T SYMPOSIUM EVERY year since 2016, I’ve encouraged music directors to use “choral extensions” for Masses celebrated in the Ordinary Form. Of course, that’s only one technique we share for OF Masses—but it’s important. At each Symposium, we’ve taken pains to include examples of “choral extensions” to inspire the choirmasters. At least that was our hope. Nevertheless, many have asked me to “go further.” That is to say, music directors have asked me to put together and publish settings for the Ordinary Form. That’s connected to an article I wrote (13 July 2023) containing Suggestions to Improve Music at Ordinary Form Masses. At the time, my article didn’t seem lengthy—but looking back on it, I’m astonished at how long (rambling?) it is. However, it generated some encouraging responses, so I guess it wasn’t complete garbage. Here’s a thoughtful response:
* PDF Download • Thoughtful Response
—I’m not going to reveal the person’s name for obvious reasons.
Chabanel Mass • I have put together a Mass in Honor of Saint Noël Chabanel for the Ordinary Form. It involves your CONGREGATION, your CANTRIX, and your CHOIR. The Mass consists of seven movements. Today we release the “Lamb of God” (see below). The other movements will most likely be released next week. We’re putting finishing touches on the rehearsal videos.
The voice of the CANTRIX in this rehearsal video is absolutely gorgeous—and then it’s followed by my junky voice!
To freely download the PDF score, locate #39171.
Composer of the Polyphony • I’m not revealing (yet) who wrote the polyphonic section. I’d be interested to see if anybody can guess. If I disclose what this piece is based on, it will be so obvious! But I want to see whether anyone can guess. Use the email address listed here (scroll down past the faces) to submit your guess. The composer was a priest who lived in the 16th century—but that doesn’t tell you very much.
What To Listen For • At the very end, there’s a running Bass line going upward using stepwise motion, followed by a Soprano line going downward, then a magnificent upward line starting in the Alto and continued (!) by the Soprano. The piece begins with a brilliant little “canon” between Soprano and Alto, as well as one between Tenor and Bass!
Hating Tradition? • As strange as it may seem, some priests despised the Mass as it had been developed through the centuries. About five years before I was born, Dom Gregory Murray published a pamphlet entitled: MUSIC AND THE MASS (1977) in which he declared on page 45: “Since the marvellous liturgical reforms of the Mass rite inaugurated by the Second Vatican Council and now brought to their conclusion, the liturgy has been shorn of its many absurdities.” I never had any difficulty assisting at the Traditional Latin Mass, even in grade school. However, Dom Gregory Murray wrote (p40): “If anyone had sat down to design a Mass liturgy which would make it as difficult as possible for an ordinary layman to take part in it intelligently, he could not have improved on the traditional Latin liturgy as it then was.” In spite of everything Vatican II said about Gregorian Chant, Dom Gregory Murray hated it, writing (p24): “After long years of experience and careful study, I see clearly that the need for reform in liturgical music arose, not in the 18th and 19th centuries, but a thousand years earlier in the 8th and 9th centuries, or even before that. The abuses began, not with Mozart and Haydn, but with those over-enthusiastic medieval musicians who developed the elaborate and flamboyant Gregorian Chant.” The famous KYRIE from the Missa De Angelis Dom Murray dubs “unliturgical.” Even the “genuine chant repertoire” (by which he excludes Neo-Gregorian pieces), Dom Gregory finds an “absurdity” (p38). Similar to Dom Murray was Father Godfrey Diekmann, whom some consider the most irresponsible liturgical reformer of them all. The Second Vatican Council had solemnly declared: “In accordance with the centuries-old tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the divine office.” In spite of this clear directive, Diekmann (3 March 1964) wrote: “What young candidate for the priesthood would ever consider the monastic life if there is even the possibility of having to spend three hours a day praying or singing the office in Latin?”
“Pedestrian” Is Good? • According to Dom Gregory Murray (p39), the goal of liturgical music is “hearty congregational singing,” and composers who attempt to produce “masterpieces” are blameworthy. Dom Murray goes on to say (p38) that liturgical music should be “pedestrian and obvious.” Speaking of the congregation, Dom Murray says liturgical music should make “the minimum demand on their musical skill, and should be so simple that they focus their attention on the words they are singing, not on the music to which the words are sung.” He never addresses the question of what to do with members of the congregation who are (for example) tone-deaf. He never even tries to justify his statements in light of what the Catholic Church has always taught vis-à-vis sacred liturgy and the arts (architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and so forth).
Conveniently Omitted! • Dom Murray conveniently leaves out what the Council actually said. For example, Vatican II solemnly declared:
The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. […] The treasury of sacred music [“THESAURUS MUSICAE SACRAE”] is to be preserved and fostered with great care.
None but a severely mentally-ill person would claim that “to preserve and foster with great care” actually means “to denigrate, attack, and forbid”—yet so many say precisely that! Adding insult to injury, these people claim they’re obeying Vatican II.
Against Computer Music • Readers probably know this, but I oppose utterly the notion that liturgical music should be “pedestrian and obvious” as Dom Gregory Murray says. I believe Catholics must preserve and foster with great care the THESAURUS MUSICAE SACRAE, as Vatican II ordered. This is one reason I’m against some (not all) of the reform movements which ‘spit out’ uninspired, monotonous, vapid settings of the MASS PROPERS by means of computer software. I know their intention is to promote the MASS PROPERS, but such efforts—in my humble opinion—seem destined to destroy them, because congregations might develop a contempt for the MASS PROPERS if they’re sung in settings devoid of artistic merit. And who can blame them? I’d be interested to know whether readers (especially conductors) agree that singing a simple hymn from the Brébeuf Hymnal would be better than performing a MASS PROPER in a shoddy and inartistic way.
Jeff Doesn’t Know • Why did Almighty God allow such a demolition of authentic sacred music? I don’t know the answer to that. I do know what Saint Isaac Jogues said to Saint René Goupil, when they were being tortured and burned alive every day (!) for two months without mercy:
Jogues knelt at the side of Goupil, who was bleeding profusely. “Dearest brother,” he said, “God has acted strangely toward us. But He is the Lord and the Master. What is good in His eyes, that He has done. As it has pleased Him, so be it. Blessed is His Holy Name forever.”
Therefore, it would seem that in the Ordinary Form we must do our best to preserve the THESAURUS MUSICAE SACRAE, while still making sure the congregation takes part, at least for some of the pieces. I’ve attempted to do this with my setting (above). My hope is that it “springs fourth from” the tradition of the THESAURUS and avoids anything secular, uninspired, goofy, undignified, monotonous, or Broadway.
Conclusion • The other movements of Saint Noël Chabanel Mass Setting are finished. We’re putting final touches on the rehearsal videos. The other movements will probably be released next week. I have to figure out how to best release the congregational inserts. May this Mass setting contribute—perhaps in a very small way—to an authentic renewal of the Ordinary Form.
