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Views from the Choir Loft

Text and Emotion • Our Pastoral Responsibility

Richard J. Clark · October 30, 2015

S A COMPOSER and conductor, one must pay complete attention to the text. Recently, someone commented that a particular setting of mine was notably in tune with the text. To me this seemed like a minimal prerequisite of composition. Perhaps one of the biggest influences in my music, sacred and otherwise, is the influence of the Roman Rite in which the text is preeminent. The reason for such preeminence is profoundly displayed at the beginning of John’s Gospel:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” — John 1

I have written before that in the liturgy, the Word is preeminent. Likewise, the text drives all sacred choral music. In many choir rehearsals, I will point out that the placement of a melody upon a text is not accidental. Gregorian Chant almost always paints the text most intentionally. What word is on the highest note? What phrase or syllable is treated with an extended melisma?

Likewise, compare the treatment of the text of Ave Verum Corpus by William Byrd as compared to perhaps any other setting. Note the longing serenity and mystery of “O dulcis, O pie, O Jesu Fili Mariae” followed by the juxtaposition of F natural in the bass and F# in the tenor as the text pleads, “Miserere mei.” No detail of the text is left unnoticed by Byrd.

Furthermore, there is much raw emotion to be found in sacred polyphony. Tallis’ Verily, Verily, I Say Unto Thee displays a nearly twentieth-century-style “passing dissonance” on “Son of Man” (perhaps to illustrate his suffering). The phrase, “Except ye eat of the Son of Man and drink his blood” propels towards a declarative resolution during “ye have no life in you.” Tallis goes on to paint every word of John 6 with faith, love, and passion. So much said with so few, but essential, life-giving words of our faith!

EAUTIFUL AND UNIVERSAL sacred music is designed to receive and process the extraordinary emotions of the liturgy. This past Palm Sunday, the homilist emphasized that the liturgy of Palm Sunday was designed to receive all of our emotions, from joy to fear and confusion, and grief. This is a dynamic that we can see over and over again.

Consider the Requiem Mass. It is designed to receive the fullest spectrum of emotions, from fear, mourning and grief, to hope, joy, and love. The Dies Irae, a work of great sacred poetry, captures a wide range of emotions: fear and trembling of the Last Judgment, to hope, (“You who absolved Mary, and heard the Robber, gave hope to me, too…”) to the lyric Lacrimosa and Pie Jesu which implore God’s mercy to grant eternal rest.

Consider the confident joy in the text of Credo quod Redemptor: (Job 19:25, 26) “I believe that my Redeemer lives, and that on the last day, I shall rise from earth and in my flesh I shall behold God my Savior.” This is an extraordinary progression of emotion from the Dies Irae!

Finally, in the words of the In Paradisum: there is joy and comfort in God’s mercy. Regardless of who we are, this prayer welcomes home the sinner in extraordinary fashion: “May the Angels lead you into paradise; may the martyrs receive you and lead you into the holy city of Jerusalem…”

If we truly believe the words of the Requiem Mass, what emotions do they evoke? As Paul writes in Romans 8:38-39:

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor present things, nor future things, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

E CAN CLEARLY SEE THE PROFOUND emotions found in the words of the liturgy—the Requiem Mass or Palm Sunday simply being two obvious examples. But even the emotion found in the daily readings are profound! It is therefore incumbent on us to pay close attention to our pastoral responsibilities. Pay little heed to text, and the liturgy is watered down. Pay no attention to the musical setting of text, and the impact of God’s Word is potentially trivialized. Either does a great pastoral disservice to the faithful.

Treat the Word of God carelessly, and we will lose our orientation towards the Divine. It is therefore, a pastoral responsibility to ensure the God’s Word reaches the people:

1 • It is our pastoral responsibility that the settings of the music indeed contain the Word of God—and not a collection of personal thoughts and feelings.
2 • It is our pastoral responsibility to ensure these musical settings of sacred music are beautiful and universal and therefore their spiritual effects are lasting.
3 • It is our pastoral responsibility to prepare the liturgy very diligently, with love, with intellect, with emotion, and with an eye towards always improving our craft.
4 • It is our pastoral responsibility that our music not be self-serving, but that it draws attention away from us and towards the Word of God. This allows the Word to enter our hearts. This allows all to enter into the Mystery. This allows God’s Word to comfort the afflicted, which at one time or another includes us all.

From Maestro Michael Olbash:
November, 2: Commemoration of All Souls, Traditional Latin (EF) High Mass, Monday, November 2, at 7 p.m., St. Adelaide’s in Peabody, Massachusetts. Whether you sing in the choir loft or sit in a pew, you should come experience the complete Fauré Requiem in the liturgical context for which it was composed.

BE SURE TO CHECK OUT these Communion propers for Advent, published with World Library Publications. Recordings directed by Paul French.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

23 May 2022 • FEEDBACK

From a reader: “I wasn’t looking for it. But, I stumbled across your hand-dandy arrangement of Pachelbel’s Canon. Jeff, this is the greatest thing since sliced bread! I had to play a wedding on Saturday. The bride requested the Canon. There were 11 bridesmaids! The organ loft is a football field away from the communion rail. It’s so difficult to play and keep checking the mirror. Your arrangement is absolutely genius. One can skip and choose which variations to use. The chord names are handy so that when my eyes are off the music, I always know where I am at. A thousand times thank you for sharing this arrangement!”

—Jeff Ostrowski
19 May 2022 • “Trochee Trouble”

I’m still trying to decide how to visually present the “pure” Editio Vaticana scores, using what is (technically) the official rhythm of the Church. You can download my latest attempt, for this coming Sunday. Notice the “trochee trouble” as well as the old issue of neumes before the quilisma.

—Jeff Ostrowski
16 May 2022 • Harmonized Chant?

This year’s upcoming Sacred Music Symposium will demonstrate several ways to sing the CREDO at Mass. This is because—for many parishes—to sing a full-length polyphonic CREDO by Victoria or Palestrina is out of the question. Therefore, we show options that are halfway between plainsong and polyphony. You can hear my choir rehearsing a section that sounds like harmonized plainsong.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“The main place should be given, all things being equal, to gregorian chant, as being proper to the roman Liturgy. Other kinds of sacred music, in particular polyphony, are in no way excluded, provided that they correspond to the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful.”

— ‘2011 GIRM, §41 (Roman Missal, 3rd Edition)’

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