Chant in 1936
Jul
27
Posted by Editor in Music: Chant |
Here is a fascinating article from 1936 Orate Fratres (now Worship), “Why People Do Not Like Chant”. I hope this is obvious: our goal is not to agitate against chant, but to put into perspective our current challenges in fostering this treasure.
Tags: Orate Fratres
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#1 by Timothy Johnston on July 27, 2010 - 3:36 pm
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I really enjoyed this and it made me laugh a few times.
I like the idea of setting up a poll for the clergy! Has that been done recently? I’d be curious to know if they would restore or reject it.
Some good food for thought.
#2 by Karl Liam Saur on July 27, 2010 - 3:44 pm
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Well, we know who wasn’t preaching to the choir….
#3 by Chris Grady on July 27, 2010 - 6:24 pm
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It’s amazing what we know, without really knowing . . .
#4 by Robert Dibdale on July 27, 2010 - 9:59 pm
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Interesting-his summation (the five points) could be easily applied to our choirs today.
#5 by Jeffrey Herbert on July 28, 2010 - 7:53 am
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Strange that the situation today is pretty much the same as it was in 1936. The passage about children is poignant, and anyone who has ever worked with children and chant will tell you that it is still true, even today. Their enthusiasm is amazing.
Also right on the mark is the conclusion that the problem is not one of likes vs. dislikes, but apathy vs. engagement. Understanding chant requires engagement, and until there is an authentic engagement of the assembly in the liturgy it will be resisted. The corrollary of course, is that the current approach to the liturgy has not yet succeeeded in achieving the engagement of the assembly that it was supposed to have acheived. If it had, chant would be the norm. How little things have changed since 1936…
#6 by Chris Grady on July 28, 2010 - 8:22 am
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Kind of paints a different picture from those who say today’s less-than-glorious place of chant in most liturgy is the fault of Vatican II, Paul VI, Pius XII, John XXIII, the 1960s, Annibale Bugnini, guitar Masses, John Lennon, the St Louis Jesuits, Anthony Ruff, or any other number of ‘culprits’ … hopefully this will help lead to more realism in our remembering just how the ‘good old days’ really were!
#7 by Kevin Vogt on July 28, 2010 - 8:43 am
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‘…If our people cannot give vent to their inmost religious sentiments through the chant, it is because these sentiments have taken a direction entirely estranged from the inspiration of the chant. A break between the chant and our religious sentiment does not prove the chant wrong: it proves that we are wrong. For the chant was the most authentic utterance of religious experience in the early centuries.’
Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us that the reality of 1936 is not much different than 2010. We sometimes focus on Vatican II as the fulcrum of cultural shift in the Church, when that fulcrum could probably be located at the full flowering of the Enlightenment. This was, of course, several centuries in the making, probably coinciding with the so-called “degeneration” of the “Gregorian” repertory and the eventual abandonment of ritual cantillation in the Christian West.
This observation is neither to malign the fruits of the Enlightment (would we really want to turn all of that back?) nor to dismiss the Patristic and Medieval patrimony as artifacts of a religion and culture that is long gone. We are all products of both, as are all of those faithful people in the pews who like or dislike all manner of things. A gentle re-introduction of liturgical cantillation (first in the vernacular) will best advance our efforts to conserve the inherited repertoire, traditional Christian culture, and those aspects of faith conveyed by it.
#8 by Joan Watson on July 28, 2010 - 10:16 am
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What an interesting article. Since I was born after VII, it ‘s important and beneficial for me to read things like this to help me understand that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” I love Gregorian chant and have seen it turn whole parishes around — but the people need to be engaged and educated, they can’t just be thrown into it.
And the part about the children WAS spot on.
It’s interesting that this was posted the day (or day after) that huge recording contract for the cloistered Spanish nuns was announced by that major record label. Gregorian chant is still attractive to people — I know a five-star restaurant in VA where the chef (not a Catholic himself- far from it!) plays chant in his kitchen so that the chefs remain recollected.
#9 by Ryan Ellis on July 28, 2010 - 10:31 am
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And what are you getting at here? What’s the point of thumbing this blog’s nose at the hard work others are doing to re-sacralize the liturgy according to the laws of the Church?
Rather than “nyah nyah-ing” the work of others, why don’t you join the fight?
This blog seems to be a whining corner for the old guard, not a pro-active, future-looking, modern forum for liturgical renewal. It’s a complaint box for 1970s types, and you seem to live to mock the new (finally accurate) translation, chant efforts, etc. Something wonderful is happening right now in the liturgy, and you people are all bitter that “Gift of Finest Wheat” is now mocked by non-Boomers.
We younger orthodox Catholics view this blog’s ideology (and that’s what it is–naked partisanship) as Mom-jeans suburban liturgy of the worst order.
As the old (to me, since I am not as old as the target audience of this blog) commercial said, “lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
#10 by Anthony Ruff, OSB on July 28, 2010 - 10:41 am
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Yup, Ryan, I’m a whining 1970s type, part of the old guard, complaining and not doing anything constructive. You got my number. Oldster. (I was 6 in 1970.)
But I promote and direct Latin chant, did you know that, Ryan? Hmmm, how could that be? You contrast yourself with everyone else by calling yourself “orthodox,” which I take to mean that you’re audacious enough to label others “not orthodox.” Have you reported me to the Holy See for investigation yet?
I’m not especially drawn to informal liturgy or so-called contemporary music. But let me say this clearly: I’d much rather hang around happy, faithful people doing the worst music from the 1970s than hang around people as bitter and uncharitable as you sound, Ryan.
Pax,
Fr. Anthony
#11 by Adam Bartlett on July 28, 2010 - 12:24 pm
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“I’d much rather hang around happy, faithful people doing the worst music from the 1970s than hang around people as bitter and uncharitable as you sound”
Alas, ignorance is bliss.
I don’t condone Ryan’s lack of charity here, but I also can’t condone promoting liturgical relativism just for the sake of avoiding conflict.
#12 by Anthony Ruff, OSB on July 28, 2010 - 1:32 pm
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Hi Adam,
Since you don’t condone Ryan’s lack of charity, I’m trying very hard to assume that you’re not uncharitably writing that you think I’m ignorant! But in fact I am ignorant about many things.
I wrote about whom I’d like to “hang around with,” not whom I’d like to pray with. I don’t think it’s liturgical relativism at all to organize my social life on my own criteria!
But even in the liturgy: everything is relative, including, according to Aquinas, sacraments. All this will pass away, and only God is absolute. Chant and Palestrina (both of which I promote and foster, as you know) are not absolute. So in a sense, we’re all liturgical relativists because we’re all limited to time and space. I’m not sure that it’s “liturgical relativism” in the bad sense to say that I probably would not be spiritually nourished by praying with bitter, uncharitable people (I don’t mean YOU!) doing my kind of music like chant and Palestrina.
Pax,
awr
#13 by Adam Bartlett on July 28, 2010 - 3:06 pm
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Fr. Anthony,
Of course I’m not insinuating anything at you personally–You are clearly a man of great knowledge and learning who I respect.
My concern here is that I believe that many people subscribe to the attitude that you have put forth and end up writing off and willfully ignoring (i.e. ignorance) legitimate liturgical issues just because they encounter a display of anger–which of course may be lacking charity. This does not give people license to ignore the issues, though.
Our Lord himself displayed righteous anger over liturgical issues in the temple in Jerusalem. Should those who were being unkindly accused by our Lord have brushed him off and retreated to more like minded and friendly folk? Or should they have paused to consider whether what they were doing was right?
I am not condoning rants of anger on the part of some of my generation who are very legitimately hurt by what they believe is the squandering of their liturgical inheritance. But I cannot justify the act of willfully ignoring these issues on the part of those who disagree just because there is tension and conflict.
#14 by Chris Grady on July 28, 2010 - 11:41 am
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Ryan, your post tells me everything I need to know about ‘younger orthodox Catholics’ – if you cannot even type like a gentleman, all the ‘orthodoxy’ in the world will be useless.
No use knowing how to believe if you don’t know how to behave!
#15 by Karl Liam Saur on July 28, 2010 - 11:49 am
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Really?
#16 by Cody C. Unterseher on July 28, 2010 - 3:30 pm
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Ryan opened a line with “We younger orthodox Catholics, etc.,” to which Fr. Anthony took offense.
If I may raise the tenor of the conversation to something a bit more academic, I’d be curious to know how people interpret the word “orthodox.” I see it bandied about a lot, often in reference to matters of liturgical style — and I think it is utterly inappropriate. As the term is used in the West, it refers to doctrinal matters (which, admittedly, find expression in the liturgy.)
I am willing to vouch for Fr. Anthony’s orthodoxy. He is 100% Calcedonian-compliant, can recite the Niceano-Constantinopolitan Creed without batting an eye, and adheres with rigorous submission of intellect and will to everything that the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church binds upon the consciences of its people as de fidei. And his liturgical tastes are, frankly, right of center.
But he’s not insecure in his faith, not intimidated by the liturgical preferences of others, and not afraid that the deposit of faith will somehow become subject to cultural corruption… he does, after all, believe in the Holy Spirit. Now, if that isn’t orthodox (in the Western sense), I don’t know what is. I don’t mean to offend here; it’s just plain tiring to be held to an unidentified standard of “orthodoxy” — particularly when those who claim the term for themselves are frequently “un-orthodox” in some matter of doctrine or other (including Marian and Eucharistic doctrines.)
#17 by Karl Liam Saur on July 28, 2010 - 3:42 pm
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In my book, self-identifying in this context as “orthodox” has the same rhetorical value as self-identifying as a “prophet”: it encourages the audience to ignore what the writer is arguing, but the writer is usually blind to that effect.
#18 by Don Marlette on July 28, 2010 - 11:31 am
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I wasn’t yet born in 1970! I’m one of the younger Catholics trying to take a road that embraces the current polar extremes of Catholic theology and liturgical theology and practice.
As a liturgist and music director at a large parish, we do a mix of everything. The goal is to give glory to God and touch people’s hearts (hopefully) at the same time (“a la” lectio divina). The ways in which this is possible musically has more to do with the community and its relationship to the living tradition of which they are a part. It’s a harmony of the principles “lex orandi, lex credendi” and “de gustibus.”
Now I’m trying to be a faithful, orthodox Catholic. I may sound a bit heretical to some, but the fruits I have seen are clear and positive, rather than dark and divisive.
#19 by Chris Owens on July 28, 2010 - 12:17 pm
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I find it interesting that Pius X’s encyclical on Gregorian Chant was mentioned… Most interesting, indeed, because it is in that encyclical where we first hear the now often misused phrase “active participation of the laity”… and to think– it was first used with regards to the revitalization of Chant!
#20 by Betsy Sullivan on July 28, 2010 - 12:48 pm
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Ryan-
I am deeply offended by your use of the phrase, ‘mom-jeans’ to describe a type of liturgy you dislike. Whether you meant it to do so or not, your comment seems to sneer at moms and middle aged women in general. I imagine you have, or had, a mom, and I hope you speak more respectfully of her, even when you disagree with her, than you have of suburban moms in general. Remember that you are a member of the generation of young men who wear their pants several inches below the top of their boxers.
Your arguments will carry more weight if they spit less venom. We would all benefit from continued dialogue and discontinued name-calling.
How’s that for a motherly scolding?
#21 by Robert Dibdale on July 28, 2010 - 1:13 pm
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Fr. Ruff,
If you were six in 1970 then you were exposed to some of the worst of the post V2 twaddle (to borrow from Charlotte Mason).
Much of what Ryan wrote is true even if it is emotive and dismissing him for poor behavior seems both to avoid the issue & inconsistent – remember the reaction to the cappa magna?
#22 by Anthony Ruff, OSB on July 28, 2010 - 1:22 pm
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Robert,
As far as I know you’ve never been to my home parish nor met any of the people there (though you’ve felt free to comment on what is *really* going on there in your previous comments). So how do you know what sort of twaddle I experienced 40 years ago?? Are you omniscient?
Much of what Ryan wrote is offensive and uncharitable. Such comments will be deleted in the future.
awr
#23 by Edna Savage on July 28, 2010 - 3:19 pm
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How fascinating that Ryan thinks that people around in the 70s are Oldsters!
I suspect that the people contributing to this blog consist of
(a) those around in the 60s/70s who feel they are progressive;
(b) those around in the 80s/90s, but who hanker after the 40s/50s that they never lived through, but think they are modern (like Ryan), but whom the 60s/70s people think are desperately old-fashioned ! ;
(c) those who really were around in the 40s/50s and who are still bitter about what they see as betrayal of everything they lived for;
(d) those who were also around in the 40s/50s, but have seen such changes in their lives, changes that they view as positive, that they could never ever go back to the 40s/50s;
and of course there are also
(e) those around in the 80s/90s who never grew through what the 60s/70s folk had to grow through and who have already left and are not contributing to this blog….
#24 by Cody C. Unterseher on July 28, 2010 - 3:36 pm
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And a few of us around in the 80s/90s, who saw the tail end of “what shall we do this week” liturgical creativity, enjoyed a period of relative stability while waiting for a new Sacramentary, saw the whole project take a frightening turn to the right, aren’t able to acknowledge as objectively “good” liturgy such things as are called for in official documents after 2000…. and who are nonetheless contributing to this blog.
#25 by Jeffrey Pinyan on July 28, 2010 - 7:49 pm
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+JMJ+
So…… on the topic of the article this post is about!
I read the article and have learned a good deal from it.
The author identifies the loss of Gregorian chant as the loss of a “Catholic” voice among the people. (p. 152, bottom ¶2) In the place of this “Catholic” (common and universal) voice is a “most intruding vulgarity.” (top ¶3)
He readily admits that “sheer authority” on its own can restore Gregorian chant to the people, and that Gregorian chant (though it be proper to the Roman Rite, per Sac. Conc. 116) is not “a matter of faith.” (bottom ¶4) The solution that Pope St. Pius X saw was to educate the people: “until they are educated to like it and enjoy it, it is unreasonable to hope that the will sing [it].” (p. 153, bottom ¶1)
Chant will not be well-received in parishes without the support of pastors, many of whom still (as in 1936) do not get a decent positive exposure to chant in their formation.
On the other hand, children seem to innately love chant! They show a “delightful openness of heart” to it and a “sharp criticism of vulgar sacred music.” (p. 154, ¶1)
The problem with congregations is their “apathy” owing to their sad state as “mere onlookers and listeners.” (¶3) Note that the author believes that chant is within their power and is not opposed to their liturgical participation!
Finally, poorly-formed choirs (and choirmasters) stifle the beauty of chant. I think the folks at NLM and Chant Café would agree.
His five considerations are a good summary of his observations; he still believes chant can be restored, and I agree.
It would be most edifying to see the other articles in the series which recommend remedies!
#26 by Kevin Vogt on July 28, 2010 - 8:53 pm
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Since everyone is taking offense at something, I’d like to say that I’m offended that after 25 posts in this thread no one is paying attention to my humble suggestion that a longer view of history might prompt a more sympathetic stance toward the receptive culture in which many of us are attempting to resuscitate the tradition of liturgical chant.
No one is ever converted by being on the losing end of an argument, but rather by an encounter with Beauty. But I suppose disarming charitability makes for dull blog-reading.
So…I’m offended. All of you who are fixated on the inherited chant repertory as cultural artificat are missing the point and the opportunity of the posted article:
‘…If our people cannot give vent to their inmost religious sentiments through the chant, it is because these sentiments have taken a direction entirely estranged from the inspiration of the chant. A break between the chant and our religious sentiment does not prove the chant wrong: it proves that we are wrong. For the chant was the most authentic utterance of religious experience in the early centuries.’
There is a lot more needed than a simple course correction! This is a moment in history requiring some imagination, not just restoration.
#27 by Jeffrey Pinyan on July 28, 2010 - 9:32 pm
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I wasn’t entirely sure if when the author wrote “we are wrong” he meant “we are wrong about the viability of chant for modern Catholics” or perhaps “we, and not our music, are in need of reform for chant to regain its place in our liturgical life.”
At the end he talks about remedial steps, so I’m sure he believed people could come to love and sing chant again. I’m just not sure if he meant chant needed to change or we needed to change.
This is why I’d like to see the other articles in the series!
#28 by Jeffrey Tucker on July 31, 2010 - 10:00 am
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That is a fascinating article is so many ways. Thank you for posting it.
#29 by Jeffrey Tucker on July 31, 2010 - 10:19 am
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i’ve attempted an HTML export of this fine and revealing piece
http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/07/without-chant-catholic-people-have-no.html
#30 by Jack Rakosky on July 31, 2010 - 11:32 am
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Yes, the clergy and the musicians are the obstacles. Nothing much has changed.
The problems were not caused by Vatican II, although both the clergy and musicians have updated their excuses to take into account Vatican II.
The children, of course, will fall in love with chant if given the opportunity as I did as a child.
As for the people, the problem today is not so much that they are passive but that they have so many other possibilities (nonmusical as well as musical) that chant is hardly on their radar scene.
#31 by Jake Tawney on July 31, 2010 - 2:59 pm
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Rather than posting a short comment, I wrote a follow piece on this article available here:
http://causafinitaest.blogspot.com/2010/07/article-on-sacred-chant-1936.html
In general, however, I though the article was timely enough to have been written just yesterday. In fact, on my first skim through the piece, its publication date alluded me. It was only on my second pass through that I realized it was written in 1936.
#32 by Emile Gallant on August 1, 2010 - 5:59 pm
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PAX, thanks for posting this, it seems there really is ‘nothing new under the sun’.
this may also be a good place to ask if anyone knows of an online ENGLISH, translation of ‘Sacrificium Laudis’. On the use of the Choral Office for Religious. by Pope Paul VI ·
where he says Latin and Gregorian chant must be retained in Communties, in obedince,after the Council. I see the Italian one only, and the Google translation is very poor.
its for my Blog.
thank you