h/t Fr. Peter West
Showing posts with label Gregorian Chant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gregorian Chant. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Sacred Music and Your Parish
From Catholic Exchange:
February 1st, 2010 by Trent Beattie
February 1st, 2010 by Trent Beattie
One can walk into nearly any parish today and hear almost any type of music, from Gregorian chant to folk music to heavy metal. While most parishes offer one type of music within a given Mass, some parishes even provide a musical contrast within the same one. I actually attended a funeral Mass in which an electric guitar was used alternately with a harp. Figure that one out if you can.
Unusual combinations aside, isn’t it a good thing to have something different for everyone? The old people can listen to chant, the middle-aged people can listen to folk music, and the young people can listen to heavy metal. Everyone gets to be around their favorite music, which is, after all, a large part of what the Mass is all about: personal preferences and self-expression. Right?
Wrong.
Pope Benedict XVI, then Cardinal Ratzinger, stated in The Spirit of the Liturgy that "Not every kind of music can have a place in Christian worship." Although individuals can be naturally drawn to certain types of 
music, sacred music–which is meant specifically for the liturgy — is not derived from natural tendencies or preferences. Sacred music, like the rest of the liturgy, is not about mere self-expression; it is about receiving and participating in what has been passed down to us, such as Gregorian chant.
Gregorian chant — named after Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604) — is sacred music of the highest order. In the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium , we are told that
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 (Art. 116).
Why does Gregorian chant occupy such a central role in the liturgy? Pope St. Pius X (1903-1914) explains in his 1903 instruction Tra le Sollecitudini that
Sacred music should…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 (No. 2).
The saintly Pontiff goes on to state in the same document that
These qualities [of sanctity, goodness of form, and universality] are to be found, in the highest degree, in Gregorian Chant, which is consequently the Chant proper to the Roman Church, the only chant she has inherited from the ancient Fathers, which she has jealously guarded for centuries in her liturgical codices, which she directly proposes to the faithful as her own, which she prescribes exclusively for some parts of the liturgy… (No.3).
While other types of sacred music (such as polyphony) may be admitted to the liturgy (SC Art 116), Gregorian chant is, according to Pope St. Pius X, "the supreme model for sacred music" (TS No. 3) because of its sanctity, goodness of form, and universality. It has a simplicity, sobriety, and resonance that manifest the beauty of the liturgical action.
The next time you’re at Mass, ask yourself how the music you’re hearing measures up to this supreme model. In many parishes, the goal seems to be the avoidance of this supreme model, rather than the approach toward it. In fact, many Catholics would be surprised to learn that Church authorities have taught anything at all on sacred music, and would probably be even more surprised to learn that specific musical instruments have been named, whether for endorsement or for exclusion.
One of the instruments that has been mentioned is the pipe organ, which can enhance the beauty of Gregorian chant. According to the Council Fathers, the pipe organ "is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church’s ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man’s mind to God and to higher things." (SC Art. 120). The pipe organ, however, is meant to accompany the singing, not to overpower it.
This "non-overpowering rule" is applicable to any other instruments which might be lawfully admitted into the liturgy, pending the approval of rightful authority (SC Art. 120). It is also pointed out that
This [admittance of other instruments] may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful (SC Art.120).
Can drums, guitars, and pianos be made suitable for sacred use? Do they accord with the dignity of the temple? Do they contribute to the edification of the faithful? Before these questions are answered, it should be pointed out that while many types of music are inherently good, they are not meant specifically for the Mass. Piano music, for example, can be great entertainment at a social function–but the Mass is not a mere social function, it is the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
With this in mind, it is interesting to note that Pope St. Pius X actually banned pianos and drums from the Mass, stating that "The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is…that of noisy…instruments such as drums…" (TS No. 19). We can be fairly certain that, had guitars made their way into the liturgy by 1903, our Holy Father would have banned them as well.
This is not to say that such music is inherently bad, but that it is not meant specifically for the liturgy. There is a type of music which, although not appropriate for the liturgy and therefore not called "sacred," is used to teach the Faith and is therefore called "religious". Pope Pius XII (1939-1958) said that
We must also hold in honor that music which is not primarily a part of the sacred liturgy, but which by its power and purpose greatly aids religion. This music is therefore rightly called religious music. The Church has possessed such music from the beginning and it has developed happily under the Church’s auspices. As experience shows, it can exercise great and salutary force and power on the souls of the faithful…when it is used…during non-liturgical services and ceremonies… (Musicae Sacrae No. 36)
Although he does not give specific examples, perhaps Silent Night or We Three Kings of Orient Are — sung in the vernacular–would be examples of such songs which, according to the Pope,
… bring pure and chaste joy to young people and adults during times of recreation …They bring pious joy, sweet consolation and spiritual progress to Christian families themselves. Hence these popular religious hymns are of great help to the Catholic apostolate and should be carefully cultivated and promoted (MS No. 37).
We are told that popular religious hymns should be promoted–but not in the liturgy. Everything good has its place, but the Mass is not the place for everything good.
There is no better way to sum it up than with the words of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, from his 2007 encyclical Sacramentum Caritatis :
Certainly as far as the liturgy is concerned, we cannot say that one song is as good as another. Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided. As an element of the liturgy, song should be well integrated into the overall celebration. Consequently everything–texts, music, execution–ought to correspond to the meaning of the mystery being celebrated, the structure of the rite and the liturgical seasons. Finally, while respecting various styles and different and highly praiseworthy traditions, I desire… that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy …(No. 42).
We have the clear instructions, now we need more people to read them and carry them out. St. Cecilia, Patroness of Musicians, pray with us that this will happen, for the glory of God and the sanctification of all.
(For more information on sacred music, read Papal Legislation on Sacred Music . Help support Catholic Exchange buy getting Papal Legislation on Sacred Music and The Spirit of the Liturgy from our online store.)
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
I Had a Dream: The Music of Palestrina and Gregory the Great Had Come Back
An exclusive interview with maestro Domenico Bartolucci. Who strangled Gregorian chant and polyphony – and why. And how to bring them back to life. Benedict XVI? “A Napoleon without generals”
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, July 21, 2006 – The concert conducted in the Sistine Chapel at the end of June by maestro Domenico Bartolucci, in Benedict XVI’s honor and with his attendance, has certainly marked a turning point in the dispute over the role that music has, and will have, in the Catholic liturgy.
But for now, it is a merely symbolic turning point.
The new direction has been indicated with authority. “An authentic renewal of sacred music can only come follow in the pathway of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony,” Benedict XVI said on that occasion. This is a pope whose “great love for the liturgy, and thus for sacred music, is known to all,” Bartolucci emphasized in his greeting of introduction.
But the goal still seems a long way off. Bartolucci, in his nineties, is a first-rate witness to the misfortunes that have plagued sacred music over the past half century. An outstanding interpreter of Gregorian chant and of the polyphony of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, he is at the same time the victim of their near annihilation.
When the curia of John Paul II planned and carried out the dismissal of Bartolucci as director of the papal choir of the Sistine Chapel, only Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal, was on his side.
Now, with the election of Ratzinger as pope, there is a real chance that the course of this drama will be reversed, and that Gregorian chant and polyphony will be returned to their central place in the Church. But neither Benedict XVI nor Bartolucci are so naïve as not to perceive the extreme difficulty of this undertaking.
For the Church to draw once more from the treasury of its great sacred music, there is, in fact, the need for a formidable effort of reeducation, and for liturgical reeducation even before musical.
This is what Bartolucci makes clear in his interview with “L’espresso” no. 29, 2006, reproduced in its entirety below.
In it he says, among other things:
“I am an optimist by nature, but I judge the current situation realistically, and I believe that a Napoleon without generals can do little.”
That Benedict XVI is, in this field, a “Napoleon without generals” was seen, for example in the vigil and Mass he presided over and celebrated in Valencia last July 8-9, organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family and by the Spanish bishops’ conference.
The vigil slavishly followed the canons of the television shows, with presenters, guests, comics, singers, and dancers.
And the songs at the Mass reproduced the “popular” style that invaded during the pontificate of John Paul II: a style unceremoniously described and assessed by Bartolucci in the interview that follows.
Here, then, is the barnburner interview, conducted and transcribed by the expert in classical music for the weekly “L’espresso,” Riccardo Lenzi:
When the cantor was like a priest
An interview with Domenico Bartolucci
Q: Maestro Bartolucci, no fewer than six popes have attended your concerts. In which of them did you see the most musical expertise?
A: In the most recent one, Benedict XVI. He plays the piano, has a profound understanding of Mozart, loves the Church’s liturgy, and in consequence he places great emphasis on music. Pius XII also greatly loved music, and played the violin frequently. The Sistine Chapel owes a great deal to John XXIII. In 1959 he gave me permission to restore the Sistine which, unfortunately, was in bad shape, partly because of the illness of its previous director, Lorenzo Perosi. It no longer had a stable membership, a musical archive, or an office. So an office was obtained, the falsettos were dismissed, and the composition of the choir and the compensation for its members were determined, and finally it was possible to form the children’s choir as well. Then came Paul VI, but he was tone deaf, and I don’t know how much of an appreciation he had for music.
Q: Was Perosi the so-called restorer of the Italian oratorio?
A: Perosi was an authentic musician, a man utterly consumed by music. He had the good fortune of directing the Sistine at the time of the motu proprio on sacred music, which rightly wanted to purify it from the theatrics with which it was imbued. He could have given a new impulse to Church music, but unfortunately he didn’t have an adequate understanding of polyphony in the tradition of Palestrina and of the traditions of the Sistine. He also entrusted the direction of the Gregorian chant to his vice-maestro! His liturgical compositions were frequently noteworthy for their superficial Cecilian style, far from the perfect fusion of text and music.
Q: Perosi imitated Puccini...
A: But Puccini was an intelligent man. And his fugues are greatly superior to those of Perosi.
Q: Was Perosi in some sense the harbinger of the current vulgarization of sacred music?
A: Not exactly. Today the fashion in the churches is for pop-inspired songs and the strumming of guitars, but the fault lies above all with the pseudo-intellectuals who have engineered this degeneration of the liturgy, and thus of music, overthrowing and despising the heritage of the past with the idea of obtaining who knows what advantage for the people. If the art of music does not return to its greatness, rather than representing an accommodation or a byproduct, there is no sense in asking about its function in the Church. I am against guitars, but I am also against the superficiality of the Cecilian movement in music – it’s more or less the same thing. Our motto must be: let us return to Gregorian chant and to polyphony in the tradition of Palestrina, and let us continue down this road!
Q: What are the initiatives that Benedict XVI should take to realize this plan in a world of discotheques and iPods?
A: The great repertoire of sacred music that has been handed down to us from the past is made up of Masses, offertories, responsories: formerly there was no such thing as a liturgy without music. Today there is no place for this repertoire in the new liturgy, which is a discordant commotion – and it’s useless to pretend that it’s not. It is as if Michelangelo had been asked to paint the general judgment on a postage stamp! You tell me, please, how it is possible today to perform a Credo, or even a Gloria. First we would need to return, at least for the solemn or feast day Masses, to a liturgy that gives music its proper place and expresses itself in the universal language of the Church, Latin. In the Sistine, after the liturgical reform, I was able to keep alive the traditional repertoire of the Chapel only in the concerts. Just think – the Missa Papae Marcelli by Palestrina has not been sung in St. Peter’s since the time of Pope John XXIII! We were graciously granted the permission to perform it during a commemoration of Palestrina, and they wanted it without the Credo, but that time I would not budge, and the entire work was performed.
Q: Do you think that the assembly of the faithful should participate in singing the Gregorian chant during liturgical celebrations?
A: We must make distinctions in the performance of Gregorian chant. Part of the repertoire, for example the Introits or the Offertories, requires an extremely refined level of artistry and can be interpreted properly only by real artists. Then there is a part of the repertoire that is sung by the people: I think of the Mass “of the Angels,” the processional music, the hymns. It was once very moving to hear the assembly sing the Te Deum, the Magnificat, the litanies, music that the people had assimilated and made their own – but today very little is left even of this. And furthermore, Gregorian chant has been distorted by the rhythmic and aesthetic theories of the Benedictines of Solesmes. Gregorian chant was born in violent times, and it should be manly and strong, and not like the sweet and comforting adaptations of our own day.
Q: Do you think that the musical traditions of the past are disappearing?
A: It stands to reason: if there is not the continuity that keeps them alive, they are destined to oblivion, and the current liturgy certainly does not favor it... I am an optimist by nature, but I judge the current situation realistically, and I believe that a Napoleon without generals can do little. Today the motto is “go to the people, look them in the eyes,” but it’s all a bunch of empty talk! By doing this we end up celebrating ourselves, and the mystery and beauty of God are hidden from us. In reality, we are witnessing the decline of the West. An African bishop once told me, “We hope that the council doesn’t take Latin out of the liturgy, otherwise in my country a Babel of dialects will assert itself.”
Q: Was John Paul II somewhat accommodating in these matters?
A: In spite of a number of appeals, the liturgical crisis became more deeply entrenched during his pontificate. Sometimes it was the papal celebrations themselves that contributed to this new tendency with dancing and drums. Once I left, saying, “Call me back when the show is over!” You understand well that if these are the examples coming from St. Peter’s, appeals and complaints aren’t of any use. I have always objected to these things. And even though they kicked me out, ostensibly because I had turned 80, I don’t regret what I did.
Q: What did it once mean to sing in the Sistine Chapel?
A: The place and the choir formed a unity, just as music and the liturgy formed a unity. Music was not a mere ornament, but it brought the liturgical text to life, and the cantor was something like a priest.
Q: But is it possible, today, to compose in the Gregorian style?
A: For one thing, we would need to recover that spirit of solidity. But the Church has done the opposite, favoring simplistic, pop-inspired melodies that are easy on the ears. It thought this would make people happy, and this is the road it took. But that’s not art. Great art is density.
Q: Don’t you say any composers today who are capable of reviving such a tradition?
A: It’s not a question of aptitude; the atmosphere just isn’t there. The fault is not that of the musicians, but of what is asked of them.
Q: And yet the monks of Santo Domingo de Silos have sold millions of CD’s of Gregorian chant. There’s also the Third Symphony of Henryk Gorecki, with its medieval references...
A: These are consumer phenomena that hold little interest for me.
Q: But there are authoritative composers who have put the faith at center stage, like Pärt or Penderecki...
A: They don’t have a sense of the liturgy. Mozart was also great, but I doubt that his sacred music is very much at its ease in a cathedral. But Gregorian chant and Palestrina match seamlessly with the liturgy.
Q: In effect, Mozart’s letters don’t convey any great religious sentiment. And yet, in the “et incarnatus est” of his Mass in C minor, that soprano phrase from the wind instruments perfectly explains to us the mystery of the incarnation...
A: Don’t forget that Mozart’s father was a Chapel Master. And so, whether he wanted to or not, he breathed deeply of the air of the Church. There is always something very concrete, especially in a man’s childhood, that explains such spiritual depth. Think of Verdi, who as a child had a priest as his first music instructor, and played the organ at Mass.
Q: Do you feel a bit lonely, with no heirs?
A: There’s no one left. I think I’m the last Chapel Master.
Q: But in Leipzig, at the church of Saint Thomas, there is the sixteenth Kantor since the time of Bach...
A: In Germany, in the Protestant arena, the children of the composer of the Brandenburg concerti jealously safeguard their identity. Verdi rightly said that the Germans are the faithful children of Bach, while we Italians are the degenerate children of Palestrina.
Q: Speaking of Verdi, great sacred music isn’t always compatible with the liturgy....
A: Certainly. Verdi’s Requiem Mass cannot be called a Mass suitable for the liturgy, but think of the power with which the meaning of the text comes through! Beethoven, too: listen to the opening of the Credo. It’s entirely different for the Cecilian movement. These are the masterpieces of sacred music that have a rightful place in concert performances.
Q: Bruckner was also very inspired...
A: He has the defect of being longwinded. His Mass for wind instruments, the one in E minor, is rather tedious.
Q: Was Mahler correct in saying that he was “half god and half simpleton”?
A: That’s right. He had some extraordinary moments, such as his masterful treatments of the arch. But then he began to exaggerate, and then...
Q: And do you like Mahler?
A: He’s like Bruckner – some beautiful moments, but rather repetitive. One would like to shout at him at a certain point: knock it off, we get it!
Q: According to Ratzinger, there is music as a mass phenomenon, pop music, which is measured by the values of the market. And then there is the educated, cerebral music that is destined for a small èlite...
A: This is the music of the moderns, from Schönberg on, but sacred music must follow the spirit of Gregorian chant and respect the liturgy. The cantor in the church is not there as an artist, but as a preacher, or as one who preaches by singing.
Q: Do you envy the Eastern Churches at all?
A: They have not changed anything, and rightly so. The Catholic Church has renounced itself and its particular makeup, like those women who have plastic surgery: they become unrecognizable, and sometimes there are serious consequences.
Q: Was it your father who brought you close to music?
A: He was a workman at a brick factory in Borgo San Lorenzo, in the province of Florence. He loved to sing in church. And he loved the romanze of Verdi and Donizetti. But at that time, everybody sang: the farmers while they were dressing the vines, the shoemakers while they were working a sole. There were bands in the piazza, during the holidays music directors came from Florence, and the area theatre had two opera seasons each year. It’s all gone now.
Q: In Italy, the authorities have cut off financing for the orchestras and theatres...
A: They were right to do so. Those organizations have too many people who are just dead weight. Take, for example, the administrative offices: at first there were four or five persons, now there are twenty or twenty-five.
Q: In what sense can Palestrina, Lasso, or Victoria be considered relevant?
A: For their musical density. Palestrina is the founding father who first understood what it means to make music; he intuited the necessity for contrapuntal composition linked to the text, unlike the complexity and the rules of Flemish composition.
Q: For the philosopher Schopenhauer, music is the summit of all the arts, the immediate objectification of the Will. For Catholics, can it be defined as the direct expression of God, as the Word?
A: Music is Art with a capital “A.” Sculpture has marble, and architecture has the edifice. You see music only with the eyes of the spirit; it enters within you. And the Church has the merit of having cultivated it in its cantories, of having given it its grammar and syntax. Music is the soul of the word that becomes art. It most definitely disposes you to discovering and welcoming the beauty of God. For this reason, now more than ever the Church must learn to recover it.
__________
On the June 24 concert in the Sistine Chapel, conducted by maestro Bartolucci in honor of Benedict XVI and in his presence:
> A Change of Tune in the Vatican – And Not Only in the Secretariat of State (27.6.2006)
__________
More on music and liturgy, on this website:
> Gregorian Chant Is Returning from Exile. Maybe (7.12.2005)
> Gregorian Chant: How and Why It Was Strangled in its Own Cradle (25.11.2003)
> Liturgical Music: “Here Is the Reform that the Church Needs” (6.8.2003)
> Polyphonic and Gregorian Chant. The Last Bastion at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major (20.5.2003)
> Caso Bartolucci. Maestro, qua si cambia musica (3.6.2002)
__________
English translation by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com
For the latest articles go to the English home page:
> www.chiesa.espressonline.it
Sandro Magister’s e-mail address is s.magister@espressoedit.it
by Sandro Magister
ROMA, July 21, 2006 – The concert conducted in the Sistine Chapel at the end of June by maestro Domenico Bartolucci, in Benedict XVI’s honor and with his attendance, has certainly marked a turning point in the dispute over the role that music has, and will have, in the Catholic liturgy.
But for now, it is a merely symbolic turning point.
The new direction has been indicated with authority. “An authentic renewal of sacred music can only come follow in the pathway of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony,” Benedict XVI said on that occasion. This is a pope whose “great love for the liturgy, and thus for sacred music, is known to all,” Bartolucci emphasized in his greeting of introduction.
But the goal still seems a long way off. Bartolucci, in his nineties, is a first-rate witness to the misfortunes that have plagued sacred music over the past half century. An outstanding interpreter of Gregorian chant and of the polyphony of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, he is at the same time the victim of their near annihilation.
When the curia of John Paul II planned and carried out the dismissal of Bartolucci as director of the papal choir of the Sistine Chapel, only Joseph Ratzinger, then a cardinal, was on his side.
Now, with the election of Ratzinger as pope, there is a real chance that the course of this drama will be reversed, and that Gregorian chant and polyphony will be returned to their central place in the Church. But neither Benedict XVI nor Bartolucci are so naïve as not to perceive the extreme difficulty of this undertaking.
For the Church to draw once more from the treasury of its great sacred music, there is, in fact, the need for a formidable effort of reeducation, and for liturgical reeducation even before musical.
This is what Bartolucci makes clear in his interview with “L’espresso” no. 29, 2006, reproduced in its entirety below.
In it he says, among other things:
“I am an optimist by nature, but I judge the current situation realistically, and I believe that a Napoleon without generals can do little.”
That Benedict XVI is, in this field, a “Napoleon without generals” was seen, for example in the vigil and Mass he presided over and celebrated in Valencia last July 8-9, organized by the Pontifical Council for the Family and by the Spanish bishops’ conference.
The vigil slavishly followed the canons of the television shows, with presenters, guests, comics, singers, and dancers.
And the songs at the Mass reproduced the “popular” style that invaded during the pontificate of John Paul II: a style unceremoniously described and assessed by Bartolucci in the interview that follows.
Here, then, is the barnburner interview, conducted and transcribed by the expert in classical music for the weekly “L’espresso,” Riccardo Lenzi:
When the cantor was like a priest
An interview with Domenico Bartolucci
Q: Maestro Bartolucci, no fewer than six popes have attended your concerts. In which of them did you see the most musical expertise?
A: In the most recent one, Benedict XVI. He plays the piano, has a profound understanding of Mozart, loves the Church’s liturgy, and in consequence he places great emphasis on music. Pius XII also greatly loved music, and played the violin frequently. The Sistine Chapel owes a great deal to John XXIII. In 1959 he gave me permission to restore the Sistine which, unfortunately, was in bad shape, partly because of the illness of its previous director, Lorenzo Perosi. It no longer had a stable membership, a musical archive, or an office. So an office was obtained, the falsettos were dismissed, and the composition of the choir and the compensation for its members were determined, and finally it was possible to form the children’s choir as well. Then came Paul VI, but he was tone deaf, and I don’t know how much of an appreciation he had for music.
Q: Was Perosi the so-called restorer of the Italian oratorio?
A: Perosi was an authentic musician, a man utterly consumed by music. He had the good fortune of directing the Sistine at the time of the motu proprio on sacred music, which rightly wanted to purify it from the theatrics with which it was imbued. He could have given a new impulse to Church music, but unfortunately he didn’t have an adequate understanding of polyphony in the tradition of Palestrina and of the traditions of the Sistine. He also entrusted the direction of the Gregorian chant to his vice-maestro! His liturgical compositions were frequently noteworthy for their superficial Cecilian style, far from the perfect fusion of text and music.
Q: Perosi imitated Puccini...
A: But Puccini was an intelligent man. And his fugues are greatly superior to those of Perosi.
Q: Was Perosi in some sense the harbinger of the current vulgarization of sacred music?
A: Not exactly. Today the fashion in the churches is for pop-inspired songs and the strumming of guitars, but the fault lies above all with the pseudo-intellectuals who have engineered this degeneration of the liturgy, and thus of music, overthrowing and despising the heritage of the past with the idea of obtaining who knows what advantage for the people. If the art of music does not return to its greatness, rather than representing an accommodation or a byproduct, there is no sense in asking about its function in the Church. I am against guitars, but I am also against the superficiality of the Cecilian movement in music – it’s more or less the same thing. Our motto must be: let us return to Gregorian chant and to polyphony in the tradition of Palestrina, and let us continue down this road!
Q: What are the initiatives that Benedict XVI should take to realize this plan in a world of discotheques and iPods?
A: The great repertoire of sacred music that has been handed down to us from the past is made up of Masses, offertories, responsories: formerly there was no such thing as a liturgy without music. Today there is no place for this repertoire in the new liturgy, which is a discordant commotion – and it’s useless to pretend that it’s not. It is as if Michelangelo had been asked to paint the general judgment on a postage stamp! You tell me, please, how it is possible today to perform a Credo, or even a Gloria. First we would need to return, at least for the solemn or feast day Masses, to a liturgy that gives music its proper place and expresses itself in the universal language of the Church, Latin. In the Sistine, after the liturgical reform, I was able to keep alive the traditional repertoire of the Chapel only in the concerts. Just think – the Missa Papae Marcelli by Palestrina has not been sung in St. Peter’s since the time of Pope John XXIII! We were graciously granted the permission to perform it during a commemoration of Palestrina, and they wanted it without the Credo, but that time I would not budge, and the entire work was performed.
Q: Do you think that the assembly of the faithful should participate in singing the Gregorian chant during liturgical celebrations?
A: We must make distinctions in the performance of Gregorian chant. Part of the repertoire, for example the Introits or the Offertories, requires an extremely refined level of artistry and can be interpreted properly only by real artists. Then there is a part of the repertoire that is sung by the people: I think of the Mass “of the Angels,” the processional music, the hymns. It was once very moving to hear the assembly sing the Te Deum, the Magnificat, the litanies, music that the people had assimilated and made their own – but today very little is left even of this. And furthermore, Gregorian chant has been distorted by the rhythmic and aesthetic theories of the Benedictines of Solesmes. Gregorian chant was born in violent times, and it should be manly and strong, and not like the sweet and comforting adaptations of our own day.
Q: Do you think that the musical traditions of the past are disappearing?
A: It stands to reason: if there is not the continuity that keeps them alive, they are destined to oblivion, and the current liturgy certainly does not favor it... I am an optimist by nature, but I judge the current situation realistically, and I believe that a Napoleon without generals can do little. Today the motto is “go to the people, look them in the eyes,” but it’s all a bunch of empty talk! By doing this we end up celebrating ourselves, and the mystery and beauty of God are hidden from us. In reality, we are witnessing the decline of the West. An African bishop once told me, “We hope that the council doesn’t take Latin out of the liturgy, otherwise in my country a Babel of dialects will assert itself.”
Q: Was John Paul II somewhat accommodating in these matters?
A: In spite of a number of appeals, the liturgical crisis became more deeply entrenched during his pontificate. Sometimes it was the papal celebrations themselves that contributed to this new tendency with dancing and drums. Once I left, saying, “Call me back when the show is over!” You understand well that if these are the examples coming from St. Peter’s, appeals and complaints aren’t of any use. I have always objected to these things. And even though they kicked me out, ostensibly because I had turned 80, I don’t regret what I did.
Q: What did it once mean to sing in the Sistine Chapel?
A: The place and the choir formed a unity, just as music and the liturgy formed a unity. Music was not a mere ornament, but it brought the liturgical text to life, and the cantor was something like a priest.
Q: But is it possible, today, to compose in the Gregorian style?
A: For one thing, we would need to recover that spirit of solidity. But the Church has done the opposite, favoring simplistic, pop-inspired melodies that are easy on the ears. It thought this would make people happy, and this is the road it took. But that’s not art. Great art is density.
Q: Don’t you say any composers today who are capable of reviving such a tradition?
A: It’s not a question of aptitude; the atmosphere just isn’t there. The fault is not that of the musicians, but of what is asked of them.
Q: And yet the monks of Santo Domingo de Silos have sold millions of CD’s of Gregorian chant. There’s also the Third Symphony of Henryk Gorecki, with its medieval references...
A: These are consumer phenomena that hold little interest for me.
Q: But there are authoritative composers who have put the faith at center stage, like Pärt or Penderecki...
A: They don’t have a sense of the liturgy. Mozart was also great, but I doubt that his sacred music is very much at its ease in a cathedral. But Gregorian chant and Palestrina match seamlessly with the liturgy.
Q: In effect, Mozart’s letters don’t convey any great religious sentiment. And yet, in the “et incarnatus est” of his Mass in C minor, that soprano phrase from the wind instruments perfectly explains to us the mystery of the incarnation...
A: Don’t forget that Mozart’s father was a Chapel Master. And so, whether he wanted to or not, he breathed deeply of the air of the Church. There is always something very concrete, especially in a man’s childhood, that explains such spiritual depth. Think of Verdi, who as a child had a priest as his first music instructor, and played the organ at Mass.
Q: Do you feel a bit lonely, with no heirs?
A: There’s no one left. I think I’m the last Chapel Master.
Q: But in Leipzig, at the church of Saint Thomas, there is the sixteenth Kantor since the time of Bach...
A: In Germany, in the Protestant arena, the children of the composer of the Brandenburg concerti jealously safeguard their identity. Verdi rightly said that the Germans are the faithful children of Bach, while we Italians are the degenerate children of Palestrina.
Q: Speaking of Verdi, great sacred music isn’t always compatible with the liturgy....
A: Certainly. Verdi’s Requiem Mass cannot be called a Mass suitable for the liturgy, but think of the power with which the meaning of the text comes through! Beethoven, too: listen to the opening of the Credo. It’s entirely different for the Cecilian movement. These are the masterpieces of sacred music that have a rightful place in concert performances.
Q: Bruckner was also very inspired...
A: He has the defect of being longwinded. His Mass for wind instruments, the one in E minor, is rather tedious.
Q: Was Mahler correct in saying that he was “half god and half simpleton”?
A: That’s right. He had some extraordinary moments, such as his masterful treatments of the arch. But then he began to exaggerate, and then...
Q: And do you like Mahler?
A: He’s like Bruckner – some beautiful moments, but rather repetitive. One would like to shout at him at a certain point: knock it off, we get it!
Q: According to Ratzinger, there is music as a mass phenomenon, pop music, which is measured by the values of the market. And then there is the educated, cerebral music that is destined for a small èlite...
A: This is the music of the moderns, from Schönberg on, but sacred music must follow the spirit of Gregorian chant and respect the liturgy. The cantor in the church is not there as an artist, but as a preacher, or as one who preaches by singing.
Q: Do you envy the Eastern Churches at all?
A: They have not changed anything, and rightly so. The Catholic Church has renounced itself and its particular makeup, like those women who have plastic surgery: they become unrecognizable, and sometimes there are serious consequences.
Q: Was it your father who brought you close to music?
A: He was a workman at a brick factory in Borgo San Lorenzo, in the province of Florence. He loved to sing in church. And he loved the romanze of Verdi and Donizetti. But at that time, everybody sang: the farmers while they were dressing the vines, the shoemakers while they were working a sole. There were bands in the piazza, during the holidays music directors came from Florence, and the area theatre had two opera seasons each year. It’s all gone now.
Q: In Italy, the authorities have cut off financing for the orchestras and theatres...
A: They were right to do so. Those organizations have too many people who are just dead weight. Take, for example, the administrative offices: at first there were four or five persons, now there are twenty or twenty-five.
Q: In what sense can Palestrina, Lasso, or Victoria be considered relevant?
A: For their musical density. Palestrina is the founding father who first understood what it means to make music; he intuited the necessity for contrapuntal composition linked to the text, unlike the complexity and the rules of Flemish composition.
Q: For the philosopher Schopenhauer, music is the summit of all the arts, the immediate objectification of the Will. For Catholics, can it be defined as the direct expression of God, as the Word?
A: Music is Art with a capital “A.” Sculpture has marble, and architecture has the edifice. You see music only with the eyes of the spirit; it enters within you. And the Church has the merit of having cultivated it in its cantories, of having given it its grammar and syntax. Music is the soul of the word that becomes art. It most definitely disposes you to discovering and welcoming the beauty of God. For this reason, now more than ever the Church must learn to recover it.
__________
On the June 24 concert in the Sistine Chapel, conducted by maestro Bartolucci in honor of Benedict XVI and in his presence:
> A Change of Tune in the Vatican – And Not Only in the Secretariat of State (27.6.2006)
__________
More on music and liturgy, on this website:
> Gregorian Chant Is Returning from Exile. Maybe (7.12.2005)
> Gregorian Chant: How and Why It Was Strangled in its Own Cradle (25.11.2003)
> Liturgical Music: “Here Is the Reform that the Church Needs” (6.8.2003)
> Polyphonic and Gregorian Chant. The Last Bastion at Rome’s Basilica of St. Mary Major (20.5.2003)
> Caso Bartolucci. Maestro, qua si cambia musica (3.6.2002)
__________
English translation by Matthew Sherry: traduttore@hotmail.com
For the latest articles go to the English home page:
> www.chiesa.espressonline.it
Sandro Magister’s e-mail address is s.magister@espressoedit.it
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Gregorian chants draw new, unlikely fans
By Carlos Alcala
McClatchy Newspapers
Gregorian chant holds a place in popular imagination as the province of hooded monks intoning monotonous melodies along dim stone corridors.
It's not like that.
At St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Sacramento, the ancient musical form is sung by children and young men and women, a multiethnic choir of multicolored voices.
Teens sing wearing Vans or boots poking out from beneath cassocks. They sing at Masses where toddlers babble and babies wail and adults walk in and out during services.
Rehearsal is in a classroom furnished with old pews, the ceiling covered in dull acoustic tiles.
The setting is mundane, but the music is ethereal. It's ear-pleasing and eye-opening, but difficult to describe.
It resonates when the men's deeper voices are breathing the Latin phrases.
When the higher voices come in, the music undulates; it flows out like unrhythmic acoustic heat: radiant music.
St. Stephen the First Martyr Church is one of the few parishes in Northern California to incorporate traditional Gregorian chant into Mass.
To hear some tell it, that is very odd. To them, chant and Mass are nearly synonymous.
Gregorian chant ebbed in the decades after the Roman Catholic Mass was opened to vernacular non-Latin languages, even though chant was still officially supported.
"Gregorian chant should have the first place in musical liturgy," said William Mahrt, a professor at Stanford and president of the Church Music Association of America.
"(It's) the fundamental music," Mahrt said, "the basic music."
In the fourth century, it was how people learned the psalms, said Peter Jeffery, Scheide Professor of Music History at Princeton.
Much as popular songs are memorized today, the music of chant conveyed religious precepts to largely illiterate societies.
"The chant is the servant of the text," said Jeffrey Morse, St. Stephen's choir leader for six years.
Chant is fundamental to more than the church.
"There wouldn't have been Elvis Presley if there hadn't been Gregorian chant," Morse said.
That may be an exaggeration, but musical notation itself was created by monks in the 800s specifically to record chant melodies.
It's essentially the same notation the system for writing music that is used for chant today, though not for other music.
What Morse's choir sings during St. Stephen's Masses is largely prescribed by centuries of tradition.
"Choristers were singing the exact same text to the exact same melody in 800 on the same Sunday," Morse said. "It grounds you in history."
Few parishes are grounded like St. Stephen's.
The parish was set up by Bishop William K. Wiegand to conduct a traditional Latin Mass. The priest who hired Morse recognized the place of chant and Morse's wealth of knowledge and experience.
When asked about the name "Gregorian," he readily recites the dates and nature of Gregory the Great's papacy. Gregory's name was appended to the chants that existed before he was made pope in 590.
The music was practically dead in the United States in the late 1980s and early '90s. Morse had to go to England to study Gregorian music. "No one wanted it, basically," he said.
Things are changing, though.
There's something of a self-help movement, experts like Mahrt and Jeffery say.
A summer chant gathering four years ago had 40 participants mostly refugees from failing choirs. This year it had 260 some from growing choirs, some who seek to seed new ones.
In some cases, politics is behind the growth of chant.
Many Catholics associate Latin Mass and traditional music with conservative politics, said Princeton's Jeffery.
Indeed, at St. Stephen's during a recent Mass, political stickers on cars in the parking lot were all in support of the McCain-Palin ticket or initiatives aligned with a conservative social agenda.
Many may seek tradition, but few have the experience of Morse and his choir. Even some teens in his group have been in it for six years six times around the prescribed cycle of the liturgy.
They know the chants. They know the music. Though it's in Latin, "We definitely try to understand what we're singing," said Ellen Presley, 20, a music major at California State University, Sacramento.
When the choir takes a break in August, Presley said, "everyone complains about us not being here. The music adds a lot."
In fact, it is choir participation that draws 21-year-old Jonathan Crane to drive two hours from Corning, Calif., to St. Stephen's. "It was the sound" that thrilled him, he said.
Crane and Presley are also impressed by the voices of the 8- and 9-year-old choristers who sing with them.
The music is a major part of the service, but not everything. During Mass, the chant's beauty competes with the rustle of life in the congregation.
It is not like a visit to the symphony, where every cough is frowned upon and babies are unwelcome.
The choir is not the focus. In fact, they sing from a loft, heard but not seen.
Chant's most ardent supporters seem to like it that way.
"I think that's very much what music in a sacred context should be," Morse said. "It shouldn't be a concert at all."
"The object of one's attention," Mahrt said, "is worship."
Still, the music augments the worship, said Father Robert Novokowsky, the parish's pastor.
"During the liturgy, the chant is meditative," he said. It's one thing to have a short psalm read. It's quite another to experience it sung.
"It takes four minutes to sing that one line," Novokowsky said.
"It's a way of experiencing the mystery of God."
McClatchy Newspapers
Gregorian chant holds a place in popular imagination as the province of hooded monks intoning monotonous melodies along dim stone corridors.
It's not like that.
At St. Stephen's Catholic Church in Sacramento, the ancient musical form is sung by children and young men and women, a multiethnic choir of multicolored voices.
Teens sing wearing Vans or boots poking out from beneath cassocks. They sing at Masses where toddlers babble and babies wail and adults walk in and out during services.
Rehearsal is in a classroom furnished with old pews, the ceiling covered in dull acoustic tiles.
The setting is mundane, but the music is ethereal. It's ear-pleasing and eye-opening, but difficult to describe.
It resonates when the men's deeper voices are breathing the Latin phrases.
When the higher voices come in, the music undulates; it flows out like unrhythmic acoustic heat: radiant music.
St. Stephen the First Martyr Church is one of the few parishes in Northern California to incorporate traditional Gregorian chant into Mass.
To hear some tell it, that is very odd. To them, chant and Mass are nearly synonymous.
Gregorian chant ebbed in the decades after the Roman Catholic Mass was opened to vernacular non-Latin languages, even though chant was still officially supported.
"Gregorian chant should have the first place in musical liturgy," said William Mahrt, a professor at Stanford and president of the Church Music Association of America.
"(It's) the fundamental music," Mahrt said, "the basic music."
In the fourth century, it was how people learned the psalms, said Peter Jeffery, Scheide Professor of Music History at Princeton.
Much as popular songs are memorized today, the music of chant conveyed religious precepts to largely illiterate societies.
"The chant is the servant of the text," said Jeffrey Morse, St. Stephen's choir leader for six years.
Chant is fundamental to more than the church.
"There wouldn't have been Elvis Presley if there hadn't been Gregorian chant," Morse said.
That may be an exaggeration, but musical notation itself was created by monks in the 800s specifically to record chant melodies.
It's essentially the same notation the system for writing music that is used for chant today, though not for other music.
What Morse's choir sings during St. Stephen's Masses is largely prescribed by centuries of tradition.
"Choristers were singing the exact same text to the exact same melody in 800 on the same Sunday," Morse said. "It grounds you in history."
Few parishes are grounded like St. Stephen's.
The parish was set up by Bishop William K. Wiegand to conduct a traditional Latin Mass. The priest who hired Morse recognized the place of chant and Morse's wealth of knowledge and experience.
When asked about the name "Gregorian," he readily recites the dates and nature of Gregory the Great's papacy. Gregory's name was appended to the chants that existed before he was made pope in 590.
The music was practically dead in the United States in the late 1980s and early '90s. Morse had to go to England to study Gregorian music. "No one wanted it, basically," he said.
Things are changing, though.
There's something of a self-help movement, experts like Mahrt and Jeffery say.
A summer chant gathering four years ago had 40 participants mostly refugees from failing choirs. This year it had 260 some from growing choirs, some who seek to seed new ones.
In some cases, politics is behind the growth of chant.
Many Catholics associate Latin Mass and traditional music with conservative politics, said Princeton's Jeffery.
Indeed, at St. Stephen's during a recent Mass, political stickers on cars in the parking lot were all in support of the McCain-Palin ticket or initiatives aligned with a conservative social agenda.
Many may seek tradition, but few have the experience of Morse and his choir. Even some teens in his group have been in it for six years six times around the prescribed cycle of the liturgy.
They know the chants. They know the music. Though it's in Latin, "We definitely try to understand what we're singing," said Ellen Presley, 20, a music major at California State University, Sacramento.
When the choir takes a break in August, Presley said, "everyone complains about us not being here. The music adds a lot."
In fact, it is choir participation that draws 21-year-old Jonathan Crane to drive two hours from Corning, Calif., to St. Stephen's. "It was the sound" that thrilled him, he said.
Crane and Presley are also impressed by the voices of the 8- and 9-year-old choristers who sing with them.
The music is a major part of the service, but not everything. During Mass, the chant's beauty competes with the rustle of life in the congregation.
It is not like a visit to the symphony, where every cough is frowned upon and babies are unwelcome.
The choir is not the focus. In fact, they sing from a loft, heard but not seen.
Chant's most ardent supporters seem to like it that way.
"I think that's very much what music in a sacred context should be," Morse said. "It shouldn't be a concert at all."
"The object of one's attention," Mahrt said, "is worship."
Still, the music augments the worship, said Father Robert Novokowsky, the parish's pastor.
"During the liturgy, the chant is meditative," he said. It's one thing to have a short psalm read. It's quite another to experience it sung.
"It takes four minutes to sing that one line," Novokowsky said.
"It's a way of experiencing the mystery of God."
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Chant from the Institute of Christ the King
From the New Liturgical Movement:
by Jeffrey Tucker
"Some of the most beautiful, even perfect, sounds of women in chant comes from a source I hadn't expected: The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. I wish there were an easier way to order this CD, which is worth every penny of the $21.00 price. The website only gives an email address. In any case, whatever the system is, if you love chant, this CD is for you, and not only for the Benediction chants of the Sister Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus, though this struck me most profoundly (not a speck of vibrato!). The entire CD is just splendid and expertly done.
Most of the CD is of men in chant, and without accompaniment, an approach that preserves the mystery and legendary solemnity of this music. I doubt you have heard most of these chants. The propers are from the Mass of Our Lord Jesus Christ Sovereign and Eternal Priest, and the Mass of Saints Peter and Paul. They sing Gloria I, Sanctus I, Agnus Dei I, and then Kyrie VI, Gloria III ad lib., Credo IV, Sanctus III, and Agnus Dei III."
by Jeffrey Tucker
"Some of the most beautiful, even perfect, sounds of women in chant comes from a source I hadn't expected: The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. I wish there were an easier way to order this CD, which is worth every penny of the $21.00 price. The website only gives an email address. In any case, whatever the system is, if you love chant, this CD is for you, and not only for the Benediction chants of the Sister Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus, though this struck me most profoundly (not a speck of vibrato!). The entire CD is just splendid and expertly done.Most of the CD is of men in chant, and without accompaniment, an approach that preserves the mystery and legendary solemnity of this music. I doubt you have heard most of these chants. The propers are from the Mass of Our Lord Jesus Christ Sovereign and Eternal Priest, and the Mass of Saints Peter and Paul. They sing Gloria I, Sanctus I, Agnus Dei I, and then Kyrie VI, Gloria III ad lib., Credo IV, Sanctus III, and Agnus Dei III."
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Musical Christian Monks Cross Over Onto Pop Charts
By David Ian Miller
7/31/2008
7/31/2008
San Francisco Chronicle (www.sfgate.com)
"Always, the Gregorian chant has been our form of spirituality as monks ... the text is from the Bible, sung in Latin, and we sing it back to God through those wonderful melodies from the first millennium."
A CD of Gregorian chants by a group of Cistercian monks is a surprise crossover hit, reaching the pop charts. David Ian Miller interviews one of the recording artists who shares not only about the beautiful music but about his deep faith in God.
SAN FRANCISCO (San Francisco Chronicle) - It isn't every day that a group of Catholic monks find themselves on the pop charts.
Yet that's what happened to the monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz, a 12th-century Cistercian monastery near Vienna, whose CD of Gregorian chants has become a runaway hit.
After its European release in May, "Chant: Music for the Soul" became the top classical album in Britain before crossing over to the pop charts, at one point outselling recordings by Madonna and Amy Winehouse. Even before its U.S. release on July 1, the album became the most popular classical recording in this country, thanks to copious downloads on iTunes.
Call it divine intervention, or perhaps clever marketing on the part of Universal Records, which signed the monks to a recording contract after launching a search in Catholic publications in February. The record company had wanted to capitalize on the growing sales of chant music — which were due in part to the popularity of the video game Halo, which uses chantlike melodies in its soundtrack.
Universal found the monks after their spokesperson, Father Karl Wallner, who also runs their theological academy and Web site, sent in a link to a YouTube video of their chanting that he had posted last September following a visit to the monastery by Pope Benedict XVI.
I spoke with Father Karl, 45, last week by phone about the growing interest in Gregorian chants, their spiritual significance and how he and his brothers are handling all the publicity.
This is music from 1,000 years ago, sung entirely in Latin, without accompaniment. Has the popularity of your CD surprised you?
Yes, very much. When we started (the project), we thought we would sell a few thousand copies, and now it's a big success all over the world. I think what's very impressive to us is that people are interested in our spirituality — because we are just doing what we do every day, singing three hours to praise God. And that's the biggest success of all.
How do you explain the attraction of ancient, sacred music to a modern, largely secular audience?
I think it's because the music is calm. It's healthy. It's touching. And you can feel that we sing it with some religious enthusiasm. People write me e-mails, and they say: "I feel touched by the finger of God when I'm listening to your singing."
We can also see that people, even atheistic or agnostic people, are very much attracted by our way of living. Many of them come to us (the monastery) and they listen, they just sit back and listen. I think we are showing them as a religious community, by praising God, that our way of life represents something that has been lost to them. I know it's something that many people in Europe feel they have lost.
How this CD came into being is an interesting "Old World meets New World" kind of story. Should we be surprised that monks like you are posting videos on YouTube and are generally pretty technologically savvy?
I don't know what people in the outside world think about monks in the monastery, but we are men of the 21st century. We are living in a monastery, but we aren't aliens or Neanderthals. According to the rule of St. Benedict and also that of the Cistercians written 1,500 years ago, every monk has to have something to write. And now the computer is the means by which we are writing. So everybody must know how to deal with the Internet, how to send e-mails. That's quite normal for us.
Isn't monastic life generally about disconnecting from the outside world to pursue a spiritual path without distractions, like e-mail?
It is, but this happens in other ways. Our liturgy is with the big tradition of the holy Church, and we are singing the Gregorian chants in Latin — yes, we are living in a very strict way. But, of course, we use the communication that is made possible by the Internet to promote the beauty of our vocation.
Has life at your monastery changed since the music came out?
Well, it's changed for me and for Father Abbot, because we are both doing interviews with the press, and we have had some journalists at the monastery, but I think we are handling it quite well. For my other brothers life is the same. You have to believe me, none of them is really interested in where we are on the charts in England or France or Australia or the United States. I am occupied with those questions, but the other monks don't even ask me about it.
I'm very proud that my brothers are not proud about being pop stars. I'm proud of them because it shows that our young community has a very good sense of what religious life means. It means being together with God and not taking care of the things of this world.
Gregorian chants, which date to the seventh century, are a form of prayer. ...
How are they used in religious life at your monastery?
My monastery was founded in 1133, and monastic life there has never been interrupted. Always, the Gregorian chant has been our form of spirituality as monks — it is the way we live out that continuity ... the text is from the Bible, sung in Latin, and we sing it back to God through those wonderful melodies from the first millennium. Everything is about singing thanks to God.
What's a typical day like for you? How often are you singing?
We gather in church to pray five times a day, starting at 5:15 in the morning, including Sundays and feast days. Altogether we're singing for about three and a half hours each day.
Are Gregorian chants difficult to learn?
It is not difficult if you do it three and a half hours every day. When I entered the monastery, we had no introduction (to chanting). I was put there between the other brothers, they gave me a big book, and I just opened it and started. Of course, everybody has to learn Latin before he enters the monastery. That is very important because it is not only singing for singing's sake, but you also have to understand at least most of what you are singing about.
How did the monks at your monastery become such accomplished singers, other than the fact that they are singing three hours a day?
We have a lot of young brothers who have good voices, and I think that is one reason. We also at the moment have a very good religious atmosphere. These young monks really have in their hearts a burning fire to do this service, and you can hear it in the recording.
I've read that some monks at Stift Heiligenkreuz worried that putting Gregorian chants into a commercial product amounted to a kind of profanity. I take it that you do not agree.
Well, I did not know what Universal Music was when I started this project. I was really naive. But some of our brothers — who had lived in the outside world and knew that Eminem or some artists like that who are not Christian or are living very far from the way a Christian man should live — they were very concerned. They told me, "Don't do this." But when they saw that Universal Music was just promoting our spirituality (by releasing the CD), they all agreed, and now everybody is happy.
Does that money that you raise go to the monastery?
Yes, but it's not so much. Many people think that now we are going to be rich like Michael Jackson or something. That's nonsense.
You were chosen by the rest of the monks to act as their spokesperson. They call you the "press monk." Why did they choose you?
Because I already have some experience. In 2007, I was responsible for organizing the visit of the Holy Father to my monastery, and so I am used to speaking in front of cameras and TV teams and talking to journalists. Also I love it very much that people are interested in what we're doing. I'm really in love with this style of living.
What do you like best about monastic life?
For me, the most beautiful thing is to pray in the morning. I love to get up early. Then the whole day is clear in front of me. In the evening, I am always tired, and my head is full with all of the thoughts of what I did that day. But when I start in the morning, I have a clear head, and that is the best time for me. I love to walk through our medieval monastery into the church. Then we start at 5:15, yeah, and all is so new.
You have lived at the monastery since you were 19. Have you always wanted to be a monk?
No. I did not plan this life. I always thought I would study biology, get married, have children. I was very surprised when — I always say that I fell in love with God, as a boy falls in love with a girl. And this love still continues.
What was the turning point?
I did not know how to pray until I was 18. Then I started to pray, and it happened that God immediately became the biggest reality, the most beautiful reality in my life. I learned to say "you" to Him. It started to be a personal thing for me, and I think I fell in love with Him.
You say that you didn't know how to pray — I'm not sure what you mean. Was your family religious?
My family is very faithful. But of course, I was a young man who wants to have his own ways, as many young people do, and I'm very happy that my parents at that time — they prayed a lot for me, and I'm very grateful for this, because then I could meet God.
I was told that you don't like to appear in any photos. Why is that?
Yes, because I'm just a speaker, and I think a priest should not be so much in photos because it is against humility. But indeed I cannot always avoid it.
Some people believe that Gregorian chants have healing properties. I read one press release in which a neuroscientist was quoted as saying that chanting has been shown to lower blood pressure and increase levels of the performance hormone DHA, etc. What do you make of that?
I suppose it could be right. But that is not the main reason why we are singing Gregorian chants. The most important thing is, we want to give a voice to the whole of all creation. And by our voices, everything — animals, plants, the planets, are praising God. That is what monastic praising of God means, that we give voice to all beings to praise God because He is worthy to be praised by all that He has made.
Of course, some people may just enjoy the music on its own merits.
Yes, of course! In the Gospel it is written that everybody who is in the monastery is chosen by God, but those who are listening to our Gregorian chant do not need to be monks. They do not even need to be Catholics. This is music for everybody.
Will the monks be recording more albums?
It depends. I would like it very much. But it is not my decision. If God wants, we shall do it. If He does not want it, we shall not weep a tear about it.
David Ian Miller writes "Finding My Religion" for the San Francisco Chronicle. This column is used with permission.
Yet that's what happened to the monks of Stift Heiligenkreuz, a 12th-century Cistercian monastery near Vienna, whose CD of Gregorian chants has become a runaway hit.
After its European release in May, "Chant: Music for the Soul" became the top classical album in Britain before crossing over to the pop charts, at one point outselling recordings by Madonna and Amy Winehouse. Even before its U.S. release on July 1, the album became the most popular classical recording in this country, thanks to copious downloads on iTunes.
Call it divine intervention, or perhaps clever marketing on the part of Universal Records, which signed the monks to a recording contract after launching a search in Catholic publications in February. The record company had wanted to capitalize on the growing sales of chant music — which were due in part to the popularity of the video game Halo, which uses chantlike melodies in its soundtrack.
Universal found the monks after their spokesperson, Father Karl Wallner, who also runs their theological academy and Web site, sent in a link to a YouTube video of their chanting that he had posted last September following a visit to the monastery by Pope Benedict XVI.
I spoke with Father Karl, 45, last week by phone about the growing interest in Gregorian chants, their spiritual significance and how he and his brothers are handling all the publicity.
This is music from 1,000 years ago, sung entirely in Latin, without accompaniment. Has the popularity of your CD surprised you?
Yes, very much. When we started (the project), we thought we would sell a few thousand copies, and now it's a big success all over the world. I think what's very impressive to us is that people are interested in our spirituality — because we are just doing what we do every day, singing three hours to praise God. And that's the biggest success of all.
How do you explain the attraction of ancient, sacred music to a modern, largely secular audience?
I think it's because the music is calm. It's healthy. It's touching. And you can feel that we sing it with some religious enthusiasm. People write me e-mails, and they say: "I feel touched by the finger of God when I'm listening to your singing."
We can also see that people, even atheistic or agnostic people, are very much attracted by our way of living. Many of them come to us (the monastery) and they listen, they just sit back and listen. I think we are showing them as a religious community, by praising God, that our way of life represents something that has been lost to them. I know it's something that many people in Europe feel they have lost.
How this CD came into being is an interesting "Old World meets New World" kind of story. Should we be surprised that monks like you are posting videos on YouTube and are generally pretty technologically savvy?
I don't know what people in the outside world think about monks in the monastery, but we are men of the 21st century. We are living in a monastery, but we aren't aliens or Neanderthals. According to the rule of St. Benedict and also that of the Cistercians written 1,500 years ago, every monk has to have something to write. And now the computer is the means by which we are writing. So everybody must know how to deal with the Internet, how to send e-mails. That's quite normal for us.
Isn't monastic life generally about disconnecting from the outside world to pursue a spiritual path without distractions, like e-mail?
It is, but this happens in other ways. Our liturgy is with the big tradition of the holy Church, and we are singing the Gregorian chants in Latin — yes, we are living in a very strict way. But, of course, we use the communication that is made possible by the Internet to promote the beauty of our vocation.
Has life at your monastery changed since the music came out?
Well, it's changed for me and for Father Abbot, because we are both doing interviews with the press, and we have had some journalists at the monastery, but I think we are handling it quite well. For my other brothers life is the same. You have to believe me, none of them is really interested in where we are on the charts in England or France or Australia or the United States. I am occupied with those questions, but the other monks don't even ask me about it.
I'm very proud that my brothers are not proud about being pop stars. I'm proud of them because it shows that our young community has a very good sense of what religious life means. It means being together with God and not taking care of the things of this world.
Gregorian chants, which date to the seventh century, are a form of prayer. ...
How are they used in religious life at your monastery?
My monastery was founded in 1133, and monastic life there has never been interrupted. Always, the Gregorian chant has been our form of spirituality as monks — it is the way we live out that continuity ... the text is from the Bible, sung in Latin, and we sing it back to God through those wonderful melodies from the first millennium. Everything is about singing thanks to God.
What's a typical day like for you? How often are you singing?
We gather in church to pray five times a day, starting at 5:15 in the morning, including Sundays and feast days. Altogether we're singing for about three and a half hours each day.
Are Gregorian chants difficult to learn?
It is not difficult if you do it three and a half hours every day. When I entered the monastery, we had no introduction (to chanting). I was put there between the other brothers, they gave me a big book, and I just opened it and started. Of course, everybody has to learn Latin before he enters the monastery. That is very important because it is not only singing for singing's sake, but you also have to understand at least most of what you are singing about.
How did the monks at your monastery become such accomplished singers, other than the fact that they are singing three hours a day?
We have a lot of young brothers who have good voices, and I think that is one reason. We also at the moment have a very good religious atmosphere. These young monks really have in their hearts a burning fire to do this service, and you can hear it in the recording.
I've read that some monks at Stift Heiligenkreuz worried that putting Gregorian chants into a commercial product amounted to a kind of profanity. I take it that you do not agree.
Well, I did not know what Universal Music was when I started this project. I was really naive. But some of our brothers — who had lived in the outside world and knew that Eminem or some artists like that who are not Christian or are living very far from the way a Christian man should live — they were very concerned. They told me, "Don't do this." But when they saw that Universal Music was just promoting our spirituality (by releasing the CD), they all agreed, and now everybody is happy.
Does that money that you raise go to the monastery?
Yes, but it's not so much. Many people think that now we are going to be rich like Michael Jackson or something. That's nonsense.
You were chosen by the rest of the monks to act as their spokesperson. They call you the "press monk." Why did they choose you?
Because I already have some experience. In 2007, I was responsible for organizing the visit of the Holy Father to my monastery, and so I am used to speaking in front of cameras and TV teams and talking to journalists. Also I love it very much that people are interested in what we're doing. I'm really in love with this style of living.
What do you like best about monastic life?
For me, the most beautiful thing is to pray in the morning. I love to get up early. Then the whole day is clear in front of me. In the evening, I am always tired, and my head is full with all of the thoughts of what I did that day. But when I start in the morning, I have a clear head, and that is the best time for me. I love to walk through our medieval monastery into the church. Then we start at 5:15, yeah, and all is so new.
You have lived at the monastery since you were 19. Have you always wanted to be a monk?
No. I did not plan this life. I always thought I would study biology, get married, have children. I was very surprised when — I always say that I fell in love with God, as a boy falls in love with a girl. And this love still continues.
What was the turning point?
I did not know how to pray until I was 18. Then I started to pray, and it happened that God immediately became the biggest reality, the most beautiful reality in my life. I learned to say "you" to Him. It started to be a personal thing for me, and I think I fell in love with Him.
You say that you didn't know how to pray — I'm not sure what you mean. Was your family religious?
My family is very faithful. But of course, I was a young man who wants to have his own ways, as many young people do, and I'm very happy that my parents at that time — they prayed a lot for me, and I'm very grateful for this, because then I could meet God.
I was told that you don't like to appear in any photos. Why is that?
Yes, because I'm just a speaker, and I think a priest should not be so much in photos because it is against humility. But indeed I cannot always avoid it.
Some people believe that Gregorian chants have healing properties. I read one press release in which a neuroscientist was quoted as saying that chanting has been shown to lower blood pressure and increase levels of the performance hormone DHA, etc. What do you make of that?
I suppose it could be right. But that is not the main reason why we are singing Gregorian chants. The most important thing is, we want to give a voice to the whole of all creation. And by our voices, everything — animals, plants, the planets, are praising God. That is what monastic praising of God means, that we give voice to all beings to praise God because He is worthy to be praised by all that He has made.
Of course, some people may just enjoy the music on its own merits.
Yes, of course! In the Gospel it is written that everybody who is in the monastery is chosen by God, but those who are listening to our Gregorian chant do not need to be monks. They do not even need to be Catholics. This is music for everybody.
Will the monks be recording more albums?
It depends. I would like it very much. But it is not my decision. If God wants, we shall do it. If He does not want it, we shall not weep a tear about it.
David Ian Miller writes "Finding My Religion" for the San Francisco Chronicle. This column is used with permission.
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Bishop’s book to aid parishes understanding the role of music in divine worship
.- On July 8, “Sing to the Lord,” a statement of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops on the role of music in the liturgy, will be available for purchase in the form of a book. According to the USCCB Publishing director, Paul Henderson, the new book “has long been anticipated by American Catholic musicians.”
In a press release from the USCCB, Henderson noted that the new book will assist parishes in better understanding the role of music in divine worship. Although the statement has been on the USCCB site since November 2007, “the book’s availability will make it easier for music leaders to apply the bishops’ norms and principles to their ministry.”
Not only will “Sing to the Lord” offer “criteria for selecting a performance repertoire for various occasions,” but it will also describe “how participants are to engage music in liturgical celebrations according to the norms established by the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy. The instruction defines the singing role assigned to bishops, priests, deacons, the choir and the congregation.”
The statement also encourages “the cultivation and use of Gregorian chant due to its unifying role, especially when liturgical celebrations use Latin.”
Executive director of the USCCB Office of Divine Worship, Monsignor Anthony Sherman, emphasized the value of the new book. “This is a useful tool for musicians in particular because it really demonstrates music’s role in unifying a diverse assembly of Catholics into one body gathered for worship.”
“Sing to the Lord” can be purchased online at http://www.usccbpublishing.org.
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