the spirit of "grave, ecclesiastical music," than a hand-organ with monkey obbligato.

Then again, what mutilations and iterations of the text! Of the 16 Masses Haydn composed, only Nos. 4, 5, 6 and 9 contain all the words of the liturgy. The choir has no more right to sing "Gloria in excelsis Deo" or "Credo in unum Deum" than it has to repeat "Dominus vobiscum" or "Ite Missa est ". In the Gloria the choristers should follow with the words: "et in terra pax hominibus," and in the Credo, they should begin with "Patrem omnipotentem" — singing the entire symbol without incessant repetitions. The longest Credos of Haydn omit: "Qui ex Patre Filioque procedit". Mozart's XIIth Mass (which, some authors claim, he never composed), repeats the Kyrie 21 times, the Christe 39, and the Kyrie again 20 times. A triple repetition of each would amply satisfy the liturgy. The meaning of the text is sacrificed for the musical effect. In his Credo we find: "Crucifixus et homo factus est." Of course we know that He was made man first and crucified afterward. Lest we should forget it, the word "crucifixus" is repeated exactly 24 times. Similar repetitions and mutilations of the text are found in the Masses of Weber, Farmer, La Hache, and a host of modern composers. If we must have figured music for the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, and Agnus Dei, then in the name of the Council of Trent and every other council touching upon this important subject, let us select music that is "grave, pious and truly ecclesiastical".

Endnote

1. Rowbotham, Hist. Music.

© American Ecclesiastical Review — The Dolphin Press

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