The Church’s liturgy has inspired great choral music for centuries. Unfortunately, that part of Catholicism’s cultural memory has been somewhat misplaced in recent years. One reason why is the widespread misapprehension among liturgists that 21st-century congregations can only “hear” music of the Andrew Lloyd Webber genre. (One memorial acclamation I heard recently was straight out of the Les Mis playbook, the only difference being that the Lord, not Cosette, was the ditty’s alleged subject.) Experience, however, proves that congregations respond gratefully to great music, and there are few classical forms that are better suited to the Roman rite than the motet.
Herewith, then, five wonderful motets, each within the capabilities of a parish serious about its choir and its music, with which to begin the Great Choral Revival:
“Sicut cervus” (Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina). Palestrina, the great master of Renaissance polyphony, also hit the trifecta of Renaissance choirmaster appointments, serving in Rome as maestro de capella at St. Peter’s, St. John Lateran, and St. Mary Major. This limpid setting of the Vulgate’s Psalm 41, verse 1, displays Palestrina’s genius at its most accessible and radiant. “Sicut cervus” is especially appropriate for Masses in which the texts stress the divine gift of the Eucharist, the Church’s longing for which is so often symbolized by the yearning deer of the psalm.
“If Ye Love Me” (Thomas Tallis). Tallis had the difficult task of keeping his musical head on his shoulders during the Elizabethan persecution of the Church in Tudor England. But Elizabeth I was so taken with his music, and that of William Byrd, that she not only spared these two publicly professed Catholics martyrdom; she gave them a lucrative patent on printing and publishing music. “If Ye Love Me” is, technically, an anthem, not a motet, as the text—the communion antiphon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter in Year A (John 14:15-17)—is in English rather than Latin. Irrespective of the musicological definitions, however, Tallis’s composition is an example of English choral music at its most expressive, and “fits” well throughout liturgical year.
“Ave Verum” (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart). Written in 1791 while Mozart was completing The Magic Flute, his most “Masonic” opera, this setting of a 14th-century eucharistic hymn (perhaps written by Pope Innocent VI) is widely and rightly regarded as one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. Whatever Mozart’s relations with Enlightenment Freemasonry, it strains credulity to think that a non-believer could have written the “Ave Verum.”
“Ubi Caritas” (Maurice Duruflé). Duruflé, who was born in 1902 and died during the second Reagan administration, was a highly self-critical composer, a musical perfectionist. And in “Ubi Caritas,” he got it exactly right. Taking an ancient Latin text (which scholars believe dates to the first Christian centuries), he preserved the essentials of the hymn’s origins in Gregorian chant and complemented them with a manifestly modern composition, yet one in complete harmony with the Roman Church’s musical tradition. I can’t say that I like his well-known Requiem as well as Gabriel Fauré’s, but the Duruflé “Ubi Caritas,” which is especially fitting for Holy Thursday but is appropriate in a variety of liturgical seasons, ought to be a staple of parish music programs.
“O Magnum Mysterium” (Morten Lauridsen). Before I discovered the music of Morten Lauridsen, you would have had a hard time convincing me that great music could be produced out of the University of Southern California: great running backs, obviously; but great chorale music? Well, there it is: U.S.C. professor Lauridsen, whose Danish background suggests a Lutheran heritage, has mined the hymn texts of both the Roman Missal and the old Roman Breviary for some splendid works, of which my Desert Island Discs choice would be this setting of one of the responsories for the pre-conciliar Matins of Christmas. If your son or daughter has been in a high school choir in recent decades, you probably know Lauridsen’s “O Nata Lux,” the frequently performed third part of his cycle Lux Aeterna. Both “work” liturgically, but to my mind, “O Magnum Mysterium” is the nobler composition.
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
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or the Westminster Cathedral choir sings it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9y9yM53TowA&feature=fvwrel
"Ubi Caritas" at a Royal wedding. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNTaOO6Y3cY
"If Ye Love Me" by the Cambridgr singers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6RgaPTo4hE
A number of years ago at my father-in-law's funereal, the organist/singer began to play the melody of "Amazing Grace." I was a little surprised to hear a Protestant hymn, although it is probably the greatest hymn in English, but I was happy to get some relief from the utterly banal Mass then underway.
However, I soon appalled to hear the truly ugly lyric some musically and poetically illiterate "lyricist" had attached to the hymn. The lyric was so ugly as to constitute an insult to my dead father-in-law, and it was sheer vandalism of the hymn's music. It must count as a mortal sin on the lyricists soul.
I went to one parish for Mass in the spring that used the Godspell version of the Gloria.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-lNHdMU0y8
Nevertheless, I am so grateful for this post! It reminded me that there is a need for the church to preserve and celebrate excellence in music and the arts.
I wonder if there are any readers of this post who have explored the new generation of hymn writers. Writers like Keith & Kristyn Getty or Stuart Townend who have remembered to craft their music with excellence and singability are preserving a legacy of worship music for the church.
Yes, there are some that feel Gregorian is not the "thing", but, let me assure you many of us are joyed that Gregorian Chant and Chant in general are back in the mass.
I don't think you would find the singing of Amazing Grace at any Jesuit funeral; I don't think.
As good as Mr. Weigel's suggestions are, if you want the finest, remember Fr. RJ Neuhaus would still point you to the greatest of all Lutherans - JS Bach.
Please consider listening to my sacred music at http://www.youtube.com/user/musique327 .
Gerald McClain
Baltimore, MD
And as to Protestant hymns, frankly, I would rather hear Amazing Grace or other traditional and grand Protestant hymns (so long as the language is not made "inclusive" or otherwise perverted from the originals) than anything from the "Gather" hymnal repetoir - the unfortunate truth is that the Protestant hymn is less likely to include heretical lyrics (e.g., "Ashes") and certainly these musically wonderful works are less trying upon the ears of the musically sensitive.
And the most heartbreaking thing of all is that whenever the choir does perform something like Mozart's Ave Verum - or some excellent modern work that is an outgrowth and not a violation of millenia of tradition - or even something as simple as a traditional chant based setting of the Agnus Dei - you can see the congregation respond warmly and with a sense of "oh, that's what church would sound like". So why then are Catholic parish music directors so afraid to jetison the dreck and trust their fellow worshippers? Just hearbreaking
I wouldn't mind if most masses featured the classic Protestant hymns of my youth: "Amazing Grace," "How Firm a Foundation," anything by Isaac Watts or Charles Wesley, even Luther's "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God." These classic hymns are musically appealing, easy to sign, and full of theological and poetic depth, particularly when sung alongside a Gregorian chant or some other appropriate setting for the mass responses. But instead of these great works, we have to endure, week after week, folk tunes by Sister Moonbeam Cannabis and Fr. Disco Groovy, SJ, alongside settings of the mass that resemble TV commercials for toothpaste or a fast food restaurant.
Apparently somewhere along the way, liturgists decided that the MTV generation and their progeny are just too culturally unsophisticated to "get" the music of the past. Whoever it was who came to that conclusion didn't speak with this Gen X'er or, for the matter, with most Catholics that I know in the same cohort. I can't speak for Catholics in their teens or twenties, but most 30 and 40-something Catholics whom I have informally polled are likewise fed up with the state of worship in American Catholic parishes.
Both of these are short, sincere and humble prayers for forgineness of sins and purity of heart, set to extremely beautiful music.
I was encouraged when I read Mr Weigel's words. May God bless him for illustrating the reverence and beauty that was thrown out by those "deaf" liturgists in the Church all over the English-speaking world who seem to wield unbelievable power. Who gave them the power to impose their wills on suffering souls ? How can they steadfastly refuse to pay the slightest heed to requests for some relief from the banal, boring, insipid songs they choose for us (not) to sing week in and week out ?
In my present parish in Brisbane, Australia, we have about seven songs that are repeated just about every Sunday except for the Easter Triduum and for midnight mass at Christmas. Four of them are by top-of-the-pops Marty ( Martin ? ) Haugen, two are by Haas, and one by Foley. You have no idea how it feels to have half of a Haugen song as the entrance hymn, and the other half of the same Haugen song as the concluding hymn. But that's what we get for about 48 weeks of the year, and every year.
Lord help our suffering souls.
>> One reason why is the widespread misapprehension among liturgists that 21st-century congregations can only “hear” music of the Andrew Lloyd Webber genre. (One memorial acclamation I heard recently was straight out of the Les Mis playbook, the only difference being that the Lord, not Cosette, was the ditty’s alleged subject.)
