Communications

...Beethoven lives because of the humanity of his emotions, and I imagine Palestrina's greatness is similar, in spite of his alleged aloofness...

...THE QUESTION OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION^ Washington, D. C. TO the Editor:—I am very greatly disappointed...

...Cram unconvincing...

...Many of the newer manifestations of art are marked by violence...

...Smithberger's letter contains—notwithstanding the fact that an intellectual pyramid as solidly founded as Mr...

...One wonders if they were triplets, but that distraction is soon dispelled by the half profile of another bearer (perhaps their brother) on the other side of the reliquary...

...the modern and the ultra-modern are not even second cousins...

...Beethoven, as a matter of fact, grows with intimacy...

...Can we dissociate ourselves from the past...

...I failed to find that Mr...

...It is in this connection that I venture to intrude a personal reminiscence...

...Smithberger has "only a modicum of praise" for Whitman, and Mr...

...By this method, the chant more than "gained in appeal...

...Mass after glorious Mass from the Kyriale were chanted at their proper times—the Missa De Angelis, Orbis Factor, Alma Mater—that superb and poignant anonymous music whose true composer, said Huysmans in a burst of pardonable hyperbole, was God, the Holy Spirit...

...W. H. Hall of Columbia University...

...Is this a condition that should continue ? Without the art of the middle-ages, those centuries would be undistinguishable from the drabness of other periods...

...Interest in the vitally important subject of Catholic education seems to be waning before the discussion could really be said to have started—before the clouds of the first inevitable volley of personal rhetoric have fully dissipated...

...He is rather anxious to know the grounds of Mr...

...I further proposed the idea of a projecting sanctuary, not as a new idea, although Mr...

...It is not a novelty in this country and does not need to be "tampered" with...

...that it is native to us and has much of spiritual value to recommend it...

...Is it not a most opportune stock-taking of ourselves in face of a growing dislike and distrust of "the Church" to which we belong...

...Barry Byrne...

...I, for one, deny that this last accords with the spirit of our faith...

...and, then, secondly, I quarrel with his theory of art criticism...

...I do not admit the right of any member of that particular order to miss the point of anything...

...With him his tradition departed...

...Cram's lamented review, Christian Art...

...Your editorial reminds the reader that the Doctor's descant is only an Anglicized version of Gregorian chant...

...While the Church needs art to more fully express her innate beauty of spirit, the artist needs the Church to an even greater extent...

...other times, other devotions...

...Without religion there will be no art...

...Smithberger, after placing himself in such an equivocal position, say such nasty things about Mr...

...It blusters bravely in the first paragraph about expecting "sanity, if not conservatism, in an estimable magazine like The Commonweal...

...But there was no plainchant, harmonized or otherwise, save the Creed at the customary singsong rate of speed, and a fragment or two of the Proper...

...We might ask an infinity of questions—we might even ask the heads of our theological seminaries if any of their precious time is lost in matters that should be prerequisite, and what the effect may be...

...The past and present are in conflict...

...Hurley never had, and one of the best organists and trainers in the country was at its head...

...And thereby he shows, to my mind, that a mere education in form is not the all of music...

...TO the Editor:—Will you permit the comment of one deeply interested in a recent editorial of The Commonweal touching the revival of "descant singing" in the Church by Dr...

...TO the Editor:—Mr...

...Many knees may fail to function before the procession on the wall, picturing the transfer of the sacred relics of Saint Therese of Lisieux...

...To this end he adduced the only argument that bore on my article, the width of Santa Maria del Peno and of the cathedrals of Palma and Gerona, which, it may be assumed, he suggests as models for wide churches, since he specifically mentions them...

...With intimate acquaintance comes satiety...

...and was an absolute illustration of the "descant whose governing principle," says your writer, acutely, "was to arouse echoes of varying pitches and shades till the whole church was filled with the triumph of song...

...Now the reader's attention is trapped...

...The bluster becomes less brave: "Whitman receives only a modicum of praise and credit from me...

...His clearly expressed idea was not to seek a solution of the problem, but to ignore it and to revert to the antique plans for which he has been so long an able spokesman...

...Shuster's standing in American Catholic letters ought not be needlessly exposed to such meaningless scurrility as the first paragraph of Mr...

...The International Studio for December devotes a page to a mural painting, placed lately in the Paulist church...

...Members of those old established teaching bodies whose .traditional experience extends beyond our generation and beyond our particular conditions, have not taken advantage of this opportunity to express their own thought and give the benefit of their views and accumulated experience...

...and pronounces emphatically for the latter theory...

...If the man in the street may lift up his eyes to admire or condemn, may he also lift up his voice, or dip down his pen to record his impressions...

...His distinction lay in his great love and unique treatment of Gregorian chant...

...Shuster's article generously evaluated Whitman as a poet who "was tall enough to reach stars," and was critical, not primarily of " 'the good grey poet' " himself, but of a popular misimpression of the poet's leadership in "the true American renaissance...

...Again he says: "But today's generation finds the rich gobs of sentimentality which Beethoven exuded, too nauseating for intimate acquaintance...

...Thompson, by poetry, meant the general animating spirit of the fine arts...

...The question is whether the Church will take its old position of leadership in the arts or hearken to the voices of those so occupied with the past that they do not even admit a condition clearly evident in the present, a time which they affect to despise...

...The critic admits that even this intellectual pleasure in the study of form lasts only until we understand it perfectly, which shows that there must be something more than the mere study of form in the perennial joy of good music...

...to stand properly, lawfully, and above all, inoffensively for the ideals we profess...

...Does our generation really crave for a new style in architecture and in mural decoration—a new setting for the old things of ancient faith...

...Peter Moran, C.S.P...

...This content has, in fact, been the controlling force behind new forms, or, at least, behind the new variations of old forms, and it is the emotional content that keeps it alive today...

...Far be it from me to defend Whitman's life or much of his poetry...

...While my sympathy is with the American preference, I claim no credit for having originated it...

...This question suggests itself: Is there a "via media" ? And is it the manner of the middle-ages...

...Art removed from the Church is a child removed from its mother and a wilful, erratic child it becomes...

...This director, it may be remembered, was quoted as saying that descant would foster a religious renaissance...

...No one who ever heard a Gregorian Mass under his direction will forget the long-drawn closes to the Creed or the Gloria, solemn and triumphant like the coda of a great symphony...

...And finally he says that "hundreds of people educate themselves back to Beethoven, scores return to Bach, and perhaps a handful attains Palestrina—but even these are interested only as long as their knowledge is incomplete...

...Art is the heritage of the Church...

...But if anyone doesn't like Beethoven, that is only regrettable...

...I stated that the Catholic church plan, as it has developed naturally in this country, is that of a broad and relatively shallow church...

...Their features (and even their haircut) are the same...

...Shuster's article on Whitman...

...It may be that some who could be helpful in this matter have not been greatly impressed by some of what has gone before...

...When I was a boy I used to go to church in a famous Catholic parish of New York whose large choir of men and boys was under the direction of the late Dr...

...Edmund Hurley...

...the three deacons carrying the reliquary have pompoms on their birettas, and wear up-to-date dalmatics...

...There is, I admit, joy in the contemplation of symmetry, but an orderly presentation of the scholastic theory of matter and form might do the same...

...The brave bluster was against Mr...

...Cram seemed to think I believed it to be such, but as a logical adjunct to this type of church arrangement, one we find almost universally preferred...

...I ask them to waive any such consideration and to raise the level of discussion if they have any feeling that until now it has been somewhat beneath them...

...The Mass was by some Gounod or sub-Gounod—in short the usual sweet-stuff...

...that, as the plan is the basis of architecture, from this plan, different in proportion to those of the antique styles, could be developed—if consistently designed and enriched—an indigenous and creative architecture...

...Smithberger cries: "Are we going to explain it by naming it prejudice or else hopeless perversion of the truth...

...A controversialist...

...Fagan found my reply to Mr...

...Wilfred G. Lauer, SJ...

...Claflin's threnody on The Degradation of Music showed an intimate knowledge of musical form, but the article as a whole left me sadly unconvinced...

...Michael Cronyn...

...Hall's descant...

...We believe in art almost as we believe in sanctity...

...When I was again in New York I went to the great church where I had worshipped as a schoolboy...

...DESCANT SINGING New Milford, Conn...

...Shuster's does not suffer by comparison with one wobbling on its apex...

...The picture is essentially modern, even as the saint is modern...

...Cram touched on the problem as I saw and presented it...

...I hope that in the multitude of questions that might be asked, I have asked one at least that will open up this discussion as it ought to be conducted...

...It is more a matter of emotional content...

...So why does Mr...

...PYRAMIDS AND WALT WHITMAN New Haven, Conn...

...An eye-witness, describing the cemetery scene, wrote that the ordinary of the diocese wore his cappa magna...

...It was at the front during the war that I read of his death in a newspaper two months old...

...Cram in his article, seems to miss the point of my argument...

...He was the only director I ever knew or have heard of who understood that plainchant, beside being the most beautiful music ever written for the Church, may be popularized to accord with the change of ear brought about by centuries of counterpoint, so he introduced what was called polyphonic plainchant—that is, part-singing rendered by sets of voices in different timbres...

...I found it interesting to trace musical form from the origin of polyphony with Palestrina to the watered out forms of later and present-day music...

...As most of the problems in design that occupy attention are those of buildings insignificant in size as compared to these cathedrals, I do not see that his statement applied...

...This is to be expected, considering the long slumber of architecture and the decorative arts...

...etc...

...First of all, he says that Beethoven took liberties with the sonata and expressed his own emotional states and "this," he says, "at once limits the receptors to those of similar emotional constitution...

...William Franklin Sands...

...One must move with the age...

...Music, to me, is more than a mere fabrication of form...

...The Church needs only to claim its own to have her song—in the music of art—throb again on the ears of the ages, with new and irresistible charm...

...the upside-down pyramid dwindles to a pointless point...

...The awakening is, of course, accompanied by the disturbance and surface violence of a sleeper of strong vitality...

...and then, in a phrase which is itself a whole program, suggests that Gregorian chant would "gain in appeal" were it subjected to variations of the sort exemplified in Dr...

...Yet, I say, I am unconvinced...

...his hobby, the musical design of Palestrina...

...TO the Editor:—Your Benedictine correspondent is to be thanked for bringing again to mind the artistic work of the monks of the Abbey of Beuron...

...With canny eye it detects "a growing tendency toward either radicalism or deliberate one-sidedness...

...or is it to train it to attempt to build the future of our civilization...

...If modernism in things religious shall prevail, then Back Bay and Zion City are the climax of present-day spirituality...

...Harry McGuire...

...Smithberger's amazingly frank philippic...

...And lo...

...Their effort to develop a creative art and architecture imbued with Catholic spirit accords with the great Benedictine tradition...

...But painters, like poets, may take liberties with facts...

...I think, first of all, that Mr...

...that, as a rule, the churches as built are preferred by the priests and worshippers as being practical and desirable...

...All signs point to paganism in present-day art...

...Pulpit dialogues, literary lectures, sacred concerts, a choral tour of the Keith circuit, and a radio station more than atone for the public abandonment of half the liturgy...

...Beethoven lives and is a greater musical force than Palestrina to my mind, not because his form was more perfect in an absolute sense, for it was not, but because it was so perfectly fitted to the musical ideas which he had...

...Since Mr...

...Is this not as good an opportunity as has been offered in recent years to study the ..results of American Catholic education as evidenced in ourselves, frankly, completely, analytically, impersonally—scientifically, in a word...

...Or one who by trained experience, and wisdom, natural and acquired, is able and has the moral duty to guide and develop thought—-who can prescind from non-essentials in favor of enlightenment...

...To this I may say that it has already developed differently...

...There was still a large male choir, containing some ravishing voices, a wealth of select material such as Dr...

...PAGANISM IN PRESENT-DAY ART New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—The Commonweal's cover proclaims the place of art within its pages...

...Shuster's alleged "caustic attack" on Whitman...

...We are at the beginning of an artistic renaissance...

...Shuster has great praise for him...

...It is to be regretted that so little is known of this splendid work, and incalculable good would result from the publication, in this country, of a monograph illustrating it...

...Francis Thompson in his Shelley, begins those pages of sheer beauty with this statement: "The Church, which was once the mother of poets no less than of saints, during the last two centuries has relinquished to aliens the chief glories of poetry, if the chief glories of holiness she has preserved for her own...

...Hurley was choirmaster in this church for a quarter of a century...

...that the effort to adapt historic design, i. e., Byzantine, Romanesque, Gothic, or Classic, to this differently proportioned plan, has produced architecturally monstrous buildings...

...THE DEGRADATION OF MUSIC St...

...it was magnificent and overwhelming in its majesty, its emotion...

...When all of our fellow citizens are examining with great care the state of American education in general, are we afraid for any reason to look into our own principles...

...In his letter relative to my article on a new architecture, Mr...

...Is the young president of Michigan University right or wrong when he asks his student body, "is the ultimate object of higher education to train youth merely to utilize successfully the existing conditions of life...

...As a mere matter of publicity, would it not be of practical utility to see, in public print, reaching an intelligent community, what we have achieved, wherein we may still be lacking, what remedies are applicable to whatever condition may need remedies or stimulation...

...Must our record to posterity be our small copies of defunct architecture...

...and several paragraphs of approval are given in good measure...

...466 THE COMMONWEAL March 3, 1926 The saint herself high up in the Gothic arch above, may be above reproach, as saints in heaven should be—but when the faithful come to pray to her, it must be a distraction to be bothered by monks and monsignori...

...The outstanding expression is essentially material...

...Fagan, as did Mr...

...That will pass...

...And is not the past our heritage...

...Perhaps I can prevail upon these gentlemen to throw the light of their experience upon this difficult and admittedly delicate subject by challenging them publicly in this way: What is a teacher, after all...

...My scepticism is founded on several things...

...Wilfred Anthony's article in Dr...

...Nothing that can touch this matter can possibly be below the dignity of the best minds we have...

...Smithberger himself, then, is no defender of Whitman, why all the fanfaronade ? Mr...

...It is here that I disagree with his theory of criticism...

...Fagan also writes: "The church plan in this country does not develop differently from the church plan elsewhere...

...The presence of the Stars and Stripes amid the many fluttering banners suggests a memento for the League of Nations...

...If our churches become salons for the latest in art, will the multitudes drag their weary knees along the aisles, if our shrines take on the modernism of the Cusack bill-boards...

...The canvas described is an altarpiece to the Little Flower...

...Three members of one of the oldest of such communities in these parts have, it is true, taken part in the discussion, but all three completely missed the point...

...Today one would scarcely know that there was a Christian year in this parish...

...Church pageants are not uncommon, but his Lordship of Bayeux seems strangely accoutered in his rochet, wearing his mitre without cope or chasuble, and carrying his pastoral staff...

...I sincerely feel that a gentleman of Mr...

...Is there an island of safety between the devil of modernism, and the deep sea of ultra-modernism ? Rev...

...During the twenty odd years of my own knowledge of this work it has been a veritable beacon to me, a standard against which I have sought to measure my artistic efforts...

...This extraordinary musician," a well known prelate once said March 3, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 467 to me, "has rediscovered the music of the middle-ages, the secret of the saints, while a whole generation of savants has gone astray in seeking to restore it to the love of the people...

...Louis, Mo...

...that the plan described is followed in the majority of cases...

...But the author had a thesis and a hobby—his thesis, the decline of music...

...Andrew Smithberger's letter in the issue of February 10, generously entitled by the editors, Defending Page and Whitman, is very much like an inverted pyramid...

...Apparently he disliked publicity, and even after he had composed music, written a book on Gregorian chant, and been honored by our late Holy Father, Pius X, he scarcely became better known...

...I pass this remark without making any comment...

...Has that attitude anything to do with education, in any measure, even remotely...

...New Yorkers who would like to know what those offices and ceremonies, which stud like lights the Christian year, were like in this church up to 1918, might look up Mr...

...Claflin made a few rather damaging statements...

...Some "genius loci" seemed to have fled from that noble church, and I have sometimes thought the genius to have been the very soul of Catholic worship and Catholic music once blended as they will never be again...

...He looks like the bishop of Hollywood...

...It does cry for artistic solution from architects designing Catholic churches, and for an appreciation of the fact by priests and others concerned, that it is a problem which is also the Church's great artistic opportunity...

...TO the Editor:—Mr...

...To my thinking, a picture in a shrine should bring the beholder to his knees, even before his eyes are fully satisfied...

...Are we helping to build a civilization-t-and, most important, are we leading or following in the process...

...Moreover, the whole Gradual and Antiphonal were sung...

...We are unused to open discussion of our affairs and hesitate very largely (in my opinion) because we have lived until late years in isolated communities and have not yet quite found ourselves as the power that, in fact, we are...

...Then, in best oratorical manner Mr...