Sound Does Matter

Choral Vespers, Chorister Training, Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Organ, Uncategorized

As we stand upon the threshold of a New Year, waves of joy and apprehension simultaneously flood my soul as I arrive, rested, back to work following a beautiful holiday vacation. Mind you, I don’t consider Christmas “done in” yet, nevertheless our new year of grace presents a time for fresh beginnings and in that vein I feel obligated to press for one particular New Year’s resolution from you and your music program—namely, switching from a predominantly fake system of amplification (that thing we call the microphone) to the beauty of natural resonance.

I confess an innate disgust for all things fake, but the microphone stands as a doubly dreaded foe due to my unfortunate lack of technical prowess. Perhaps it’s only my personal experience, but its use seems to fall into two camps in the Church. Ordinary Form parishes worship the microphone as the unum necessarium, the one thing necessary, to bring the Liturgy to life, while Extraordinary Form parishes tread upon the microphone as one attacks a venomous serpent. Thus I find the shear volume of the Ordinary Form parts my hair down the middle (but at least can hear the homily!) while the quiet of the Extraordinary Form graciously envelops me (even during the homily!). I realize this contemplative nature is due as much if not more to the very nature of the Extraordinary Form, but I wouldn’t mind a little updated amplification during the homily. It makes me feel unduly past my prime when my wife and I are forced to whisper back and forth throughout the 40 minute long sermon asking each other “what did he say?” Alas!

I will never forget about a decade ago entering the local church to pray and noticing that the pastor had a man from Bose Sound Systems on site testing new sound equipment. The priest read passages from Scripture as the technician experimented with various sounds levels and microphone positions, while the speakers, placed in the sanctuary facing the nave, produced such a loud cackle that I couldn’t even pull my thoughts together to pray. In a sense, I understood every word. As a matter of fact, I was beaten over the head by every one of them. Yet I had no space in which to contemplate the WORD because there was no silence, no quiet, no stillness. The pastor and I were friends, so he left the sanctuary to ask me what I thought. What ensued was a short conversation about the nature of the Sacred Liturgy and its twofold purpose of worship and sanctification. We spoke of the difference between the Catholic Mass and a Protestant worship service, the former by necessity sung as the Church’s eternal hymn of praise, while the latter is almost entirely spoken due to its over emphasis on the written word of God to the exclusion of the Word of God.

The sung Liturgy is much less attached to the microphone due to the repetitive nature of the Ordinary of the Mass and the natural resonance of the singing. Plus, the gift of silence offers one the priceless pearl of contemplation. Ask any mother what she would like after a day at home with the young ones and I guarantee you she won’t ask for more noise. Perhaps Christians share the same boat. They are simply tired of the noise.

I don’t know if my conversation with Father was the catalyst, but I noticed later that when the new sound system arrived, the speakers were mounted in numerous indirect locations to the congregation, replicating a pleasing and natural resonance. It was perfect!

On the other hand, most church musicians  follow the Rolling Stones amplification model of QUANTITY over quality. I watch in amusement as some church bands practically caress the microphones as they get tooled up (do I hear strains of Preciousssssss……) and later as they perform. Quite frankly it’s exhausting to listen to and practically douses any warm strains of congregational singing with the iciest of waters.

I felt somewhat vindicated recently when a good friend and far greater intellect (Dr. Kevin Vogt, Director of Music at St. Michael the Archangel in Leawood, KS) posted a New York Times article on Facebook entitled Dear Architects: Sound Matters—a wonderful read about acoustics and the forgotten ingredient in architecture–sound.

Vogt commented by way of a forward to the article that “while many people appreciate the beauty and reverence of our celebrations at St. Michael, many others feel it is lacking affective appeal. There are a lot of reasons why this might be, but those of us who experience and think about this every day believe that while our sound system is excellent, the scale of the room and the lack of early sound reflections make any unamplified sound very quiet and isolated…”

Chant and polyphony (and even congregational hymnody) developed before electrical amplification and I firmly believe that proper acoustics are essential to their success (I will spare you a long tangent about the overtone series). As Dr. Vogt recognizes, “As Catholics, we believe that Christ is truly present in the assembly of the baptized, when it prays and sing, and so the very sound of the Church praying and singing is ‘sacramental.'” The Church’s music loses much of its sacramental power when its natural voice is destroyed. Imagine the difference between chant sung in a carpeted bungalow as opposed to a Gothic cathedral (or even a humble country church from the 19th century for that matter).

Dear Architects: Sound Matters rightly makes the connection between sound (not just the amount, but the very quality of it) and the fittingness of a building (does it do what it is supposed to). For example, “an expensive, solid wood door sounds better than an inexpensive hollow one, partly because its heavy clunk reassures us that the door is a true barrier, corresponding to the task it serves.” In another place the author writes “If only subliminally, we also know, by contrast, when sound spoils architecture because it fails to correspond to funtion. The bygone Shea Stadium in Queens was joyless partly because the design of its low, wide semicircle dissipated the sound of a cheering crowd into Flushing Bay. Fenway Park in Boston is the reverse; it concentrates hometown joy.” Such a dichotomy is an apt description for many of our churches.

What good is it training choirs to praise God beautifully and to communicate the Gospel effectively if at the end of the day the congregation feels isolated by cold and emotionless music? I realize it is “right and just” to give God what He deserves whether people feel good about it or not, but in today’s climate the church musician is under fire from a thousand different voices shouting at him through more than microphones to be relevant. What musician would continue to offer such an invitation to serial martyrdom when no matter how well he does his job, the acoustical devil spits his work back in his face Sunday after Sunday. Maybe the first step is to slowly ween congregations from amplified sound (this Sunday perhaps), or if amplification is necessary, to convince one’s parish to invest in a high quality system that delivers necessary but understated amplification effectively. That would make a fantastic Resolution!

Of the Father’s Love Begotten…

Feasts of the Church, Music for the Liturgy

I must confess that I don’t turn on the radio to listen to Christmas carols, as nothing puts me more out of the season’s spirit than listening to the likes of Chestnuts roasting on an open fire… These songs—for that is all they really are—have precious little to do with Christmas and certainly aren’t carols. They can’t even claim to be good ol’ honest secular carols like Jingle Bells and Deck the Halls.

Last year I regaled readers with a short history of the Christmas carol and provided ample encouragement to all families to once again take up the honorable tradition of caroling around the tree, or wherever best suits your family. I would echo that encouragement again this year, only more passionately. Your children’s view of the Incarnation will be influenced more than you could ever imagine by the Christmas music they listen to and sing, by the Christmas movies they watch, by the decorations you have in your household, by the general  way you celebrate the season and most importantly, by the way you and your spouse conduct yourselves (especially your prayer lives) throughout Christmastide. Christians must take a stand and take back the culture. Do at least one special thing together each of the twelve days of Christmas, even if it is something as simple as playing a game or drinking hot chocolate and eating Christmas cookies. At least a couple of those nights should involve extended family and friends. Here are a few of my family’s favorites:

  • Continuing our family’s routine of prayer even though we are with extended family
  • Caroling (that was a given)
  • Playing cards (about 4 hours worth last night)
  • Visiting, especially older relatives who live alone
  • Playing board games (unfortunately I am typing this as some family are on the other side of the table playing Connect Four)
  • Eating and drinking, and eating and drinking, and eating… did I mention eating? (fudge and English toffee accompanied by coffee with Bailey’s Irish Cream are my downfall)
  • Maintaining an attitude of wonder and awe at the Incarnation (it snowed this year on Christmas Eve and on St. Stephen’s Day, and for some reason every time I look out the window it reminds me of God’s gift of His Son)
  • Reading the fantastic books I received as Christmas gifts (David Clayton’s Way of Beauty, James Monti’s Sense of the Sacred, Sir Winston Churchill’s History of the English Speaking People and Barry Singer’s Churchill Style: The Art of Being Winston Churchill
  • LEAVING UP THE CHRISTMAS TREE UNTIL AT LEAST THE EPIPHANY (we DO NOT fudge on this one, folks!)

Some day I wouldn’t mind cooking up a good ol’ fashioned Christmas Ball, but ’til then have to content myself with adding a few pounds (or more than a few) in honor of our Lord’s birth. However you and yours decide to celebrate, I wish our readers a very blessed and Merry Christmas!

Your Family and Adventtide

Feasts of the Church, Uncategorized

In Nicholas Diat’s full length interview with Cardinal Sarah, God or Nothing, His Eminence echos a point frequently made by Pope Benedict throughout his life, namely that at the heart of the Christian Faith lies an Event, a Person–the Person of Jesus Christ. Our theology and philosophy, our doctrines and dogmas and even our morality are not the foundation of our Faith, but rather flow from Him who is our Rock. This encounter with Christ also lies at the very heart of the mysteries we celebrate during Advent and Christmas, the threefold coming of Christ in the Incarnation, in the life of Grace and finally at the end of time to “judge the living and the dead.” The Person of Jesus is the greatest gift you and your family can receive this year, and in that vein I would like to propose some helpful suggestions for preparing a place for Him to come and dwell:

  1. Finish your Christmas shopping (completely) before the first Sunday in Advent. Remove the consumerist culture from your family entirely by not having to partake in it during these four weeks. My wife and I have done this for the past two years and it has changed our family’s celebration of Advent and has drastically reduced our stress and strained relations between us. It forces us to make gift decisions quickly and it reduces the ridiculous amount of time we spend shopping to about a full Friday and Saturday. In some ways it becomes a game for us, a giant scavenger hunt to find out if we can slay the proverbial dragon again. Later my wife and I spend one or two evenings (after the children are snuggled in bed) during Advent sipping hot chocolate and eating cookies while we wrap gifts and talk.
  2. Your spiritual life comes first. If you spend titanic amounts of time in physical preparations for Christmas but can’t find 20 to 30 minutes for mental prayer each day, then you don’t have your priorities straight. Stop right now and change that. Also, make sure that every member of your family cleans his own stable before Christmas by making a good Confession and help your children to make a concrete spiritual and material resolution to carry out during Advent.
  3. The Advent wreath and dinner table. Create an Advent wreath and place it in the center of your dining room table where your family can gather each evening before supper to light the Advent wreath and eat together. As part of the ritual sing Advent hymns and talk about them with your children (t is amazing how much of our Faith can be passed on in a song). Remove the electronic devices and  spend at least 45 minutes together. Yes, your children will complain about sitting so long, but remember that you are the parent and you are forming your children.
  4. Set up your nativity scene throughout Advent. We have a Fontanini nativity scene that we have added pieces to every year so that it now sprawls all over the living room mantel, side tables and piano, and recreates the Little Town of Bethlehem. The pieces are made of resin so little hands can play with them and wee have statues of St. Joseph and our Blessed Mother with child riding on a donkey, which journey around the living room as they make their way toward the manger (the same goes for the Three Wise Men). Our children see the Christmas narrative unfolding in front of their eyes–their own daily meditation on the Christmas mysteries. We also have a handful of straw next to the stable and they are allowed to put a piece in every time they perform a good deed (yes, this gets messy!).
  5. Turn off the Television. There is no explanation needed. Simply fill the void with any number of family activities.
  6. Let the Sacred Liturgy be your guide. Allow the feasts and celebrations of the Church to guide your family celebrations, from reading the Sunday Gospels to celebrating the Feasts of the Immaculate Conception, Our Lady of Guadelupe, Sts. Nicholas and Lucy and finally the O Antiphons.
  7. Go to Midnight Mass. Do not attend the Christmas Eve/Vigil Mass in an effort to put your obligation behind you because you have so much else you need to do. Think instead about attending Midnight Mass or one of the morning Masses and teach your children how important it is that Christ is at the center of your Christmas celebrations. I remember as a child each year returning home from Midnight Mass and standing around our outdoor manger scene, half frozen, singing Silent Night and placing Jesus in his crib.  Of course, our dad always read the Christmas story from St. Luke’s Gospel before we opened gifts.

At the heart of all of your preparations remember that your children need to see that for you everything takes second place to your relationship with Christ. Let that relationship be the foundation for everything you do to prepare for this Holy Season and you will receive the gift of a truly blessed Christmas!

Music and Evangelization

Feasts of the Church, Music for the Liturgy, Uncategorized

I feel blessed to belong to the Archdiocese of Kansas City (KS) where our shepherd, Archbishop Joseph Naumann takes his role with joyful seriousness. Over the past few years evangelization has been at the forefront of his activities, working to to cultivate in the faithful a love for proclaiming the Good News to a world desperately in need of that News. I have personally benefited from a number of these initiatives, especially the work of the Apostles of the Interior Life, who provide untold hours of spiritual direction, and the Little Brothers and Sisters of the Lamb, who provide for the materially poor not only with food, but with a beauty (Beauty) more satisfying than any earthly fare. As a matter of fact, His Excellency has more than once made the point that Beauty is an essential starting point for evangelization.

Nevertheless, I feel that the faithful in general (clergy or lay) have yet to discovere the deep connection between the Church’s Sacred worship and beauty and Her mission to evangelize–they don’t understand that the Sacred Liturgy provides the fuel for the Church’s evanglization efforts through the “right and just” worship of God, while at the same time forming the evangelizers themselves into the men and women God has called them to be. Too often there is a false dichotomy between those drawn to Beauty and those drawn to the outward efforts of evangelization (in much the same way that a false dichotomy has always existed between the contemplative and actives apostolates), which is why I was so excited to read Leah Sedlacek’s September 17th article for the Adoremus Bulletin entitled FOCUS on Beauty: the Liturgical Heart of Missionary Zeal.

Sedlacek’s article follows the story of how FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students), arguably the largest and most effect group of Catholic missionaries on both secular and Catholic universities in the US today, has begun to bridge that gap through a renewed emphasis on beauty, especially within the Sacred Liturgy. FOCUS, with the help of Illuminare Publications and Adam Barlett, has been transitioning from a “singing at Mass” approach to a “singing THE Mass” approach to liturgical music and it is having a profound impact on the millennial students they work with (this doesn’t mean that they no longer use Praise and Worship, only that they don’t use it as a cheap substitute for what is authentic). The authoress, who heads FOCUS’s worship team, writes,

“We continue to take steps to follow more closely the vision and principles proposed by the Church. And we hope to equip our missionaries and staff with a deep liturgical formation and with resources to help them encounter the beauty of Jesus Christ in the liturgy, who is the source of all our efforts to evangelize on college campuses and in parishes.

It is an incredibly refreshing and dare I say beautiful movement within the Church today, one that I feel could be of invaluable help to those places making the transition to a more authentic celebration of the Church’s sacred worship.

The Problem of Acedia

Music for the Liturgy, Uncategorized

For some time I have been engaged in the reading a truly great little work, one I would heartily recommend to every reader of this blog, The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times by Jean-Charles Nault, O.S.B. I don’t intend to lecture you with a digested version of the book (which deals neither with the Sacred Liturgy nor with music), but to discuss one section in particular that speak to me as one who strives to “labor in the Lord’s vineyard.”

Following an exposition of the thought of the Fathers of the Church on Acedia (often translated todaymerely as Sloth), the author tackles the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas on Acedia. According to St. Thomas there are two definitions of Acedia: 1) a sadness about spiritual good and 2) the disgust with activity.

St. Thomas makes note of many ways in which the vice of Acedia might manifest itself in the Christian, but one way in particular strikes me as particularly insidious for the Church in our time, that of Pusillanimity, or smallness of soul. St. Thomas refers to this vice as a daughter of Acedia and lists it as one of the vices opposite the virtue of Magnanimity, or greatness of soul. Magnanimity is the virtue that allows man to perceive the greatnes of the God’s calling and to respond to this call.

Magnanimity is that virtue that spured the saints to tackle enormous and seemingly insurmountable problems. Magnanimity is the virtue that brought to fruition the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages and inspired men like St. Francis de Sales or St. Martin de Pores to work for the conversion of thousands of souls. Think of St. John Paul II who worked to defeat Communism or Pope Benedict, a seemingly introverted professor/pope, who inspired a generation of church musicians and reinvigorated the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy. Think of Mother Teresa who worked with the poorest of the poor around the world or Mother Angelica, the cloistered nun who, probably more than any, brought the light of truth and the joy of the Gospel to generations ofspiritually suffocating Americans?

Pusillanimity, the vice opposed to Magnanimity, causes man to shrink back from the greatness of God’s call and to strive for what is merely comfortable and easily attainable. It is usually cloaked as false humility. Pusillanimity convinces the Christian that the Gospel is too hard. The Good News is meant more for cloistered convents and monasteries. Marriage is too hard, being a priest or religious is too hard. Being truthful, loyal, a good friend—these are too hard and therefore meant merely as ideals for the Christian to halfheartedly strive for.

We rarely speak of greatness in the Church anymore for fear of driving people away, yet look at all of the men who responded to the call of the priesthood because of the example of Pope St. John Paul II or how many women responded to work with the poorest of the poor with Mother Teresa because they saw in her the greatness to which they felt called.

Unfortunately, the Church, in Her humanness, is not overly welcoming of the those inspired by magnanimity at the moment. She seems stuck in the rut of minimalism, which Matthew Kelly describes as one of the three greatest problems afflicting the Church today. In this atmosphere, the professional musician is generally seen as an elitist or aesthete, the fop concerned with nothing more than producing refined music fit for the concert hall as opposed to one who is truly adept at his craft and who offers it in service back to Christ and His Church.

Of course, there is a remedy for this situation. The author of The Noonday Devil reminds us that according to St. Thomas and the Church Fathers the Incarnation is the ultimate remedy for Acedia and its many problems, including Pusillanimity. When man is tempted to despair in the face of his great calling, he should meditate upon the Incarnation and contemplate the fact that God “was willing to unite human nature to Himself personally” (St. Thomas, Summa contra Gentiles, quoted in The Noonday Devil) and will always be our “help and our shield.”

A Silver Jubilee

Choir Schools, Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy

“Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.” William Shakespeare

Yesterday marked a milestone of sorts—the 25th anniversary of the first time I played the organ for Holy Mass—Friday, October 2, 1992. I remember because it was the Feast of the Guardian Angels and I played a hymn related to the day, although for the life of me I couldn’t now tell you what it was. Here I am 25 years later thanking God for the life of the church musician, along with its joys and vicissitudes. It is wonderful now to look back and realize with what love God prepared me for this avocation, from being born into a devout Catholic family with a deep musical heritage to beings surrounded by pastors, teachers and wonderful friends along the way who have guided and mentored. Of course none of this would now be possible without my wife Katie, who takes the helm and navigates the family ship every Sunday morning while I busy myself with any myriad of things musical and liturgical.

Many things have changed over the last quarter of a century in the field of church music and thankfully most of them have been for the better. I distinctly remember my 8th grade year in school when I found my mother’s missal from her youth, which happened to contain a short Kyriale at the end in modern notation. She and my aunt recorded the Agnus Dei from Mass XVIII on a cassette and I listened to it and memorized it, enraptured with its beauty and thinking it was the most sublime thing I had ever heard (it would be years before I discovered the Kyrie from Mass IX). None of the young people then seems to care about it or for it, but how different things are today. Young people, parents, priests, religious and the un-churched alike are touched by the beauty of the rich treasury of sacred music, one of the greatest gifts the Church has bequeathed to western civilization.

In many ways I feel blessed because I don’t have to work, I simply get paid to do what I love and the time has truly flown. Yesterday I went to Mass early in the morning at the local to give thanks for such a gift and I found myself repeating the words of Psalm 150… “O praise God in His holiness… Praise Him for His noble acts… Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord!”

The Importance of Education

Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy, Uncategorized

Any reader of my posts has come to expect a certain maniacal preoccupation with the education of our children in the art of sacred music, however, I want to focus on another incredibly important area of education, that of our clergy and especially our seminarians. Perhaps this issue is of a more fundamental importance than the training of choristers because it places the horse before the cart and might finally allow the Church to heal in matters liturgical since the bishop, and the priest in his stead, really is the custodian of the sacred liturgy in his local area, and only he has the power to effect widespread and healthy change.

Perhaps this topic is on my mind because of a recent wedding I provided music for where the priest joked his way through the couple’s vows and even had both the bride and groom stand with him behind the altar throughout the entire consecration and then asked each to distribute the Precious Blood on either side of him as he distributed Holy Communion to the congregation. When he asked before Mass if I would sing Sabath Prayer from Fiddler on the Roof for the Responsorial Psalm I simply smiled and played dumb and said I didn’t have a copy of if. It was the most bizarre wedding I have ever attended (with certain parts cut here and others added there), so much so that I was unusually at peace knowing the likelihood of ever experiencing such a circus again would be minimal to say the least (most of these clerics are entering the twilight of their lives). A priest once commented to me that he made it through one of our nation’s prominent seminaries in the 90s without ever having had a class on the sacred liturgy, which might account in part for the travesty previously mentioned, but I think the problem runs much deeper. Most of the clergy I know truly love the Sacred Liturgy and say the Black and do the Red, but that isn’t enough.

I feel that as Americans we have always taken a very pragmatic approach to all of our problems and seek to solve them as quickly and as efficiently as possible without much “stopping to smell the Roses.” This worked well enough before the Second Vatican Council when the Church maintained a strong central moral authority and society nominally upheld traditional Christian mores. Priests could sacramentalize their parishioners and keep them on the strait and narrow efficiently enough and collections assured that lighting and heating bills and the sisters (in that order) got paid. Efficiency makes for a wonderful taskmaster but a terrible lover and under this Culture of Efficiency the beloved suffered. The Church ran efficiently, but in the post-war years the heart of the Church in the western world grew cold and the Sacred Liturgy, that incredible place where man truly met God and was embraced by Him, became nothing more than one’s weekly obligation to avoid mortal sin.

I liken the effects of such a relationship over time to that of spouses whose love has grown cold. In the beginning the husband is always cognizant of his wife’s emotional needs and shows appreciation for the great work she does for the family and often indulges in small acts of love for her—a vase of flowers here and an embrace and heartfelt words of thanks there—but after time tiredness sets in and the husband assumes that his wife no longer needs to be told “I love you” because she already knows, and besides, where is his appreciation? In this new state the husband feels his time and his and his wife’s money are more efficiently put to use securing a new roof for the house. Love grows cold.

Of course, the cultural revolution of the 1960s didn’t help, and thankfully we are past much of that and I am truly edified by so many of the priests I know. At the same time, I find the tentacles of efficiency still lurking in the shadows. We live in a time when there is so much work to be done to bring about the Kingdom of God that we are tempted to boil down our coarse of action to finding the perfect evangelization program that will fill our pews efficiently, turn on the lights again, and maybe even furnish the parish with sisters one day, too. I feel we run the temptation of turning the Mass into the means of confecting the Holy Eucharist and the Divine Office into the private mental prayer of the priest. While the Church is given the gift of the Holy Eucharist at Mass and while the Divine Office is an essential part of a priest’s prayer life, such a reduction of the work and power of the Sacred Liturgy turns God into nothing more than a Divine dispenser of spiritual medication as opposed to the all powerful and Triune God, the Father who created Heaven and Earth and Who sent His only-begotten Son with the Holy Spirit to redeem mankind and Who carries out this work within the Sacred Liturgy.

Perhaps I am just a Benedictine at heart but I feel the Opus Dei (Work of God) must truly be given pride of place in our personal lives and in the life of the Church so that God can accomplish His Will in us and in all of creation to the glory of His name. The Sacred Liturgy and the Sacraments have the power to do just that. Unfortunately this is neither efficient to teach nor simple to learn.

St. Mary’s Cathedral Choir, Sydney

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

It has been some time since last I posted about one of the great cathedral choirs in the world, so what better time than the present to write about about St. Mary’s Cathedral Choir and its accompanying Cathedral College (choir school), the only Catholic cathedral choir school in the southern hemisphere. The choir, founded in 1818, constitutes the oldest musical group still in existence in Australia.

Thomas Wilson is the current Director of Music and probably more than anyone has brought the choir to an incredibly high and enviable position in the Church music world. Wilson is originally from New Zealand and at the age of 18 was made the director of music at Wellington’s Metropolitan Cathedral. He eventually made his way to London and to the Royal College of Music and ended up as the assistant organist at Westminster Cathedral before returning to the bottom side of the world.

He noted that “One of the things about growing up in New Zealand was being given opportunities that I might not have had elsewhere. I was allowed to learn by making mistakes. Then when I was given the chance to go overseas to London I very quickly realized where the level was. I remember being absolutely driven to be part of that, to swim in the same current as these incredible musicians I encountered in the Royal Academy and at Westminster Cathedral.”

Early in his tenure at St. Mary’s he began the tradition of singing Vespers daily (the choir already sang Holy Mass each day) and hired professional men as lay clerks. This commitment to professionalism is sorely lacking in too many of our great Catholic churches today (although there are a number of shining lights here and there) and it is refreshing to see it coming from unlikely places.

I would like to leave you with a couple of videos of the choir singing. First the boys, then the changed voices (the choral scholars) and finally the professional men and boys singing Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus. Enjoy!

Forming the Next Generation of Church Musicians

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

Recently I stumbled across a fantastic read, a DMA document entitled The Choir School in the American Church: a study of the choir school and other current chorister training models in Episcopal and Anglican parishes, by Daniel McGrath (2005). I share it with readers today because McGrath is the first author I have found who systematically and succinctly describes the the nature of, as well as the various models of, the Anglican choral system (both in England and in the United States), a model I feel passionately about and one that I believe has the power to inaugurate a true renewal of sacred music.

There isn’t a church musician I know of who isn’t concerned about the state of church music in the western world, but rarely do I find one who knows what to do about it. Obviously our university system with its decline number of organ departments as well as choral conducting departments hasn’t provided the answer. Consider the current situation in music schools where students learn about Renaissance music for one semester and are assumed to have the skills necessary to tackle the repertoire. On the other hand, choristers in the English choral system begin singing large portions of the best of Renaissance music around the age of 9 or 10 and do it repeatedly for four and five years as sopranos. If they are boys they go through the same repertoire again as countertenors, tenors and basses during their time in the Oxbridge colleges. Which program do you think is more successful?

A number of these same students are already accompanying services on a regular basis at a young age. How many young organists in America are accompanying world class choirs and helping to train younger choristers in junior high. Which program do you think is more successful?

One might object that the English choral system is tied too closely to England and the Anglican community to present a model for Catholic parishes, but I would argue otherwise. Firstly, the English choral system grew out of  the monastic, collegiate and cathedral music foundations in existence long before the English Protestant Revolt. Secondly, the system is extremely diversified even among the English Cathedrals–there is no “one size fits all” way of executing it, and this diversity makes it extremely adaptable to other places. At the heart of this system is the development of a beautiful and natural vocal tone, musical literacy, and singing high quality liturgical music on a regular basis within the church service. There is nothing here that couldn’t be adapted to the people of Russia, South Africa, Argentina or the United States.

I would encourage those interested in the English choral tradition to read McGrath’s document and familiarize themselves with what actually constitutes a choral foundation and determine if this wouldn’t work for your parish.

Then read and learn about the three main forms of the English choral foundation. In its highest form is the true choir school, a boarding institution that educates only choristers. In reality, there are only two such institutions left in the world today, Westminster Abbey and St. Thomas, NY, and I doubt this avenue would be useful for most. The second form of choral foundation is the parochial school, usually a preparatory school of some kind, that educates both choristers and non-choristers, but makes the necessary allowances for the musical education of the former. This model is perfect for many Catholic parishes sporting an attached school. Lastly is the after-school model, where choristers are drawn from the surrounding schools and educated either before or after school. This construct might easily serve the school-less parish or the parish with a school music program that has not yet been put under the vision of a pastor who wants to implement the Modern Roman Rite in continuity with the Older Form and the hopes of the Second Vatican Council. The author also gives advice for implementing each of these options.

One last point McGrath makes is how important it is that choral foundations are properly supported. In England the force of tradition as well as that of the monarchy and parliament (many of these institutions are enshrined in law and supported by taxpayer money) ensure their continuation, but such is not the case in America. Instead he suggests that it is the the pastor (and I dare say the bishop) who must support the formation and continuation of good choral foundations. I believe that the more the clergy realize that such schools are important centers for Christians formation, the more they will support them.

I also hear complaints (well founded) that these institutions are not cheap, but restructuring the budget in 50% of parishes would probably do the trick. Lastly, I realize that there aren’t the musicians around to found such choir schools, but the more choral institutions are founded in the US, the more great musicians will be fostered.

I want to paint a picture of what such places could accomplish in the Church. There are currently almost 200 cathedrals in the United States. If each of these cathedrals were to found a choral institution of some kind, each graduating approximately 10 children per annum, that would mean 2000 young people receiving such a formation each year. Within one generation (20 years) 40,000 young people would have been formed in the Church’s vision for the Sacred Liturgy and music. That would be an absolute game changer. Until we start forming our youth in the Church’s treasury of sacred music we will continue contracepting our musical future to death.

Latina est gaudium et utilis!

Music for the Liturgy, Uncategorized

I don’t profess to have anything more than a rudimentary knowledge of Latin, but even I can apprehend something of its beauty and usefulness, whether from the religious perspective, the historical perspective or any other perspective for that matter. Therefore, I am at a lost to explain why the Latin language engenders such fits of rage and anger in mainstream Catholic “intellectual” circles, whether they include the clergy, educators or “enlightened” laymen.

The most comical expressions of anti-Latin thought emanate from the mouths of young children who inform me in rehearsal that Vatican II said we are supposed to worship in English (admittedly this happens less and less as the years go by). Am I to believe that these 9 year old children have read, discussed and prayed about Sacrosanctum concilium? How did I miss the line in SC that ordered the entire Church, for example the Church in Germany or Brazil, to worship in English?

Unfortunately my avocation of church musician doesn’t allow me to sidestep the Latin vs. vernacular issue any more than a house painter is able to avoid paint. To sing Roman Catholic music is to sing in the Latin tongue. To worship in the Roman Catholic Liturgy is to worship in a way formed by the Latin language (this is true even in the vernacular translation of the modern Roman Rite).

Leaving religion aside for the moment and turning to the more mundane task of education in general, Dorothy Sayers, in her exceptional essay The Lost Tools of Learning, admits that “the best grounding for education is the Latin grammar. I say this, not because Latin is traditional and medieval, but simply because even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin cuts down the labor and pains of learning almost any other subject by at least fifty percent. It is the key to the vocabulary and structure of all the Teutonic languages, as well as to the technical vocabulary of all the sciences and to the literature of the entire Mediterranean civilization, together with all its historical documents.” Anyone who has ever read Sayers would agree that the study of Latin didn’t stunt her intellectual prowess. So why is this tool, as Sayers described it, so despised?

I ask this question because of an article by Deacon Jim Russell that appeared recently at Crisis Magazine, which claimed that the the loss of Latin has had disastrous effects on Roman Catholic sacred music. To be honest, music isn’t the only thing the loss has affected (I think of theology especially), but let’s keep to the subject of music for the moment. Where do we see today the likes of Prudentius, Fortunatus, Ambrose or even Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman? Now that our society has severed itself from the great tradition of Western Civilization, which is intimately bound to the Latin language, the only lyrics we are left with are catchy little ditties foisted on us from the pen of every musician who feels the need to “express himself.” (I am reminded here of the lyrics from such a “hymn” from my Catholic school days-Great Things Happen when God Mixes with Us, from the Glory and Praise hymnal).

Funnily enough, I am not opposed to the use of vernacular in the Holy Mass or the Divine Office. Neither am I against the true inculturation of the Faith into various local communities. But I am mightily opposed to the ridiculous notion that having cut ourselves free from the moorings of Latin we are now in possession of a better understanding of God or our Faith than anyone before 1965.  Such a mentality cheapens the lives of countless men, women and children, ordained and lay, old and young, rich and poor, important and unimportant who lived and died over the last 1500 years to bring the light of Christ to a world in such need of His Love and Mercy. Remember that those same men and women were formed in a time when the Sacred Liturgy was entirely in Latin. Would they have given their lives to Christ if they hadn’t known Him or loved Him? I doubt it. And here we arrive at the crux of the issue. I find that those who are so opposed to the use of Latin in our worship (especially when coupled with ad orientem worship) are generally opposed to the traditional belief that worship is about God, and instead desire to circle their wagons (literally) and turn their thoughts in on themselves. Worship becomes group therapy and entertainment rather than an encounter with the living God.

It is time that we leave behind this “hermaneutic of discontinuity” and awake from our religious amnesia and embrace our Faith in its fullness. It is time that we break from the shackles that would have us believe that the Church began in the 1960s. It is time to remember that our heavenly family has a history encompassing 2000 years of the greatest saints, poets, lovers, fighters, evangelizers and men and women who had their eyes set on the heavenly city, the New and Eternal Jerusalem. Recovery of Latin alone won’t do this, but it would symbolically and intellectually open a breach in what seems to be an impregnable wall that keeps us from seeing the hand of God alive in His Church in every age.