Communications
46 THE COMMONWEAL May 15, 1929 COMMUNICATIONS WHAT SHALL THE FAITHFUL SING? Louisville, Ky. TO the Editor:—I have read with much interest the article What Shall the Faithful Sing?, by Mr....
...It would indeed have been a gratuitous impertinence on my part had I dedicated an article to a clergyman whom I admire only in order to label him a fanatic in the course of its pages...
...Herbert W. van Couenhoven...
...Yes, when a more universal knowledge of the history and pure beauty of these melodies is realized, her reward shall have been paid—paid with the silver of more humble prayers before her sacred altars, and with the gold of a more obedient and reverent faithful...
...and Mr...
...it was sensuous...
...I unhesitatingly place myself in the category of those Catholics who, though appreciative of the beauty of the music sung in the Mass, know extremely little of the fundamental differences of music, especially when it is compared with the Gregorian...
...Surely this is an over-statement...
...The article offered a suggestion to me rather than an urge to analytical comment...
...Wright's hardihood in dedicating his astonishing paper to one who has given his best efforts to a spread of the use of the holy chant...
...This indifference, I suppose, springs from the layman's knowledge that the Church has adopted the Gregorian—but exactly why, and what this Gregorian is, as compared to other music, he cannot say...
...Love for plainsong and polyphony will find a way...
...In conclusion I would be glad to have someone enlighten me as to where the custom of a processional and recessional arose ? Why this solemn entry and exit of laymen, young and old, singing hymns the while in the vernacular...
...We have plainchant," organists protest, "as well as modern things...
...And why the pointless aside as to what Anglicans were or were not doing in the matter...
...TO the Editor:—In referring to What Shall the Faithful Sing?, Mr...
...It seems that, truly, everywhere is the sound of music by day and by night...
...But I have no desire to cavil at a criticism which, on the whole, I comprehend and respect...
...Let us be honest with ourselves, and with each other...
...D. Gray...
...And now, thanks to the Jones Bill, violation of the Eighteenth Amendment is a crime even greater than murder...
...If we western Catholics know what is best for our everlasting good, we shall do our utmost, positively and negatively, to realize the ideal so well set forth by the two Popes Pius but, alas, still so very inadequately grasped or practised in American Roman Catholic seminaries, cathedrals and parish churches...
...Herald the Church music that its richly-tinted and triumphant notes may ring, crystal-clear above the tin-pan symphonies of our time...
...Because I love Gregorian I think the mandate well and wise...
...D'Orange will certainly find that there are Catholic churches in which the Holy Sacrifice is offered according to the rites of Constantinople, Milan, Toledo, Antioch, Alexandria, Edessa, Armenia, and the various Dominican, Carthusian and Carmelite religious communities...
...The Ninety-first Psalm, popularly called the Miserere, was by Allegri, a sixteenth-century Italian contrapuntalist...
...I venture to say that the average layman cannot correctly define them...
...It is a saddening thing that in many of the quasi-basilicas of this country, trick organs are performed upon by trick organists...
...If we have got to have unliturgical music in our churches (and I suppose Father Donovan would not deny that this is the case at present) then I think it better that it should be fair rather than downright infamous—which is also the general case at the moment...
...Wright's article is of use, if only to show up just how slowly progress is being made in obeying the directions set forth in the Motu Proprio...
...There may be certain excuses for this condition of things, but there is no explaining it away...
...I take this opportunity also to apologize to my principal critic, Father Donovan, for dedicating to him an article so generally at variance with his views...
...We know, if we are able to read, that plainchant is the norm...
...Missa de Angelis ruled out...
...but, to affirm that the Roman Mass is Catholicism and that Catholicism is the Roman rite is as far from fact as is the glib thesis that "Europe is the Faith and the Faith is Europe...
...Plainchant came first in time, then polyphony...
...As certainly as our love grows for it, just as certainly will our reverence increase...
...At the time I was not so aware of our difference of opinion as I am after reading his eloquent letter in your columns, and can only plead, if it be an excuse, that the dedication was well meant...
...The Commonweal invites its readers to send in communications on all topics of public interest, regardless of whether or not such topics have been previously discussed in its columns...
...TO the Editor:—May I have space to express my appreciation of the interesting comments appearing in your issue of April 3 on my article, What Shall the Faithful Sing...
...Your correspondent evidently mistakes an impatience with the disastrous results of a "noble experiment" for a common disrespect for law as such...
...Let us obey the law of the Church in a spirit of self-discipline, if no better reason be at hand...
...Father Donovan misunderstands me if he supposes that when I wrote of musical fanatics "waging a sort of holy war to thrust Gregorian chant down everybody's throat," I was indulging in any personal suggestion...
...Why, then, sneer, as Mr...
...FOR UNIVERSAL OBEDIENCE Newark, N. J. TO the Editor:—In the April 17 issue of The Commonweal I notice that you are chided by one of your readers for your attitude on prohibition...
...Elsie A. Galik...
...I admit my inability to write a constructive comment on this article, because of my lack of knowledge of Catholic music...
...Shall we not now hope that this chaining of the ether waves to our firesides may prove the glad harbinger of the dawn of a higher civilization—of a nobler race of men ? I maintain that from the hand of modern magic will come still newer tunes and tones...
...In my opinion the problem is not in the least degree met, let alone solved, by prophesying fair things in the manner of the Catholic choir master, or by writing learned and interesting disquisitions on the method of singing plainchant in, say, the Monastery of Saint Gall circa 900 A. D. But the problem could be pretty practically alleviated by having one competent musical director per diocese, one parochial school per parish and, perhaps five or six organists with a good deal of piety and some musical education per municipality...
...And why head such extra-liturgical parades with cross and lights as though they were processions of canons and vicars-choral attached to a cathedral or collegiate church...
...Thus Palestrina would be included...
...Last Good Friday, for example, I went to the Office of Tenebrae, very nobly chanted in the same metropolitan parish extolled in my article...
...it was strongly directed to the nervous system...
...Had he quoted me to the end of the sentence he would have added "down everybody's throat in the form of a particular monastic technique...
...To such splendid thinkers as Mr...
...One has got to consider, not one or two exemplary diocesan centres, not one or two religious communities, but the average service in country and town, existing to testify the glory of God and the presense of the Catholic Church in this land...
...Well, I can assure the reader that the Allegri setting was intricate...
...Upon wider investigation, I think Mr...
...Wright so well put it in his article, "to exalt the honor of the Church, and the arts of the Church, and above all the prostration of the human creature before the stupendous sacrament of Christ's love...
...is a splendid article and certainly productive of thought...
...Last of all, I think there is a certain inconsistency in those who condemn modern Church music almost en masse, but approve of classical polyphony because the latter is rather explicitly approved in the Motu Proprio...
...48 THE COMMONWEAL May 15, 1929 Washington, D .C...
...The reference is, of course, to the Solesmes method, and if I do not love the latter as fervently as Father Donovan, it is not my fault, though it may well be my deficiency...
...Wright must know very little, indeed, of plainsong paleography or sound aesthetics, if, with seriousness, he can couple Ratisbon and Solesmes, Gounod with Palestrina...
...The Motu Proprio, however, is a dead letter...
...and by the same token it was profoundly solemn, moving, and I may say, exquisite...
...First and foremost, I believe, with my critic, in "a true appreciation of the chant and its restoration to its proper place in the liturgy...
...Let us help them to appreciate more fully the awful responsibility so nobly and judiciously shouldered by the Church through centuries—aiding here, and sifting there only at last to emerge as the rightfully accepted keeper of earth's vastest storehouse of divine melodies...
...And, in no way can we more aptly lend the "mellowing" hand in this responsible and universallyspreading task, than by striving to bring about a clearer understanding of Catholic music...
...Their children can go on to polyphony...
...Yes, I love it, its profound and civilizing airs, and I often think I would be dull indeed were I not to strain to catch the lingering melody in the Preface, or the soul-stirring air of the Pater Noster...
...It seems to match the quickened jazz-step of the rush-a-day world...
...Kent, Conn...
...but to what good end...
...Details of rite are not essentials of Catholicism...
...It gives pep, they say...
...It is both a responsibility and a tremendous opportunity...
...Modern "music" can thus be shelved for a long while, which will be no small gain...
...And more than that: many became so interested in this music that they secured copies of the airs to be memorized and sung...
...It appealed to me especially because I have long contended that Catholics do not sufficiently appreciate the Gregorian airs—do not place a correct value upon their inspiring qualities—do not pause to reason that, truly, they are used in the Mass, as Mr...
...If, according to the words of Pius X of holy memory, "the more closely an ecclesiastical composition approaches in its movement, inspiration and taste the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes, and the more out of accord it is with this supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple," must we not conclude that the only musical texts worthy of use in Roman Catholic churches are those built according to the authentic or plagal modes of Greco-Roman plainsong...
...Let us teach the little ones in school and church, nothing but plainchant, as far as Church music goes...
...Why should the date of a musician's birth determine his fitness to be sung in the sanctuary...
...Even at Low Mass, nothing could be more prayer-inspiring than the tender airs of "O Lord I am not worthy...
...Twenty-five years, and the reform is barely begun in this land...
...Indeed we do...
...And now, behold...
...And the fact is that the bulk of the music sung to the divine text which, as Father Busch reminds us, is an integral part of the liturgy, is a crying sin and a shame and a burning insult to Our Lord and a dishonor to His Church...
...Perhaps, in the meantime, others more in tune with the mind of the Church will have had a chance to learn and love it...
...We cannot love the church music of the Roman rite until we understand its principles...
...I am somewhat proud to say that I have talked so much about the beautiful airs in the Preface and the Pater Noster that a good many of my Protestant friends have requested me to take them to services in my parish church...
...while the faithful gaze and gasp, and finally crowd forward to see the "darling little choir boys" snail-pace out of the sanctuary singing luscious or military airs as a recessional...
...Who knows but that its solemn chords may stir some soul to a cleaving desire for light that will more surely guide it to realms of the wondrous Seraphim...
...In my article I tried to make clear the fact that the chant stands first, at least so far as I am concerned, that nothing can be compared with it as an aid to devotion...
...Music will thrive and grow, almost as a necessity to the human heart in its struggle for new vistas of tomorrow...
...Should we not—in this age May 15, 1929 THE COMMONWEAL 47 wherein wizardry has so followed the footsteps of woe—now loudly exclaim: "O help us, Mother Church, lift our hearts from the mundane to the Divine...
...Of course it is true that the essential elements of the Holy Sacrifice are the Offertory, Consecration and Communion, and that these parts are fundamentally the same in every orthodox liturgy...
...I have joyed in the thought that the widespread use of the victrola and radio has awakened in the hearts of men a deeper appreciation of music...
...Do we want the people to learn to sing the praises of God in His house or do we rather wish them to sit as quietly as possible and listen to a concert...
...However all this may be, my confidence in the ever-growing goodness of man is not shaken by his apparent acceptance of this harsh music...
...But I merely ask permission to call Father Donovan's attention to the following unhappy fact, and in doing so, I have no desire to offend anyone, nor to slip into the facile condemnations which I deplored in my article...
...Wright as to What Shall the Faithful Sing?, but rather, I think, to put it tritely, What Was That Piece They Played...
...True, an Introit, in its proper setting is thrown to the rubrics as one would toss a bone to a dog...
...It is perplexing...
...S. TWYMAN MaTTINGLY...
...Surely now, after twentyfive years, we ought to be able to be honest about this matter...
...Cuthbert Wright, in your issue of March 13...
...Did not trumpet sounds and angel songs herald the birth of Christ ? Has not music preceded the grandest parades of all time...
...The suggestion, then, that Mr...
...The time spent on training these persons to "process" in an appealing manner, might be spent teaching them how to sing Vespers...
...Feeling and liking have little to do with the matter...
...Wright was permitted, covertly, to do in your pages, at Solesmes...
...Why, there is hardly a sentence in Father Donovan's letter in which I do not concur with the most absolute enthusiasm...
...In other words, when most of us have to swallow Masses and motets which sound as if they were sold by the gross to visiting organists over the counter of Woolworth's, side by side with Victor records and chocolates, then I think it unreasonable on Father Donovan's part to strain at the gnat of a Gounod or a Rheinberger...
...Wright, as well as to those in charge of the archaeology of the Gregorian and other Church music, I say: Let us have more light...
...Wright applauds...
...I am so hopeful that I venture to surmise that, because music is so thoroughly linked with our presentday mode of living, it is a splendid omen for the future...
...all will have learned to do more than pretend to obey the law of the Church, all will have a chance to be, at the least, as Catholic as the Pope...
...Cuthbert Wright's attitude toward the "regula of Solesmes": since the monks of Solesmes have not only the most scientific and greatest quantity of paleographical source-material but exclusive ecclesiastical authority in the preparation of Roman rite music books, as well, I fail to see how a really Roman Catholic can preach the brand of musical "Catholicism" that approves the corrupt texts of Ratisbon or the profanities of Charles Francois Gounod...
...We know that the Benedictines know what plainchant is, and how it should be sung and taught...
...I must confess that I have been like thousands of laymen in that I have not been inclined to inquire with Mr...
...Frank D'Orange tells us in The Commonweal of April 3, 1929, that "the ritual of Holy Mass is the same all over the world...
...What does unite all genuine Catholics is neither ritual nor liturgical language but three things: subjection to the papal hierarchy, acceptance of the Vatican Creed, and possession of the seven divinely-instituted sacraments...
...Perhaps we shall learn to appreciate the chant if we bear with it long enough...
...With regard to Mr...
...What is the answer to these riddles...
...Wright's article gives me is rather in the form of new courage to cry out: Let us help the laity to a clearer understanding of Catholic music...
...New York, N. Y. TO the Editor:—One cannot refrain from expressing delight in Father V. C. Donovan's letter in The Commonweal of April 3. I wondered greatly at Mr...
...Surely no one will deny that the present-day extreme lawlessness is an effect of the bootlegging era...
...Cuthbert Wright...
...And who cannot guess that from such a question will come this definite answer: the emptiness of mere "Church music," and the golden fulness of Catholic music, whether it be that of Vespers or of the Mass...
...I fail to see how you can justly be accused of manifesting an interest in the "restoration of liquor traffic" when there has never been a cessation of it...
...Our principal difference seems to be that while Father Donovan prefers to half a loaf no bread at all, I prefer the half a loaf to something which is simply too repulsive to be termed even a mess of pottage...
...I plead for music at the Low Masses—not singing, but selected melodies on the organ: this because the people need it, and I dare say, want it...
...The "spotlight" of a red cassock and lace cotta set off the youthful singing bird of the day, while Gounod is permitted, in plain defiance of all directions to dance his way around the prostrate liturgy...
...Like him I accept the mandate of the Church...
...I merely wonder, and let it go at that...
...it was, in short all that which Father Donovan seemingly abhors in sacred music...
...Like the average church-goer I often wonder just why certain music is played at given times, and also why some airs are often omitted over long intervals of time...
...After all, is not the question just this: what are we after...
...The harsh clangclang of a radioed voice from the showman's doors mingles with the staccato-like music from the merchant's gaudily dressed show windows...
...The rules of the Church which regulate choir masters in their choice of varied airs are not now within my pale of knowledge...
Vol. 10 • May 1929 • No. 2
