Category Archives: Choir Schools

Fr. William Finn and the Catholic Choral Tradition in America

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

It is perhaps easy to dismiss the Catholic choral tradition in America as being an inferior art to its elder European counterpart. We certainly don’t have as great a quantity of English choir schools or French monasteries.  Nevertheless, we have had, and quite frankly still have, a number of fine choirs, conductors and organists that I would place on par and even above our European brethren. One such name that behooves mentions is that of Fr. William Joseph Finn of the Paulist Fathers.

Fr. Finn, a Bostonian native, founded the Paulist Choristers at Old St. Mary’s in Chicago, and later the Paulist Choristers at St. Paul the Apostle, NYC. His choirs were considered legendary in their time, and under his direction the Chicago choir won first prize in a Paris competition from among almost 100 choirs, for which Finn was awarded the Palms of the French Academy by the French government. His choirs often sang on radio and toured the country and western world at a time when this was almost unheard of.

Sometime after Fr. Finn left Chicago for New York, one of his former choristers and by then brother priests, Fr. O’Malley, took over the reigns of the Paulist Choristers at Old St. Mary’s and conducted them masterfully until 1967. Some have wondered if this formed the story line of the film The Bells of St. Mary’s.

Hearing loss forced Finn to give up the Paulist Choristers in the 1940s, but his influence continued through the numerous books he wrote on music through the years. Quite possibly his great work, The Art of the Choral Conductor is worth a doctoral education on the art of choral training, and the amount of ink he gives to the blending of individual lines and to blending of the choir as a whole is eye (and ear) opening. His later chapter on sight-singing is perhaps the most succinct explanation I have ever read on the process of teaching this art to choristers.

Then again, if you prefer something rather more light hearted, his autobiography, The Flats and Sharps of Five Decades, is a delightful read. My one disappointment after having digested it is that I found very few extant recordings of his choirs. In the book he took such pot shots at world famous ensembles, going so far as to accuse the Westminster Cathedral Choir of always singing flat, that his own choral institutions must have been, or at least should have been, almost other worldly.

Another early work is his Manual of Church Music, which he co-authored while still a seminarian. This book is every bit as foundational and even more in depth than Sir Richard Terry’s Church Music, but has largely been forgotten. It contains a wonderful apologia for the use of men and boys voices within the liturgy, linking it back to levitical priesthood. Of course, this would largely fall on deaf ears today, but one can sense the excitement at the time and the feeling that following Pius X’s motu proprio Church Music had at long last been pointed in the right direction and that days of glory were ahead. In many ways the early liturgical movement was a beautiful time in the life of the Church.

As a final gift, I thought I would leave the listener with a recording of the Paulist Choristers of Chicago performing the Gloria from R. R. Terry’s Mass of St. Gregory at Midnight Mass at Old St. Mary’s in 1964. The choir is under the direction of Fr. O’Malley, but since he was a disciple of Finn, perhaps it will offer us something similar to what one might have heard under the later’s baton.  Enjoy!

St. Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Sydney Australia

CDs, Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Discipline, Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Organ, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing

I recently experienced the thrill of the hunt when I stumbled upon the Facebook page of St. Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Sydney, Australia, last Lent. To be fair to myself, I had known about and listened to recordings of this fine choir numerous times over the past and had always considered them to be an exceptional group of singers, but it was a a Facebook recording of the choir singing Bruckner’s Christus factus est as the Gradual on Good Friday that struck deeply into my soul.

I’ve heard and sung the piece on many occasions, but never at that precise moment, the proper moment, in the Good Friday Liturgy. Put there, immediately before the reading of the Passion, it beautifully encapsulated the emptying out of Christ on the Cross, yet because of this contained the seeds of glory that would be Christ’s Name, that Name above all other names. I must admit I watched the video a number of times and never tired of it. I even shared it with some of my choristers. It also led to a deeper search of the choir’s website where I discovered another gem–the choir’s podcast, Staved Off.

If you are interested in the great English Cathedral music tradition (I know, the choir is not from England, but I doubt if most listeners could tell that) and want to know more about its inner workings, please consider listening in. There are about a dozen podcasts in all and topics include things such as music for the holy seasons throughout the year and other events such as weddings, information about the choir’s 200 year history, choral festivals, Gregorian chant, English and Latin hymnody and much more. You will hear great recordings of great music sung by the choir and links are provided to numerous other related items. Thomas Wilson, the director of music, is one of the hosts, so you get the information straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak (no disrespect meant to Mr. Wilson). I hope you enjoy them as much as I do!

 

Further Thoughts on the Westminster Cathedral Choir

CDs, Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Music for the Liturgy

Two weeks ago I shared with readers a letter I sent to the Head Master of the Westminster Cathedral Choir School (London) regarding the school’s recent decision to alter the boarding arrangements of its choristers. I felt (and continue to feel) that such an incredible religious and cultural institution as the Westminster Cathedral Choir must be preserved and promoted at all costs.

The Westminster Cathedral Choir was built, so to speak, by Cardinal Vaughan and Sir Richard Terry, the choir’s first director, in 1901 alongside the actual cathedral, owing to the Cardinal’s belief (and the Church’s) that nothing should be spared in the worship of almighty God and that all the arts, but especially music, should be employed toward that end. If a grand cathedral for London was to be built, then there must be a program of sacred music worthy of the Ancient Rites that would celebrated in it. Sir Richard, a convert to Catholicism and the undoubted leader of the revival of English Renaissance music, fulfilled the cardinal’s desires and made his dream a reality.

In the wider western world, Pope St. Pius X would shorty release his Motu Proprio Tra le solecitudini, calling for the restoration of Gregorian chant as the Church’s music par excellence and for the primacy of Renaissance polyphony above other choral music. At the same time, the early music scene was alive and well in England and much of the early music that Terry unearthed eventually found its was into the cathedral music lists. It was thanks to Terry that we now have the Byrd Masses for 3, 4 and 5 voices and many other gems of the English Renaissance. To this day, the influence of Pope St. Pius X and Sir Richard Terry are evident in the cathedral music lists, where Gregorian chant and polyphony, especially works from the English pen, form the bedrock of the cathedral’s music program.

Equally impressive as Sir Richard Terry are many of the men who took up the baton after him, names such as George Malcom, Colin Mawby, Stephen Cleobury, David Hill, James O’Donnell and now Martin Baker.

A number of years ago I had the privilege of hearing the choir live in concert and even the greatest of expectations I had were blown away. If I had had any misgivings about the $25 ticket I purchased (a large amount in graduate school), they were quickly done away with. I vividly remember being moved that evening by the simple chanting of the Veni Creator in alternatim with Durufle’s variations on the same melody. On my way out, I bought a CD of the choir singing Christmas Vespers and listened to it so much in the ensuing years that many of the tracts no longer played.

There are so many things I would like to share about the Westminster Cathedral Choir, but perhaps I will end with this. Each summer I spend two weeks at Benedictine College in Atchison, KS, teaching high school students in the college’s immersion programs. One of my favorite things to do is to share with these young people how music is able to convey Truth, Goodness and Beauty in a way that the spoken word never could. Listening to Sir James MacMillan’s setting of the famous passage from Matthew 16, Thou art Peter… (Tu es Petrus), we flesh out a greater understanding of the  Petrine ministry in the life of the Church in general and in the life of English Catholics in particular.

In this video we watch as Pope Benedict XVI enters Westminster Cathedral during his pastoral visit to England in 2010, the first visit from a reigning pontiff since the number of practicing Catholics surpassed the number of practicing Anglicans in 2007. The very term “pope,” from the Greek word for “father,” reminds us that our Holy Father is just that, a father, and that a father’s first duty is to provide for, to serve and to protect his children, even fighting for them when necessary. When we realize that Catholicism in England only recently emerged from four centuries of persecution and even now is under new forms of assault from modern culture, MacMillan’s setting, which conjures up images of a great battle, seems especially poignant. One might easily imagine it as a musical backdrop to the epic battles in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Pope Benedict, in this moment, prepares to enter into battle on behalf of his English children, but one is struck by the frailty of the man and realizes that this battle will not be of a physical nature, but of a spiritual one. By the grace of the Sacraments, particularly the Holy Mass, the devil will once again be put to flight. The music acknowledges this truth as it serenely comes to an end and the choir intones the Introit. Pope Benedict, papa, enters into the Holy of Holies, and in persona Christi is victorious over sin and death.

I am reminded of the care with which the Pieta was transported from the Vatican to New York City for the World’s Fair in 1964 and I hope and pray that the Westminster Cathedral Choir will be treated with as much veneration and respect.

To the Headmaster of Westminster Cathedral Choir School

Choir Schools, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Organ, Probationer Training

As many of you are no doubt aware, Westminster Cathedral Choir School (London) recently made the decision to fundamentally alter the boarding status of its choristers, thus jeopardizing the choir’s sole reason for being, to sing the daily praises of God. What follows is a letter I am posting today to the school’s headmaster, Mr. Neil McLaughlan. I would encourage you to do the same, or to email him via office@choirschool.com.

May 7, 2019

Dear Mr. McLaughlan,

On the afternoon of April 15, Catholics the world over learned of the devastating news of a monstrous fire ravaging through the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, seemingly destroying everything in its path. We watched through flames and embers as the roof and spire crumbled, fearing that all (literally) would be lost. The stained glass, the organ, the Crown of Thorns, the bell towers, even the Blessed Sacrament, Himself—we wondered if the fire would take it all and all that it stood for. Only on the following morning did we learn that miraculously Our Lady’s cathedral still stood, her great rose windows still captured the morning sun, her Cavaillé-Coll organ would once again chant the unending praises of God, and that due to the bravering of so many firemen and their chaplain, and undoubtedly due to the prayers of so many offered around the world, the Crown of Thorns and most importantly, the Blessed Sacrament had been saved.

Imagine my sorrow then when I recently learned that Westminster Cathedral Choir School would fundamentally alter its choristers’ boarding arrangements and decrease the choir’s intimate connection to the Cathedral’s life of sacred worship. It seemed that a second tragedy, on par with the fire at Notre Dame, had struck the Church in Europe. No doubt the choir’s standard will remain high, but that is not the choir’s ultimate purpose. Just as Notre Dame was not built to be a tourist attraction, but as a worthy tabernacle for the Divine on earth, so Cardinal Vaughn and Sir Richard Terry founded the Westminster Cathedral Choir to sing the praises of God daily, not merely when convenient. Just as Parisians in the 12th century felt compelled to give the best they had to God, so should the folks of Westminster Cathedral in the 21st century.

As I am sure you are aware, the Westminster Cathedral Choir is every bit as important, beautiful and sublime a gift as Notre Dame Cathedral, only much more fragile. Fires and revolutions have not been able to sweep away such a great edifice. Even in the quiet of the night, she stands as a testament to the glory of God. The cathedral’s choir, on the other hand, must be renewed, rebuilt and restored through an unending round of rehearsals, lessons, Masses and Offices, which simply are not possible without the full boarding of its choristers.

Several years ago, in an email exchange with Colin Mawby, Westminster’s former Master of Music described to me the precarious circumstances of the choir school during the turbulent 1960s. He told me he never knew from day to day if the choir school would survive another year, and at one point even announced that its doors would close. Yet he fought and prayed, much like the firemen at Notre Dame, and by the grace of God saved the institution.

It is true that changing the boarding arrangements of your choristers is not nearly as drastic as closing the choir school entirely, but it would signal the death knell of the choir’s sole raison d’être, the daily singing of the Church’s Opus Dei. Like the great Cathedral of Notre Dame, this daily musical offering belongs not only to the Church in London and the British Isles, but to the universal Church. It is an inspiration to Catholics and many others around the world and it is THE standard of Sacred Music in an increasingly secular world, but most of all, it is an offering of love we owe to the Creator of All. Please be assured of my prayers in this difficult time.

In Jesus and Mary,

Dr. Lucas M. Tappan

Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, founder and director

Strive for Greatness!

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Organ, Probationer Training

I offer the following as a healthy antidote to so much drivel we hear today in the Church coming from people who should know better. Stop trying to remove the cross from Christianity and from our every day lives. Stop trying to make everything easy, and therefore unimportant. Instead, help us and those around us to pick up our cross and follow Christ.

Consequently, if you are church musician, strive for greatness, both for yourself and for your music program. Don’t stoop to the lowest common denominator. Again I say strive for greatness!

  1. Strive for greatness yourself. Do you strive to become a better musician, singer, organist? Do you strive to better manage your tasks? (and I don’t mean trying to get more done).
  2. Ask those around you to strive for greatness. Do you expect greatness from those around you? Do you always push them to greater heights, without pushing them too far? Do you strive to understand them and what you can do to help them achieve greatness? Do you accept constructive criticism from those same people when they push you toward greatness?
  3. Give your musicians quality music to sing and play and ask them to sing and play it well. Each parish will have a different dynamic, but even if you find yourself in a less than ideal situation, insist upon quality in the music. You won’t find yourself striving for greatness if the best you can hope for is mediocre music done well.
  4. Communicate through the music. I assume you work to get the notes right, but do you work to communicate the text? Yes, what we do is ultimately for God and this should always be first and foremost in our minds. Nevertheless, there is nothing wrong with edifying our parishioners at the same time.
  5. Ask for feedback from sources you can trust. Not everything you do will be great. Make sure you have some trusted sources who think with the mind of the Church, but who nevertheless will tell you when things aren’t going well or could even be better.
  6. Work to build healthy friendships and to know your musicians outside of your music program. Holiness and love for good music is more caught than taught.
  7. Strive for holiness and real communion. This is the most important of all, but don’t think it is holiness versus excellence. Rather, excellence is part of your holiness. Above all else, spend time with our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament and do all that you do with Him and for Him.

Regarding the last point, I am reminded of the following passage from the book In sinu Jesu: “This is what I want of you: time “wasted,” spend in My presence. Time given to Me for My sake…Do you think that I was always meeting with My disciples to plan events, to organize and strategize and plot our course of action? All of this is the world’s way of achieving what it sees as results. When I walked with My disciples, when I rested with them, our delight was in being together. They remained with Me for Me alone, and I remained with them out of My love for them, just as I remain in the Sacrament of the Altar out of the love I bear My whole Church…” (102)

 

 

Here is Where We Go

Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Discipline, Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Organ, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

A couple of months ago I composed a short article asking the question “Where do we go from here?” challenging cathedral musicians and music directors everywhere to found choir schools, or at the very least, choral foundations, where the art of sacred music might flourish once again. Looking forward, I hope to tackle various problems and answer questions regarding the tradition of choir schools and choral foundations in order to spur the renewal of sacred music in the English speaking world.

Our first task is to flesh out an answer to the question “What is absolutely necessary for the existence of a choral foundation (as opposed to the mere “choir”)? I would argue that at the very least it requires 1) a stable community of professional musicians who are 2) committed to practicing the craft of sacred music 3) within the context of the Sacred Liturgy celebrated in all its fullness.

Stable Community of Professional Musicians
As Dr. Kevin Vogt is wont to say, “music is an ephemeral art that only exists when it sounds in time.” Unlike a beautiful cathedral that is built once and stands for centuries, music must be created in time over and over again. It simply isn’t possible to put together a stellar choir once, sing the Missa Papae Marcelli and forever clothe all future Masses in that church in the sonic glory of  one of Palestrina’s crowning works. It takes a stable community of professional musicians daily practicing their craft in order to offer God and the faithful the Church’s treasury of sacred music (especially the best of it done well). The lack of such communities of professional musicians at churches around the United States is a serious impediment to the liturgical life of the Church.

Regardless of how it is accomplished, we need these stable communities, but we must be mindful that they will develop differently in different places. The major metropolitan cathedral will need an entire staff of professionals. The average parish in the mid west will need only one professional capable of gathering a community of committed amateurs who can be raised to the rank of professionals, even though they remain volunteers.

At the very least, a parish will need one trained professional to build this community. Unfortunately, I find there are two objections generally raised against hiring a professional musician: 1) there aren’t enough professionals to go around and 2) there isn’t enough money in the parish’s budget to pay for one. To the first objection, I can only concede its truth–there aren’t as many as there should be. To the second objection, I argue that it is all in one’s perspective.

The Church commands that we give God the best. If the injunction to give God the best doesn’t move you to find the means to hire at least one full time music director, perhaps the overwhelming evidence from secular sources that music is one of two things that most affects a worshipper’s experience (I hate that expression, but I am using it nevertheless) at Mass. If you still don’t know where you will find the funds, let me say this. As a Catholic man who tries to follow all that the Church teaches, my wife and I have been and continue to remain open to new life in our family. Because of my wife’s ongoing struggles with infertility, each one of her pregnancies is much more expensive than the average woman’s. It costs  a lot of money to be open to new life, especially as the number of one’s children increases (and we are only at four). We would be much farther down the road to retirement had it not been for children, but that is what it costs. It is simply going to cost you. How important is the sacred liturgy to you?

Returning to the question of a stable community of professional musicians, I would like to ask a question. What if, for the sake of argument, you are the great professional your pastor hired to begin a sacred music program and you have turned a really solid group of amateur singers into a semi-professional church choir that sings every Sunday and Holy Day between September and Corpus Christi? Is your choir a stable community? I would answer that you have accomplished something to be very proud of, but you still haven’t arrived at the point of being a stable community. Your choral foundation needs permanence. Even if your parish has a full time salary in the budget and you plan to be at your parish for the rest of your life, your work hasn’t been made permanent. What if your pastor moves and the new pastor cuts the music budget in half? What if you keep your great pastor but there is a recession and your budget gets cut anyway? What if you have to move? Is the program and budget sufficient to entice a replacement to your location? I have known of more than one excellent program succumb to similar circumstances.

There are a couple of solutions to these cunnundrams. If you work in a larger parish or cathedral setting one possibility is to endow your music program. This will help to ensure that you always have an assistant organist and a quartet of paid singers to augment what is hopefully an already fine amateur choir. Another possibility, and one that is probably more feasible in the smaller parish, is to establish your choral program as a separate non-profit. This will make sure you can continue to operate your program and GROW your program into an actual choral foundation without the entrusion of often well meaning people who nevertheless place other priorities, like air-conditioning and parking, before those of a great program of sacred music.

Lastly, I think a community of professional musicians, a family of musicians we might say, who are dedicated to the craft of sacred music, should be open to new musical life. What I mean by this is that there should be a commitment toward the formation of new musicians, and this is why a chorister program for children is essential to any choral foundation. It is a wonderful thing if your parish or cathedral possesses a fine choir capable of tackling all sorts of repertoire, but you need to pass on this craft or it will die, no matter how beautifully your choir sings or how often it sings. There are all kinds of challenges to working with children, but there are great rewards, too, especially when one comes to you and announces she has been inspired to enter the field of sacred music.

Learning the Craft of Sacred Music
We marvel at the skills of organists such as Olivier Larry and James David Christie, or great choirs like the Madeleine Cathedral Choir or St. Paul’s, Harvard Square, because they make what they do look so easy, but the reality is very different. It has taken them years of practice to arrive at such a place. If you ever hope to start a great choral foundation, you must acquire the mentality and habit of constantly teaching all those who sing or work for you (and learning just as much from them in return). In order to raise a choir to the point where it is able to chant the full Ordinary and Propers of the Mass beautifully and tackle the great choral repertoire of the Catholic Church, you will have to train your musicians, even the best of them. I am not aware of an organist training program in the US that actively trains organists to accompany Gregorian chant. I have also encountered a number of professional singers who struggle to sight-read music, whether modern or square note. When you train children you have to teach all of this from scratch. Hopefully you will also  inspire others to take up the work that you yourself do.

I will also say that the more Masses and Offices your choral foundation sings, the greater its proficiency will become in a shorter amount of time, which leads to my last point.

The Sacred Liturgy Celebrated in All Its Fullness
This is something that I grant is hard for the musician to control. This last point comes down squarely upon the priest. It isn’t enough to have the Novus Ordo celebrated in continuity with our liturgical heritage, or even to have the Extraordinary Form. There has to be a mentality on the part of our priests that the Sacred Liturgy REALLY is the source and summit of our Christian life, the very heart of all we do in this life and the totality of all we will do in the next. It is not merely about passing on doctrinal purity (although this should happen) or ensuring uniformity in Christian practice (as important as this is). It is about being brought into the very life of God in all of its truth, beauty and goodness right here and now. It is the Gesamptkunstwerk of eternal magnitude and only when we view the Sacred Liturgy in this way will we understand the effort of generations of Christians to build churches like Chartres or Cologne Cathedral or to found choral institutions like Regensburg or Westminster. The priest must understand this and strive to live this reality in his own parish or what we do makes no sense (our music will be nothing more than a great concert tacked on to the liturgy). Once this reality is present and lived, I think there are some basic principles musicians should follow in order to support the work of our priests in their sacramental duties.

First, we should make the commitment to provide for the Sung Mass on most Sundays and Holy Days of the year. Ideally this commitment would extend to EVERY Sunday and Holy Day of the Year. David Hughes’ fine professional choir at St. Mary’s in Norwalk, CT, is an example of a choir committed to sing the Holy Mass every Sunday and Holy Day. Closer to my home, the Fraternity parish of St. Rose Philippine Duchesne in Kansas City, KS, makes the same commitment with its incredible fully amateur choir. Ideally, this might even include Choral Vespers on these days.

It also behooves me to write that we need parishioners who live the liturgical life as well (this again will fall on the priest to cultivate). Otherwise Vespers looks like a concert with only the priest in attendance and it quickly becomes just another professional commitment for the choir. We should recall that there are people living today who grew up in large working class families that faithfully prayed Sunday Vespers in their parish communities as part of their spiritual lives. We need to bring this back if we want to make all of Sunday Holy. The parish community is just as necessary to the health of a choral foundation as the community of those in the choir itself.

Some might ask if all of these things have to be present before we begin our work and I would reply that obviously we have to start with what we have and rebuild our civilization brick by brick. Nevertheless, we have to keep the big picture ever before us and not shy away from building as much as we can. Some of these things will have to develop organically and some of them just need to be done. Regardless, in the words of St. Francis, “Let us begin again, brothers, for up until now, we have done little or nothing.”

Millennials and Authenticity

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Uncategorized

Following the recent Synod on the Youth and the comical spectacle of some prelates trying to be relevant to young people by hosting a disco for them in the Piazza della Minerva, I would like to take up the topic of millennials and authenticity once again, especially as it regards sacred music.

If there is one mantra I continually hear regarding this enigmatic group, it is that they desire authenticity–but here we need to define terms. What do we mean by authenticity? What do they mean by authenticity? I think it is necessary to look at the lives most millennials have lived to this point and ask what unreal situations have they faced and experienced and what does this teach us about the reality, or authenticity, that they desire.

First, we start at home. Here we see a generation raised primarily in broken homes, where mother is divided against father and father against mother. Many of their fathers were never present, leaving their mothers to raise the children. Even if their mothers were present, many chose to drop off their children, their family’s greatest commodity if I might put it that way, at the local day care to be raised by surrogate, or unreal parents. Millennials  have had no experience of authentic family.

Second, we look at friendships. Friendships for millennials exist primarily in the virtual worlds of Facebook, Twitter and the many other forms of social media that allow them to be completely engaged with everyone and no one, all at the same time. Over and over we hear of the tragedy of a young person with 500 Facebook friends committing suicide because he didn’t have one real friend. Millennials have had no experience of authentic friendship.

Lastly, we look at religious affiliation. Millennials are leaving the Catholic Church at an alarming rate (around 85%). The Church, or I should say those in the Church, have bent over backwards to be relevant in every way, shape and form to this generation. We have given them everything they wanted, even liberation from God. Millennials have had no experience of authentic holiness.

All of this has left the millennial generation floundering in doubt, disbelief and depression. Is it any wonder they desire authenticity? I firmly believe that deep in the recesses of their souls they want someone to tell them that despite the best propaganda available today, they are not their own gods and don’t need to try to be. Yes, they are sinful (any millennial who takes even a brief look at his life can see that) and need a Savior, and no they cannot save themselves. Instead, there is something, rather Someone, who can. Jesus Christ! More than that, He loves them with an eternal love that seeks to burn away their imperfections and purify them until they are able to love in the way that He loves. This is true authenticity and the only way to bring millennials out of the self-imposed prisons in which they find themselves. At the heart of this transformation lies the turning away from worship of self to worship of the One, True God, as He is and not in the image we wish to make Him.

In this way, the Sacred Liturgy, our worship of the One, True God, and the music wedded to it are of supreme importance. Is the music we sing authentic? Does it speak to the reality of God as He has revealed Himself? Does it authentically present the Christians “story” in all its fullness: creation, the fall, the Incarnation, the Pascal Mysteries, the Second Coming and the Parousia? Does the music’s rhythm and melody work toward the glory of God or toward our own self fulfillment?

In the Roman Rite, this means that chant, especially where it concerns the texts of the Liturgy itself, is of paramount importance, whether in Latin or the vernacular. In addition to plainsong, polyphony should also have a role, but beyond this, there really is a large variety of musics and styles that could be considered authentic for the Sacred Liturgy. Unfortunately, there is also MUCH music that is inauthentic. Pope St. Pius X, in Tra le sollecitudini, gives three criteria for such authenticity: the music must possess 1) sanctity and goodness of form, 2) true art and 3) universality.

A number of years ago the CMAA published a pamphlet entitled Twenty-Four Questions on Sacred Music, and the very first question takes up a defense of these three criteria. I think it fitting to end with its explanation of these three criteria. We should spend time contemplating the music we make and ask ourselves whether it corresponds to these criteria. Is the music we make truly authentic sacred music? It really will have an impact on the millennials we hope to evangelize.*

“On the centenary of its promulgation, John Paul II urged us to revisit and learn from St. Pius X’s letter motu proprio on Sacred Music, Tra le sollecitudini(1903). Pope Pius distinguished three characteristics: “sacred music should consequently possess […] sanctity and goodness of form, which will spontaneously produce the final quality of universality” (§2).

“Concerning sanctity, for music to be sacred means it is not the ordinary, not the every-day. It is set aside for the purpose of glorifying God and edifying and sanctifying the faithful. It must therefore exclude all that is not suitable for the temple — all that is ordinary, every-day or profane, not only in itself, but also in the manner in which it is performed. The sacred words of the Liturgy call for a sonic vesture that is equally sacred. Sacredness, then, is more than individual piety; it is an objective reality.

“Concerning goodness of form, the Latin speaks of bonitate formarum, “goodness of forms”: this refers to the tendency of sacred music to synthesize diverse ritual elements into a unity, to draw together a succession of liturgical actions into a coherent whole, and to serve a range of sacred expressions. Excellence of forms also serves to differentiate those elements, to distinguish the various functions of liturgical chants by revealing their unique character. Each chant of the various Gregorian genres presents a masterly adaptation of the text to its specific liturgical purpose. No wonder the Church has consistently proposed chant as the paradigm of sacred music.

“Sacred music must be true art, says Pope Pius, “otherwise it will be impossible for it to exercise on the minds of those who listen to it that efficacy which the Church aims at obtaining in admitting into her liturgy the art of musical sounds.” Beauty is what holds truth and goodness to their task. To paraphrase Hans Urs von Balthasar, without beauty, the truth does not persuade, goodness does not compel (The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics, I: 19). Beauty, as expressed in the Church’s liturgy, synthesizes diverse elements into a unified whole: truth, goodness, and the human impulse to worship.

“Concerning universality, sacred music is supra-national, equally accessible to people of diverse cultures. The Church does admit local indigenous forms into her worship, but these must be subordinated to the general characteristics of the received tradition. By insisting on the continuous use of her musical treasures, especially chant, the Church ensures her members grow up hearing this sacred musical language and receive it naturally as a part of the liturgy.

*While I consider the Sacred Liturgy and Sacred Music to be of paramount importance in the evangelization of all peoples, I also want to acknowledge that these are not the only things necessary. Unfortunately, progressives often set up a false dichotomy between discipleship and the worthy celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, as if one naturally excludes the other, and they use this to downplay the importance of the Liturgy. I refuse to accept this straw man argument. It is both possible and necessary to have both—one cannot exist without the other.

Chorister Catechesis

Choir Schools, Chorister Training, Discipline, Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Probationer Training, Uncategorized

Each year the Archdiocese of Kansas City (KS) hosts a vocation day for area 5th grade students and as part of the day, Archbishop Joseph Naumann celebrates Holy Mass for all of the students. Quite naturally, he speaks to them in his homily about vocations, both the universal call to holiness given to each person as well as the particular vocation God gives to each Christian in order to live out his call to holiness.

I wasn’t able to attend the Mass this year, but I heard afterward from the mother of one of my choristers (Matthias) that at one point in the homily, the archbishop asked the students what their purpose in live was. One student answered with Matthew Kelly’s to become the best version of yourself. The archbishop acknowledged that was true, but that he was looking for something else, so he asked the question again. Matthias shot his hand in the air and the archbishop called on him. With a volume that only a 5th grade boy can muster, he rattled off that his purpose in life was to know, love and serve God in this life, and to be happy with Him forever in the next. Archbishop Naumann acknowledged that this was what he wanted to hear, strait from the catechism. Matthias’ mother told she she beamed with prided thinking she had done her duty to make sure her son knew his purpose, but when she asked him about it afterward he told her that “part of the credit goes to Dr. Tappan, who makes us tell him at every choir practice what our purpose in life is.” I must confess that I felt a great amount of pride upon hearing that. It is true that I ask each one what his purpose in life is, both on that particular day and for all eternity. I often wonder if what I teach in choir has much of an eternal effect on the lives of my choristers—I hope it does.

In a similar vein, my wife’s aunt and uncle, cattle ranchers in the beautiful Kansas Flint Hills, have five children, four of whom are grown now, but the father told me once that every single day, when they awoke at 5:30 in the morning and put on the first pot of coffee, he asked his children to tell him what their purpose was in life, and they had to be able to answer as Matthias did. The father told me recently that he still asks that question daily of his two grown sons who work on the farm. He also asks his daughters whenever they visit.

About 10 years ago, the middle of their five children, a daughter of only 15 years, was diagnosed with cancer and the family watched as she succumbed to the agonizing disease over the course of more than a year. Still her father asked her that question. What is your purpose in this life?  He told me that he also had long conversations with her about the glory of Heaven and how she was truly blessed because she would arrive there before the others. He told her she would have to pray that the rest of the family made it.

As the cancer worsened, she refused morphine as much as possible, offering up the pain for the conversion of sinners and for the holy souls in purgatory. As her body became so emaciated she stopped having visitors for a time because she was embarrassed by how she looked. It wasn’t long, though, before she asked for visitors again and told her family it was just the devil working on her vanity. The night before she died her family gathered in her hospital room to pray the Rosary and the Stations of the Cross and afterward she told her family that that was the last time that they would pray together, that she was going to go home. She died peacefully the next day as her mom drove home from the hospital and her father was driving to it. It is the only time I can ever remember a parent being filled with joy that his child had made it “home.” I will never forget having had the privilege of chanting the In pardisum at the funeral.

As we remember all of the faithful departed during this month of November, be mindful of the immense power that you as a choir director having in orienting your choristers toward Heaven, so that they, too, might one day be counted among the faithful departed.

A Refresher on Chorister Training

Anglican Choral Revival, Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Discipline, John Bertalot, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

It has been some time since last I wrote about chorister training, and now that the school year is fully underway, I thought it might be helpful to offer a refresher on the logistics of training our young people in the art of liturgical music.

I think the largest hurdle most choir directors face is actually working with children (if that is not one’s cup of tea). As always, there are both joys and drawback working with children as opposed to teenagers or even adults. Children bring an enthusiasm to choir rehearsal that is rarely topped and they have no preconceived bias toward learning to sight-sing. While your adult sopranos will begin to squirm as soon as you warm them up above a G or A below high C, that won’t be the case with children. On the other hand, if you have a great group of adults, they will move through music at an incredible rate of speed, which is the cause of deep satisfaction in the director AND the singers. Adults generally spare you discipline problems that spill out of children and there is the joy of adult interaction. Regardless, there are three areas that are especially helpful to be competent in when working with children.

First is the creation of routine. Routine helps children to grow. A proper routine can also steer children away from discipline problems. Every choir needs to have a healthy routine so the children know from the moment they walk through the door what is expected of them. I would highly recommend the book The First Days of School by Wong and Wong. It deals primarily with the classroom setting, but the routine of a choir is no different. If you set a certain tone in the first few rehearsals, you and your choristers will be off to a great start.

Second is the teaching of children. Knowing how different boys and girls are and how these differences help them learn differently is crucially important. Also important is knowing the difference between the way children and adults learn. Even within children, there are different learning styles depending upon the age and maturity of a child. If you are running a choral program from children in kindergarten through high school, I would suggest you acquaint yourself with the 3 main learning styles in the classical model: the grammar, logic and rhetorical stages. This is especially helpful when teaching younger children. As for working with junior high and high school children I would suggest reading Teach Like a Champion by Doug Lemov. All too often choir directors rely on a couple of key singers to support the entire choir as opposed to building everyone up into an effective choral unit. How do you help underachievers to work at the level of your best choristers? How do you help every child understand that he/she is absolutely crucial to the choir and that they need to work as if they, too, know that? Teach Like a Champion gives so many helps toward this goal that I can’t recommend it highly enough. I would warn you though, you must practice many of these concepts in front of a mirror before you use them in the class room.

Third, you will have to have a basic understanding of psychology. The same group of singers will one day make you think you have the best choir in the world and the next day make you wonder if they have ever sung two notes together. They will have a terrible pre-concert rehearsal and then dazzle you in the concert itself. On the flip side, they will also rehearse so well before Mass that you can’t understand why they sound awful 15 minutes later when Mass begins. Do you ride out the terrible music or is there a way to turn around a bad situation in the middle of it? Sports psychology is especially helpful here and there are so many of these books that you could probably choose one whose author and specific subject matter appeals to you personally and be fine.

Once you find yourself settling down to the actual teaching, the obvious question is how? For the traditional English way adapted to the Catholic setting (especially for the ancient form of the Mass) your first read should be Sir Richard Terry’s Catholic Church Music. His early time at Westminster Cathedral coincided with a flowering of liturgical and musical life within both the Catholic and Anglican spheres and many major English choir directors were writing books to explain to smaller parish choirs how the cathedrals did it. You can find many of these free and online at Google Books, but again, just start with Terry. You will find that while the cathedral music scene in England (Catholic or Anglican) has changed through the decades in regard to music choice, you will nevertheless find that the method is still rather the same. At the same time, I would say that the method has been broadened and deep by the addition of singing coaches and mandatory piano lessons (if not other lessons) for choristers. Every student you are able to coax into piano lessons will be nothing but a step forward for your choir. I can almost always tell the difference between choristers with similar abilities when one plays the piano and the other doesn’t.

If you find joy in creating a music curriculum for your students (and you should always try to deepen their musical knowledge), then all you need to do is decide what skills and to what level children need to learn them and then create a plan to systematically teach them. If this is not your forte, you might want to look at some of the current choral music training programs. Perhaps the Ward Method, Kodaly Method or Voices for Life (from the Royal School of Church Music) are right for you. I also highly recommend anything written by John Bertalot. I will caution that it takes an enormous amount of time to teach sight-singing, so many choral directors skip it. Please don’t. You are cheating your students and depriving them of a skill set that will provide one of life’s great experiences, being able to both create and perform music to a high level.

You will of course need repertoire for your choirs, and repertoire that is appropriate to where your choristers are musically. I have said it before and will say it many times again, I would rather hear children sing a hymn in unison or a piece of plainchant to a high degree that to hear them butcher even the simplest of 4 part motets. If you struggle finding repertoire don’t hesitate to ask online at places like the CMAA Forum. Look through the Corpus Christi Watershed website or Cantica Nova. Visit music lists of cathedrals or churches with a children’s choir at the same level as yours. I would even suggest simply teaching your choristers the liturgical music currently in use at your parish, but to a high degree. They will already have heard much of it, but your parishioners will notice it being sung well by a choir as opposed to being belted at various levels of competency through a microphone by one of your cantors. Do not be afraid to start with SIMPLE, as long as the text and music are of a high quality.

Lastly, try to get as much parental involvement as you can. You will need it to handle large groups of children and you will also widen your sphere of influence in the parish. If even a few influential parents in your parish think that you provide a program of high quality for their children, they will tell others and make your life (and recruiting) much easier. In the end, you will create life long friendship that will bring great joy to your good days and comfort to those difficult ones.

Leeds Cathedral and the Schools Singing Program

Choir Schools, Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Discipline, Music for the Liturgy, Organ, Probationer Training, Sight-Singing, Uncategorized

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. (Proverbs 22:6)

Today I would like to highlight the wonderful choral music program from the Diocese of Leeds, England, and the work they do on a weekly basis with more than 3,500 youth from around the diocese. According to Thomas Leech, the director of the schools singing program for the diocese, “this is the largest church music program in the country. It’s a diocesan program rather than a cathedral-centred approach. Although the cathedral choirs are of an extremely high standard, it’s always been important to us that the school-based work is most important—that then reaches out to the elite choirs, rather than the other way around.” (Music Teacher Magazine, September 2018, pg. 65) And reaching out they do, leading choirs in 53 schools, plus 6 professional boys’ choirs, six professional girls’ choirs, five mixed choirs, two youth choirs, and three university choirs. Needless to say, it takes a large staff to keep such an undertaking afloat: 6 full-time and 1 part-time musicians, a development administrator, 2 organ scholars, 1 choral conducting scholar, and 12 choral scholars.

One particular item of note is that the boys and girls are more often separated into different choirs than not, and the boys’ choirs have usually been founded before the girls’ choirs. This is very important if we ever hope to see boys and men singing in our church choirs in great numbers again. Unfortunately, militant feminism has driven males from many aspects of church life, but none probably more so than music.

I should also mention that many of these students come from impoverished areas, and if statistics in Leeds are similar to other urban areas in the western world, the majority probably come from broken homes as well. The schools singing program might well be one of the most stable forces in the lives of many of these children, which provides an incredible entry point for evangelization, and from what I have read, Mr. Leech and the diocese work to capitalize on this opportunity.

I have often felt that in addition to great choir schools at our cathedrals, the Church needs grass roots programs like this throughout our parishes. It is within the parish that most Catholics receive their sacraments and live the life of Faith. This model seems to be extremely well suited to providing high quality sacred programs within the reach of all young people, whether from rural or urban areas. I would personally love to hear from archdiocesan directors of music in these US of A and find out how feasible this might be. It seems that if it were to be successfully implemented even once in a few strategic geographical locations other dioceses would be willing to try it.

As a parting gift, I leave you with the following video of the massed cathedral choirs singing Ding! Dong! Merrily on High.