Sacred Music Winter 2017 | Volume 144, Number 4
Editorial Polyphony | William Mahrt ...... 3
Articles “Fulfilled is All that David Told”: Recovering the Christian Psalter | Fr. Benedict Maria Andersen, O.S.B...... 9 The Primacy of Gregorian Chant: Reflections on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Musicam Sacram | Ted Krasnicki ...... 26 Progressive Solemnity and the Dominican Liturgy | Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P...... 42
Repertory Palestrina’s Singers’ Lament: Super flumina Babylonis | William Mahrt ...... 54
Commentary “Hermeneutic of Continuity” | William Mahrt ...... 62
CMAA Announcements ...... 65 Formed as a continuation of Cæcilia, published by the Society of St. Cæcilia since 1874, and The Catholic Choir- master, published by the Society of St. Gregory of America since 1915. Published quarterly by the Church Music Association of America since its inception in 1964. Office of Publication: 12421 New Point Drive, Richmond, VA 23233. Email: [email protected]; Website: www. musicasacra.com
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President William Mahrt Vice- president Horst Buchholz Secretary Mary Jane Ballou Treasurer Adam Wright Chaplain Father Robert Pasley Director of Publications Jeffrey Tucker Directors Jennifer Donelson, David Hughes, Susan Treacy, Edward Schaefer, Jonathan Ryan Directors emeriti Rev. Father Ralph S. March, S.O.Cist.†, Kurt Poterack, Paul F. Salamunovich†, Calvert Shenk†, Very Rev. Monsignor Richard J. Schuler†, Rev. Father Robert Skeris, Scott Turkington General manager Janet Gorbitz
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Sacred Music is published quarterly for $60.00 per year by the Church Music Association of America. P.O. Box 4344, Roswell, NM 88202. Periodicals postage paid at Richmond, VA and at additional mailing offi cies. USPS number 474-960. Postmaster: Send address changes to SACRED MUSIC, P.O. Box 4344, Roswell, NM 88201-9613. Editorial Polyphony What is the status of polyphony in the liturgy today? What does the principal place enjoyed by chant mean for the place of polyphonic compositions?
by William Mahrt
regorian chant is sufficient for and after him, Pope St. John Paul II both the liturgy. When the Mass is state that Gregorian chant was the para- G sung in chant with the priest digm of all sacred music: any sacred music singing his parts, the congre- is to be judged in so far as it approaches the gation responding to the priest’s parts and chant in its motion, spirit, and function. singing the ordinary, and the choir singing the proper, the beauty of the liturgy can be With regard to compositions of liturgi- moving, its sacredness apparent, and the cal music, I make my own the “general sense of participation can be most natural. The Second Vatican Council prescribed the rule” that St. Pius X formulated in these ideal for the sung liturgy: words: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, Liturgical worship is given a more noble inspiration and savor the Gregorian me- form when the divine offices are cele- lodic form, the more sacred and litur- brated solemnly in song, with the assis- gical it becomes; and the more out of tance of sacred ministers and the active harmony it is with that supreme model, participation of the people. the less worthy it is of the temple.” It is not, of course, a question of imitating If one follows the principle that the Gregorian chant but rather of ensuring reading of the texts of the council should that new compositions are imbued with be done in light of tradition, then it is clear that what the fathers of the council were the same spirit that inspired and little describing in this text was the Solemn by little came to shape it. Only an artist High Mass. who is profoundly steeped in the sensus Likewise the council gave principal Ecclesiæ can attempt to perceive and ex- place to Gregorian chant. Pope St. Pius X, press in melody the truth of the Mystery
William Mahrt is the president of the CMAA and the editor of Sacred Music.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 3 that is celebrated in the Liturgy.1
Liturgical music must meet the specific Th e intimate relation prerequisites of the Liturgy: full adher- ence to the text it presents, synchroni- of chant and liturgy zation with the time and moment in the Liturgy for which it is intended, appro- stems from the fact that priately reflecting the gestures proposed by the rite. The various moments in the a chant melody is an Liturgy require a musical expression of their own. From time to time this must immediate and direct fittingly bring out the nature proper to a specific rite, now proclaiming God’s expression of text and marvels, now expressing praise, suppli- cation or even sorrow for the experience action prescribed by the of human suffering which, however, faith opens to the prospect of Christian hope.2 liturgy.
While the council gave first place to the chant, it singled out polyphony for special The intimate relation of chant and lit- mention. urgy stems from the fact that a chant mel- ody is an immediate and direct expression The Church acknowledges Gregorian of text and action prescribed by the lit- chant as specially suited to the Roman urgy. Each genre of chant (introit, offertory, liturgy: therefore, other things being gradual, etc.) is distinguished from the oth- equal, it should be given principal place ers by a style that corresponds to its litur- in liturgical services. gical function.4 Each piece of Gregorian chant, moreover, is not just a text for which But other kinds of sacred music, espe- a melody happens to have been provided, cially polyphony, are by no means ex- but, rather, text and melody arose together cluded from liturgical celebrations, so as integral parts of the liturgy. This gives long as they accord with the spirit of the the Gregorian propers an obligatory status liturgical action.3 in the extraordinary form and the status of first place, even in the ordinary form. These chants are integral parts of the sung liturgy. 1Pope St. John Paul II, Chirograph for the Cen- For any part of the liturgy on any particular tenary of the Motu Proprio “Tra Le Sollecitudi- day, there is a right piece to be sung. ni” On Sacred Music (2003), ¶12 . 4Cf. William Mahrt, “Gregorian Chant as a 2Ibid., ¶5. Paradigm of Liturgical Music,” Sacred Music, 3Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the 133, no. 1 (2006); reprint in Th e Musical Shape Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), of the Liturgy (Richmond, Va.: CMAA, 2012), ¶116. 115–29.
4 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 is sacred and beautiful, but each of which is what might be called voluntary—it is up to the discretion of those executing the lit- In its beginnings, urgy to decide where and when it might be performed. polyphony derived from In its beginnings, polyphony derived from the chant, since at first it involved the chant, since at fi rst simply the adding of a single voice to the melody of a chant. This process developed it involved simply the until several voices were added, and gradu- ally the chant voice was made to stand out adding of a single voice by being sung slower than the other voices. By the fifteenth century, thiscantus fir- to the melody of a chant. mus technique was a principal means of the composition of polyphony. In the wake of humanism, voice parts were made equal, and the technique of polyphony involved The standing of the Ordinary of the imitation—each voice took the melody Mass is somewhat different. There is more in turn (a technique that led to the fugue choice of which chant is to be sung for later). Sometimes the subject of such imi- Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus tation was a paraphrase of a chant melody, Dei. The chant books present eighteen but other times it was a freely invented sub- cycles plus some ad libitum pieces, and, ject; still it retained the “movement, inspi- while some of them have traditional asso- ration, and savor” of chant. ciation with seasons or degrees of solem- At first, polyphony carried the same nity,5 their standing is not obligatory, and functions that the chant upon which it was their history demonstrates that from place based served. For example, the organa of to place and time to time, the assignment the Notre Dame School in thirteenth-cen- of some of them was quite various,6 some- tury Paris elaborated upon the melodies of thing quite different from the chants of the the gradual and alleluia of the Mass and proper. the responsory of the office, at the place The situation is yet quite different for where these chants were to be sung. Move- polyphony. It has served many different ments of the Mass did likewise: the Mass functions over its history, some of which are of Guillaume de Machaut bases its Kyrie still pertinent in cultivating a liturgy that upon a chant Kyrie, and so forth. The introits, alleluias, sequences, and com- 5Particularly those for the Easter Season (I), munions of the Mass all received poly- Blessed Virgin (IX), Advent and Lent (XVII) and weekdays (XVIII); Mass XI for Sundays phonic setting by Heinrich Isaac in the has some status as well. Choralis Constantinus. Likewise chants for 6Kyrie, Orbis factor (XI), for example, in some the office were provided with polyphony chant books is given for feasts of apostles and in which incorporated them: particularly at others for confessors. Vespers, the hymn, and the Magnificat,
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 5 at Compline the Marian Antiphon, and in nion provides, even when the communion Holy Week the Lamentations of the Tene- antiphon is alternated with psalm verses. A brae service. Yet, the very use of polyphony polyphonic motet, particularly a Eucharis- was voluntary; it was not required, but cho- tic one, can complement the chant proper, sen to enhance the beauty of the liturgy. adding an element of meditation and This voluntary character applies partic- reflection that is suitable for those having ularly to motets, compositions upon sacred received communion. Likewise, if there is texts, often without any specific location incensation at the offertory, the chant may prescribed. Some motets were designated not fill the time it takes; before the twelfth for particular liturgical usage: the offer- or thirteenth centuries offertory verses sup- tories of Lassus or Palestrina, but most plied this accompaniment of the liturgical motets were of such sacred character that action, and such verses have been published they could serve different functions from and can be sung. But more frequently, this time to time. is a time for a motet. While the offertory How can sacred polyphony be employed is a time of action, there is also an element in the liturgy of today? Those pieces writ- of reflection as well, coming between the ten for particular liturgical purposes may activity of the Credo and the preface with still serve. One can sing a Tenebrae ser- Sanctus. A polyphonic motet can provide vice during Holy Week and the Lamenta- accompaniment to the incensation, while tions or responsories for that service can be at the same time compliment the intense included. Vespers can be sung every Sun- activity before and after it with something day, or for special occasions. A Vespers for reflective. a major feast day in the evening can include There are brief times in the liturgy when polyphonic Hymn, Magnificat and can it has been common for the organ to accom- conclude with a Marian antiphon.7 Special pany some brief action; for instance, at the occasions can be enhanced with the singing completion of the gospel in the solemn of a motet: baptisms, house blessings, even Mass, the deacon takes the Gospel book to grace before meals at a formal dinner. the celebrant for his veneration. It makes The most likely place in today’s lit- sense for there to be a musical accompani- urgy for polyphony is as an amplification ment. It is thought that in the thirteenth of the time at the offertory and commu- century that the genre of conductus served nion in the Mass. An important principle this function; there are brief pieces in the is that at the processional places in the lit- repertory that have a rhythmic quality that urgy, the music should fully accompany the appropriately “conduct” the deacon to the action. Since most of today’s congregations celebrant, or the preacher from the pulpit. receive communion, more time is required I contend that it is not necessary that than the singing of a Gregorian commu- the congregation sing a hymn at the introit, offertory, and communion, if they actively 7Technically, the Marian antiphon belongs to sing the parts of the Ordinary of the Mass. Compline, but if Vespers is sung without fol- The texts of the ordinary are in themselves lowing it immediately with Compline, then it is concluded with the Marian antiphon, Cf. Liber acts of worship and therefore belong to Usualis (Tournai: Desclée, 1962), p. 261. the congregation, while the processional
6 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 chants are accompaniments of other litur- tion in the singing, is to be deprecated.9 gical actions and are more appropriately witnessed by members of the congregation. But Musicam Sacram also endorsed tra- The transition from the “four-hymn sand- ditional choirs and their musical heritage. wich” to this practice, however, needs to be accomplished quite gradually, with good Large choirs (Capellæ musicæ) exist- instruction of the congregation. ing in basilicas, cathedrals, monasteries But what about the polyphonic Ordi- and other major churches, which have in nary of the Mass? The council gave special the course of centuries earned for them- recognition to polyphony, and of the rep- selves high renown by preserving and ertory of classical polyphony perhaps the developing a musical heritage of inesti- greater part is settings of the Ordinary of mable value, should be retained for sa- the Mass.8 To exclude the ordinary from the cred celebrations of a more elaborate liturgy is not consistent with the council’s kind, according to their own traditional special endorsement of classical polyphony. norms, recognized and approved by the Moreover, the traditional compositions of Ordinary. the ordinary are integral works; while one or another movement can be performed However, the directors of these choirs separately, their proper performance should and the rectors of the churches should be of all five movements. take care that the people always associate Musicam Sacram disapproves of all of themselves with the singing by perform- the proper and ordinary being sung by the ing at least the easier sections of those choir, to the exclusion of the singing of the parts which belong to them.10 people: But since the Lord’s Prayer has been the usage of entrusting to the choir alone given to the congregation to sing, it has the entire singing of the whole Proper become a part of the ordinary; thus when and of the whole Ordinary, to the com- the traditional movements are sung by the plete exclusion of the people’s participa- choir, there is not “complete exclusion of the people’s participation in the singing,” and they still sing the numerous responses 8Among the works of Palestrina for the Mass, for example, I count 104 masses, 315 motets, during the liturgy as well. I have addressed and 67 off ertories. Since each mass consists the question of the singing of the poly- of fi ve movements, this amounts to 520 mass phonic ordinary extensively in these pages movements as compared to 382 motets and previously,11 but one point should be made off ertories. Th ere is also, of course a large body of works for the Divine Offi ce: 71 hymns (an average of three verses each), 57 lamentations, 9Sacred Congregation of Rites, Instruction on 35 Magnifi cats (consisting of six verses each), Music in the Liturgy Musicam Sacram (March and 11 litanies. Since the masses consist of fi ve 5, 1967), ¶16c. movements each, and even granting that some 10Musicam Sacram, 20. motets have been composed for performance at Mass, a strong majority of Palestrina’s works for 11Cf. Jared Ostermann, “Twentieth-Century Mass consists of ordinaries. Reform and the Transition from a ‘Parallel’ to a
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 7 here. If, as in the case of the Mass where my experience of this has been that those pres- own choir sings, the congregation sings six ent were quite moved by such singing. The different cycles of the chant ordinary in the same is true in a very different way for course of the year on the normal Sundays, wedding. and the choir sings a complete ordinary on Polyphony adds something unique to a a few major feast days, the congregation, by liturgy celebrated in chant. Its beauty is, for their having sung in Latin the very texts of some, more tangible, but what it adds is a the ordinary, are well prepared to partici- sense of cosmic order. The coordination of pate in the Mass by hearing the ordinary the contrapuntal parts of a motet suggest sung by the choir. This is not taking their the order and purpose with which the Cre- participation away from them, but rather ator endowed all of creation, and while the enhancing it. chant orients the worshiper to the liturgical There are special Masses for which action and joins him to it, the motet evokes polyphony can enhance the beauty and a larger order that at the same time aids the sacrality of the occasion. Funerals are dif- worshiper in reflecting upon his interior ficult for those close to the departed, and state. the Gregorian Requiem Mass together with a couple of polyphonic motets can ele- vate the mourning of those present.12 My
‘Sequential’ Liturgical Model: Implications for the Inherited Choral Repertoire and Future Li- turgical Compositions,” Sacred Music, 142, no. 1 (Spring 2015), 8–21; William Mahrt, “Th e A young woman on the Stanford faculty Choral Ordinary in the Ordinary Form,” Ibid, died a very premature death, and her husband 22–29; Jared Ostermann, “Th e Case against the and colleagues were devastated. Th e university Choral Ordinary in the Ordinary Form,” Sacred held a memorial service at which colleagues re- Music, 142, no. 2 (Summer, 2015), 26–37; and membered her, but her death was too prominent William Mahrt, “Singing the Ordinary of the for them to be able to contain themselves and Mass: A Response to Jared Ostermann,” Ibid., some of them broke down; a ’cello played in a 38–45. very disorderly way. Her husband asked if we 12I observed this on two occasions: one was the could sing a Gregorian Requiem Mass for her, funeral of Msgr. Richard Schuler. He had often and, though she was not Catholic, our pastor conducted the Mozart Requiem on All Souls’ said it was possible as long as it was not pub- Day, and so it was sung for his funeral. Th e cer- lic. A number of her colleagues attended. A few emonies of meeting the casket were conducted months later, I saw one of them, an expert on in English and were somewhat disorderly; at- Nietzsche, and he said to me that he had been at tendant priests wandered from the sacristy and the university service and it had torn him apart, crowded around the casket; the old ICEL texts he was disconsolate after it. He had come to the grated as not projecting a sense of formality req- Requiem Mass and he told me that although he uisite for a funeral. Th e brief, eloquent instru- was not a believer, he was edifi ed by the Mass, mental introduction to the Mozart then began, that seemed “a fi tting closure to a life.” and the assembled priests turned and returned I advise people to leave directions for their to the sacristy is quite an orderly manner. From funeral, if they want it to be beautiful and sa- that moment, he entire funeral was elevated to a cred; these directions should be placed with the level appropriate for a man who devoted his life will, but not in it, because the sealed will might to the beauty ad sacredness of the liturgy. not be read until after the funeral.
8 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Articles “Fulfilled is All that David Told”: Recovering the Christian Psalter The Septuagint undergirds the church’s liturgical life and provides the key to the traditional interpretation of biblical texts.
by Benedict Maria Andersen, O.S.B.
rom the earliest days of the be enshrined, permanently and for all time, Faith, there has existed a dis- in every historic Christian liturgy in East Ftinct tradition which might and West. justly be called “the Christian The uniquely Christian Psalter, one Psalter.” They are no different from the might say, revolves like a solar system Psalms of David passed down from He- around the so-called Septuagint (“LXX” brew antiquity, but they exist within the henceforth), the pre-Christian Greek church in a unique form, or rather, a whole translation, by Hellenistic Jewish scholars, constellation of textual traditions which of the Hebrew Old Testament. Latin Rite have come down to us not only in Greek Catholics receive the tradition of the LXX and Latin, but also in various other Chris- substantially through its Latin “daugh- tian languages:1 texts which have come to ter” and “granddaughter” respectively— the so-called “Old Latin” (Vetus Latina) or 1Bruce M. Metzger lists these as follows: “Old “Old Italic” family of manuscripts, and the Latin, Coptic, Gothic, Armenian, Georgian, Ethiopic, Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Syri- See Th e Bible in Translation: Ancient and English ac (in Paul of Tella’s translation around 616 of Versions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, Origen’s Hexaplaric text), Arabic, and Slavonic.” 2001), p. 20.
This paper was given as a plenary address at the annual sacred music colloquium, held in 2017 in Saint Paul, Minnesota at Saint Thomas University.
Dom Benedict Maria Andersen is a native of Denver, Colorado and a monk of Silverstream Priory in the Diocese of Meath, Ireland. A graduate of St Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in Crest- wood, N.Y., his areas of interest include patristics, liturgy (especially the history of High Church An- glican liturgy), and liturgical book design.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 9 revision of this tradition by Jerome which we call the Vulgate (Biblia Sacra Vulgata). That this textual tradition is not just In the words of of passing academic interest for Catho- lics is shown by Pope Benedict XVI, in Augustine, his 2006 Regensburg address, in which he argued that the LXX is more than a sim- the church approaches the ple translation from Hebrew: “it is an inde- pendent textual witness and a distinct and Septuagint version important step in the history of revelation.” According to the pope, the LXX became “as if it were the the locus of a dynamic encounter between Hebrew faith and Greek wisdom “in a way only one.” that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity.”2 These words, coming from a contempo- rary Roman Pontiff, are significant, espe- Christendom was universal and virtually cially given the direction which Catholic unchallenged. In the words of Augustine, biblical studies have taken since the middle the church approaches the Septuagint ver- of the twentieth century. Coming from the sion “as if it were the only one.”4 Origen, in same man who, years earlier in 1988 as Car- his Letter to Africanus, speaks of compar- dinal Ratzinger, had announced a “crisis” in ing “our” Greek readings with “theirs” (the modern historical-critical biblical studies,3 Jews). the reference to the LXX could be seen as The situation changed dramatically with a clarion call for Catholics to rediscover the the advent of the Reformation. Heavily roots of the church’s biblical faith in that influenced by late medieval nominalism,5 particular form in which it was received, Protestant divines by and large declared and passed on, by the apostles themselves. themselves in favor of the so-called Mas- Until the Reformation, the status of the oretic manuscript tradition (henceforth, LXX (and its Latin descendants) within “MT”), which they regarded as “the orig- inal Hebrew,” as from the mouths of the 2 Pope Benedict XVI, “Apostolic Journey to prophets themselves, the pure Word of München, Altötting, and Regensburg: Meeting God, unmediated by corrupt medieval with the Representatives of Science in the Aula ecclesiasticism. With time, this quest for a Magna of the University of Regensburg,” Sep- tember 12, 2006
10 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 pristine text morphed, under the influence from apostolic times until early moder- of the Enlightenment, into the rationalism nity, when it arises in the context of a revolt and radical skepticism of the liberal Protes- against Catholic faith and order.6 tant school of biblical scholarship. Interestingly, in modern times, there has Catholic biblical scholars enamored of also been a re-evaluation of the LXX tradi- these methodologies, long believing them- tion by a number of Protestant scholars. In selves to be constricted by Roman resis- 1905, for instance, Anglican scholar F. W. tance, finally received in 1943, from the Mozley, speaking of the “Coverdale Psalter” highest authority in the church, vindication of the Book of Common Prayer, remarked in the form of the encyclical Divino afflante Spiritu, which called for biblical translations It has pleased the Divine Author of the to be made from something called “the orig- Psalter and Director of the devotions of inal languages.” For many Catholic biblical the Church that the form of the Psalms scholars, this was seen as nothing less than in liturgical use should not agree exact- a revolution, a kind of “green light” to aban- ly with what has been called the Hebrew don the Vulgate entirely and to relegate the Verity. There is no clear reason why it LXX to the status of a tool to clarify obscure should.7 passages in the MT. The language of the encyclical must be Almost a century later, Brevard Childs, the understood in light of the sensational dis- renowned Protestant biblical scholar, raised covery by a young Bedouin shepherd, only the same question: three years after the encyclical’s release, of the first of the Qumran texts, the so-called Why should the Christian Church be Dead Sea Scrolls. This discovery witnesses committed in any way to the authority of to a vast multiplicity of Hebrew readings, the Masoretic text when its development some favoring the MT, some the Samari- extended long after the inception of the tan Pentateuch, and others the LXX. It is Church and was carried on within a rab- no longer possible, then, blithely to assume binic tradition?8 that the MT is more or less “the Hebrew original,” and that its differences with the 6It must be mentioned that the Catholic hu- LXX are due to defects in the latter. Any manists of the sixteenth century, such as Eras- search therefore, for “the original Hebrew,” mus, Th omas More, and Cardinal Cajetan, is a dead end. We have only what has been contributed also to this shift, albeit somewhat mediated to us by the tradition in which we inadvertently. See Allan K. Jenkins and Patrick stand. And herein lies the problem. Preston, Biblical Scholarship and the Church: A Western Catholics thus find themselves Sixteenth-Century Crisis of Authority (Abingdon- in an unprecedented position: almost two on-Th ames: Routledge, 2016). millennia of theology, liturgy, and devotion 7F. W. Mozley, Th e Psalter of the Church: Th e Sep- based upon the LXX and its Latin cognates tuagint Psalms Compared with the Hebrew, with have been pushed aside in favor of a medie- Various Notes (Cambridge: University Press, val rabbinic Jewish version of the Old Tes- 1905), p. viii. tament, never used by Christians anywhere 8Brevard S. Childs, Introduction to the Old Testament
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 11 Likewise, Mogens Müller, a Danish “The use of the LXX,” writes Martin Hengel, Lutheran theologian, writes in his fascinat- “as Holy Scripture is practically as old as the ing study The First Bible of the Church(1996): church itself.”11 To the fathers, therefore, with the exception of Jerome, the LXX was The question of the Old Testament text more than just a translation; it was part and cannot be separated from the question parcel of God’s saving economy towards the of what the early church regarded as its Gentiles, the movement from Jewish par- Bible. It is unreasonable to say that the ticularity to Catholic universality. As he “true” text actually differs from what the arrives in Rome, that symbol of the entire early church believed it to be. A histor- , Paul declares: “This salvation ical determination of what early Chris- of God is sent to the Gentiles, and they will tians believed to be the biblical text hear it” (Acts 28:28). “He who would read cannot be replaced by the text-criti- the New Testament,” wrote Sidney Jellicoe, cal question of its original appearance, “must know Koiné; but he who would un- derstand the New Testament must know the if this can be answered at all. The quo- LXX.”12 tation from Isa. 7.14 in Mt. 1.23 makes For Cyril of Jerusalem, for instance, this absolutely clear. Matthew says “vir- the Greek Old Testament, received from gin” in accordance with the Greek trans- the Jews of Alexandria by the church, “was lation, whereas the Hebrew text uses the no word-craft, nor contrivance of human word “young woman.” It would be point- devices: but the translation of the Divine less to rebuke the evangelist for using Scriptures, spoken by the Holy Ghost, the “wrong” text. On the contrary, the was of the Holy Ghost accomplished.”13 “It “wrong” text gains a significance of its was not alien,” wrote Clement of Alexan- 9 own by being used. dria, “to the inspiration of God who gave the prophecy, also to produce the transla- The church, Müller argues, tion, and make it as it were Greek proph- ecy.”14 Likewise, Augustine, in critiquing has its own Old Testament with respect Jerome’s insistence upon the Hebraica Veri- to both text form and volume, inspired by the Spirit of God with special re- 11Martin Hengel, Th e Septuagint as Christian gard to its appearance and mission. To Scripture: Its Prehistory and the Problem of Its put it differently, the Church has made Canon (New York: T & T Clark, 2002), p. 22. its choice beforehand, and another op- 12Sidney Jellicoe, “Septuagint Studies in the tion of an inherent retrospective effect is Current Century,” Journal of Biblical Literature, unthinkable.10 88 (1969), 199. In a similar vein, the German biblical critic Ferdinand Hitzig (1807–1875) as Scripture (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), p. 89. reportedly told his students: “Gentlemen, have 9Mogens Müller, Th e First Bible of the Church: you a Septuagint? If not, sell all you have, and A Plea for the Septuagint (Sheffi eld Academic buy a Septuagint!” Press, 1996), p. 23. 13Cyril of Jerusalem, Catecheses, IV.34. 10Müller, Th e First Bible, 94. 14Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, I.22,149.
12 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 most certainly would not have approved. The situation in the Christian East has been different, and still is to a great extent. Th e church’s faith is, as it No tradition, of course, Eastern or West- ern, has remained untouched by the spirit were, inseparably bound of the Reformation and the Enlighten- ment. But for the most part, the Orthodox up with the Septuagint Churches, despite the adoption of Western biblical hermeneutics on the part of many tradition. Orthodox scholars, have clung more or less faithfully to the Septuagint tradition for all things liturgical,16 and therefore, of neces- sity, for all things theological.17 Greek Orthodox biblical scholar Eugen tas, insisted that “the same Spirit that was Pentiuc speaks of “the impact of the Sep- in the prophets when they delivered those tuagint (conceptually and lexically) on the messages was present in person in the sev- liturgical life of the [Orthodox] Church,” enty men also.”15 While some might look since “the whole Eastern Orthodox hym- askance at the idea of the inspiration (or nography is infused with concepts and quasi-inspiration) of the Septuagint, at the terms” from the LXX.18 The situation, it very least it can be seen as a strong convic- seems to me, is no different in the classic tion in the providential role of the Greek Roman liturgical tradition, with regard to Old Testament in preparing the way for the the Vulgate and Old Latin Psalters. acceptance by the Greco-Roman world of In the West no less than in the East, the Jewish Messiah who came “according the church’s faith is, as it were, inseparably to the Scriptures.” Arguably, Jerome’s insistence on the 16In fact, the textual variants very often provide Hebraica Veritas introduced an uncertainty the only reason for a particular text’s utilization in the Western Church as to the status of within the liturgy. In the Byzantine Rite, Psalm the Greek Old Testament, a tension that 67:11 (LXX) forms the basis of the prayer by which the deacon is blessed to read the Gospel. was to surface in full force with the Refor- Th e Psalm in both the LXX and Vulgate reads: mation, influenced by the parallel move- “Th e Lord will give speech with great might to ment of the “new humanism” with its call those who preach good tidings.” Th e MT vari- ad fontes, as well as a kind of naive associ- ant could not be more diff erent: “Th e women ation of post-temple rabbinic religion, and that publish the tidings are a great host.” its version of the Hebrew Scriptures, with 17On this point, the Latin Church, I would sug- Judaism at the time of Our Lord. Hebra- gest, would do well to learn from the Greek East ica veritas thus becomes linked with a late in the spirit of Pope St John Paul II’s apostolic medieval Hebrew manuscript tradition letter Orientale Lumen. which Jerome never knew and of which he 18Eugen J. Pentiuc, Th e Old Testament in Eastern Orthodox Tradition (New York: Oxford Univer- 15Augustine, De Civitate Dei, XVIII.43. sity Press, 2014), p. 90.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 13 bound up with the LXX tradition, which have rejoiced to search every psalm, verse by Müller has called “the Old Testament of verse, phrase by phrase, word by word, and the New Testament.”19 Given the New Tes- sometimes even letter by letter and to find tament utilization of Old Testament pas- in them only Christ.22 sages, the majority of them coming from or The title of this paper is lifted from the relating in some way to the LXX, any sort Vexilla Regis, that masterpiece of Chris- of marginalization of this tradition risks tian hymnology written by Venantius For- undermining the basic foundations of the tunatus (530–607), or rather, John Mason faith itself.20 Neale’s (1818–1866) translation of it, which Of all the Old Testament writings, is, in itself, a masterpiece of liturgical trans- the Psalms are by far the most frequently lation. The full strophe is: invoked by the apostolic writers; and of these the vast majority of the references Fulfilled is all that David told agree with the LXX. Moreover, these spe- In true Prophetic song of old: cifically LXX-based references are often Amidst the nations God (saith he) the most pivotal in terms of shaping the Hath reigned and triumphed from church’s faith concerning the identity and the Tree. 23 mission of Jesus as the Christ. For the apos- tles, and for the fathers and the medieval “Fulfilled impleta( sunt) is all that David commentators, Christ is the fulfillment of told.” The English word “fulfill” renders the Psalms. He is at one and the same time very well the Latin impleo, implere: to fill up the subject matter, the praying subject, and the One who is prayed to. 22I refer to the patristic and medieval interpre- From the moment of the first official tations of the Hebrew letters prefacing every proclamation of the message of Christ by section of Psalm 118 (LXX), indicative of its Simon Peter on the Day of Pentecost, the original acrostic structure. To the modern critic, first and most fundamental assumption of most, if not all, of these beautiful interpretations the entire Christian tradition with regard are quaint, and not to be taken seriously, as for to the Psalter is that it is all about Christ, instance this take on the letter Nun: “Th e four- God and man, head and body, from the teenth letter, Nun, signifi es a fi sh, and thus fi tly first psalm to the last,Beatus vir to Laudate follows Mem, or water. Beda takes it of the be- Dominum.21 In every generation, Christians liever tossed about in the waves of this world, and desiring the light of life.” J. M. Neale and R. F. Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms 19 Müller, Th e First Bible, p. 115–16. from Primitive and Mediaeval Writers; and from 20Perhaps it is not by chance that the shattering the Various Offi ce-books and Hymns of the Roman, of Western Christendom into thousands of sec- Mozarabic, Ambrosian, Gallican, Greek, Coptic, tarian pieces coincided with the growing prefer- Armenian, and Syrian Rites, vol. IV (London: ence, on the part of Renaissance humanists, for Joseph Masters, 1874), p. 96. the MT over the LXX and Vulgate. 23Th e translation fi rst appears in Th e Hymnal 21Th e following three paragraphs are from a Noted, part I, ed. John Mason Neale and Th om- sermon I preached on the Fourth Sunday after as Helmore (London: Novello, Ewer & Co., Pentecost, June 12, 2016. 1851), p. 51.
14 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 to the full as in a vessel something which was lacking, to complete or flesh out some- thing that was formerly an empty form or skeleton. The ancient Scriptures of the cho- We moderns, raised sen people were as a vessel waiting to be filled. Thus Origen wrote: with all the assumptions
Before the sojourn of Christ, the Law of modernity, are and the Prophets did not contain the proclamation which belongs to the defi- distinctly uncomfortable nition of the Gospel, since he who ex- plained the mysteries in them had not in this realm of yet come. But since the Saviour has come and has caused the Gospel to be embod- traditional Christian ied, he has by the Gospel made all things as Gospel.24 interpretation of the
Ephrem the Syrian put it this way: Psalms. the Risen Christ “by his explanations for symbols, and interpretations for similes, [receives] into himself all streams” of the former revelation: assumptions of modernity, are distinctly the sea is Christ who is able to receive uncomfortable in this realm of traditional the sources and the springs and rivers Christian interpretation of the Psalms. and streams that flow forth from with- There is nothing simple or straightforward in Scripture [the Old Testament]. . . . it about the Christology of the Psalms. In fact, is Christ who perfects its symbols by his one might accurately say that Christ is more cross, its types by his body, its adorn- concealed than revealed in the Psalms. The ments by his beauty, and all of it by all Psalter is not a “preview of coming attrac- of him!25 tions”; it is read retrospectively in Christ. It is a realm which the overly literalistic or We moderns, raised with all the rationalistic mind quite simply cannot enter. To such a mind, traditional spiritual exe- 24Origen, Commentary on John, I.33; quoted in gesis of scripture can only appear arbitrary, John Behr, Th e Way to Nicaea, vol. 1 (Crestwood, forced, and even dishonest. One must have N.Y.: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2001), p. the “mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16) and “the 170. anointing” (1 John 2:20), that is, the grace 25Ephrem the Syrian, “Hymns on Virginity,” of a holy life and a deep communion with hymn 9, vv. 10, 12, 15, in Hymns, tr. Kathleen Christ himself and his Holy Spirit. A man McVey (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. must allow Christ himself, who holds the 302–03. Key of David (Apoc. 3:7), to open up the
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 15 Psalms: as we sing in Psalm 118 (v. 18): Rev- ela oculos meos, et considerabo mirabilia de lege tua (Open thou mine eyes, that I may see the Th e Psalms reveal wondrous things of thy law). It was no lack of intelligence on the Christ and conceal him part of the majority of Jews at the time of Jesus that they did not agree with the pic- in one and the same ture painted by Simon Peter on the Day of Pentecost. Christ is “the treasure hidden in breath: he stands behind the field,” as Irenaeus wrote. The Psalms reveal Christ and conceal him in one and the wall, gazing through the same breath: he stands behind the wall, gazing through the latticework (Cant. 2:9). the latticework. He sees us as we are, but we see him only as “through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12). “I will open my mouth in parables,” says David in Psalm 77:2, “I will utter dark say- ings (π) that have been from the a king.27 In and of themselves, the tiny tiles beginning.”26 mean nothing. What matters is the icon There is a reason why Our Lord, after his fashioned out of them by the Spirit of God resurrection (which no one but the Father in the minds and hearts of his saints. observed in the darkness of the tomb), often The Vexilla’s warlike strains proclaim appears to his friends in a form which is not the faith of the church: bold, audacious, immediately recognizable; Mary Magda- embarrassingly pre-critical, yet so evoc- lene, for instance, mistakes him for the gar- ative of a higher order of truth. The Psal- dener. The story of the meeting on the road ter is not a kind of disjointed collection to Emmaus (Luke 24) shows how it is not of hymns, poems, laments, and curses, or possible to know beforehand how Christ is liturgical relics from a long dead Hebrew the one who comes (as we confess) secundum cult, but a kind of sacramental by which the Scripturas. The Scriptures must be opened soul may pierce through the visible veils of by Christ himself in and through the prayer the mere letter in the power of the Spirit of and teaching of his church. God, in a way analogous to our perception Rather, to use an image of Irenaeus, the of the Eucharistic presence: “Faith our out- church finds in the Psalter, as well as in the ward sense befriending makes the inward Law and Prophets, a thesaurus as it were, 27 a treasure-trove of countless little precious Heretics, according to Irenaeus, break the tesseræ which the Holy Spirit, the master image and “rearrange the jewels, and make the form of a dog, or of a fox, out of them, and that artist, fashions into the beautiful likeness of a rather bad piece of work.” Adversus Hæreses I.8.1., trans. John J. Dillon, Ancient Christian 26Psalms are cited according to the LXX num- Writers, vol. 55 (New York: Th e Newman Press, bering. 1992), p. 41.
16 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 vision clear” (Præstet fides supplementum sen- liturgical psalter of Latin Christendom. suum defectui).28 The origins of the variant are extremely What exactly, then, did David say in obscure: are we dealing here with a pre-Chris- the Psalms that was fulfilled in the passion tian text or a kind of early Christian gloss or and cross of the Lord? Our poet, Venantius midrash which at some point was blended Fortunatus, continues: “Amidst the nations into the text of the psalm?31 The dearth of God (saith he) hath reign’d and triumphed real evidence either way makes a definitive from the Tree”: regnavit a ligno Deus, liter- judgment impossible, although, as J. Brink- ally, “God has reigned from the wood.” In trine demonstrates, there is good reason to your personal bible, whatever the transla- believe that a Hebrew original lies behind a tion, you will find similar language—“God ligno /.32 Old Testament scholar reigns amidst the nations”—but you will find Margaret Barker argues for the possibility of nothing about a tree or wood. On the other the “tree” reading being extremely old, pos- hand, the mysterious text known to Fortu- sibly reflecting First-Temple ideas concern- natus is as close and accessible as our trusty ing the identity of the throne of the Davidic well-worn pre-conciliar hand missal or bre- king with the tree of life from Eden. Barker viary. What could be going on here? mentions, for instance, a mural in the syn- Fortunatus was working with a partic- agogue at Dura Europos depicting a regal ular version of Psalm 95:10, a rare variant, figure sitting in a tree, along with a lion (the found only in a few old Greek manuscripts, in the Psalter of the Coptic Church, gy and monasteries of the Frankish empire by and in the pre-Vulgate Latin Psalter.29 It Charlemagne on the advice of Alcuin of York; never became a part of the “mainstream” it had earlier been adopted by John Cassian at LXX tradition, nor did it find its way into Marseilles and Gregory of Tours. Eventually Jerome’s version now known as the Galli- it was to overtake the Roman Psalter, used in canum30 which was destined to become the parts of Italy and England, and Jerome’s He- brew Psalter, which was used in Spain. See Scott Goins, “Jerome’s Psalters” in William P. Brown, 28Th omas Aquinas, Pange lingua gloriosi Corporis ed., Th e Oxford Handbook of the Psalms (London: mysterium, trans. by J. M. Neale, E. Caswall, and Oxford University Press, 2014), pp. 185–98. others, from Th e English Hymnal (London: Ox- 31See J. Duncan M. Derrett, “ ford University Press, 1906), p. 459. ,” Vigiliæ 29Th e Coptic text, as given by M. G. Schwartze, Christianæ, 43 (1989), pp. 378–92. in Psalterium in Dialectum Copticæ Linguæ Mem- 32J. Brinktrine, “Dominus regnavit a lingo,” Bib- phiticam Translatum (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1843), lische Zeitschrift, 10 (1966), 105–07. Brinktrine p. 151, is ebolhi ou se, which corresponds exactly suggests that it may be in reference to the supe- with the Old Latin and Greek, where the word riority of the God of Israel over idols of wood. is not in fact “tree” but “wood” (in ligno, Neale and Littledale mention the theory that it ). Note also that in the Coptic Orthodox refers to “the wood of the Ark of the Covenant, Divine Offi ce, Psalm 95 is said daily at None, from which went forth the might which over- the hour when Christ, reigning upon the Wood, threw Dagon, the Philistine idol, and brought “gave up his spirit” to the Father. about the restoration of the Ark itself to Israel.” 30So-called due to its imposition upon the cler- (Commentary on the Psalms, III, 232).
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 17 Lion of Judah?), and under the tree a table The first direct allusion to the “tree” read- containing shewbread (loaves of proposi- ing of Psalm 95:10 outside of the canonical tion) from the temple. Even conceding the New Testament can be found in the Epis- opinion of most critics, that “from the tree” tle of Barnabas, dated by most to between was added to the psalm at a late date, Barker a.d. 100 and 130 (and possibly earlier). opines that “it would have been an appro- “The royal realm of Jesus,” writes Barna- priate addition even before the Christians bas, “is founded on the wood,” referring to began to describe the cross as the tree.”33 a leper-cleansing ritual in Leviticus 14:1–9, Indeed, the reign of the God-Man from involving a water lustration with cedar wood the tree of the cross appears as a central and hyssop bound with red wool.36 image of the earliest Christian witness to A few decades later, the verse is quoted Christ and his saving works, as recorded in directly in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with the Acts of the Apostles. In Peter’s apolo- Trypho, probably written around 155. gia before the Sanhedrin in Acts 5, he lands Here Justin makes Psalm 95:10, along this devastating blow upon the very men with Isaiah 7:14 (“a Virgin shall con- who had just participated in the bloody ceive”), a centerpiece of his argument scene at Calvary: “The God of our fathers that the post-Christian Jewish rabbin- has raised up Jesus, whom you put to death, ical establishment had suppressed or hanging him upon a tree.”34 altered certain Old Testament passages But note that there is a bit of a discon- because of their prophetic witness to the nect in terms of imagery. Jesus was nailed life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of to a cross, a fabricated wooden instrument Nazareth. “No one of your people,” said of torture and execution invented by the Justin, “was ever said to have reigned as Romans. He was not literally hung from a God and King over the Gentiles, except tree as from a gallows, and yet this is the the Crucified One.”37 image painted for us in the earliest apos- Later references to the verse appear tolic (witness) to the meaning of mostly in the Latin fathers. Tertullian Christ’s death. He who was without sin appeals to the verse alongside a text from became a curse for us, for in the law we read Deuteronomy (28:66, “And thy life shall “cursed is every one who hangs on a tree” be as it were hanging before thee”), the (Gal. 3:13, Deut. 21:23 [LXX]).35 Prophet Joel (2:22, “The tree hath brought forth its fruit”), and Psalm 21:17 (“they 33Margaret Barker, Th e Great High Priest: Th e Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (London: 36Epistle of Barnabas, 8.5, translation in Marga- T&T Clark, 2003), p. 243. ret Barker, Th e Mother of the Lord, Vol. 1: Th e 34Acts 5:30–31, Douay-Rheims-Challoner trans- Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury lation (slightly modernized by the author, empha- T&T Clark, 2012), p. 162. sis added). Peter conjures up the same image in 37Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, ch. 73; the discourse he delivers at the baptism of the fi rst tr. Th omas B. Falls, Th e Fathers of the Church: Gentile, the centurion Cornelius (Acts 10:39). A New Translation, vol. 6 (Washington, DC: 35“Tree” occurs nowhere in the MT version of Catholic University of America Press, 1948), p. this verse. 264.
18 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 look and stare upon me”). “David himself,” his shoulders, even the Cross, for the said Tertullian, “was saying the Lord would Lord hath reigned from the tree).41 reign from the tree ... not that tree in par- adise that gave death to the first human Somewhat akin, one might say, to the beings, but the tree of the suffering of the church’s insistence upon Four Gospels with Christ, from where the life that hung there very different details and interpretations of was not believed by you [the non-Christian Our Lord’s earthly ministry, the church Jews].”38 has not only tolerated but has cherished the Another particularly striking example differences which exist between the two is this comment by Augustine in his expo- Latin versions of the Old Testament. While sition of Psalm 95: “The Lord established Jerome’s Psalterium Gallicanum did (through his sovereignty from a tree. Who is it that the promotion of the Carolingians) become fights with wood? Christ. From his Cross the standard Psalter of Latin Christendom, he has conquered kings.”39 the extreme conservatism of the Roman As a precise quotation, the reading ecclesiastical mindset would never counte- appears at these crucial places in the tradi- nance a complete replacement of all Vetus tional Roman Rite:40 texts, such as this version of Psalm 95, the Invitatory at Matins, and a great many of 1. In the Alleluia verse for the Friday the proper chants of the Mass and Divine in the Easter Octave and Paschaltide Office. Masses of the Cross; A perfect example of this mindset can be observed in the utmost vigilance shown 2. In the daily Paschaltide commem- by Pope Clement VIII in his revision of the oration of the Cross at Lauds and Missale Romanum. Certain printers, appar- Vespers; ently, had begun on their own initiative to conform the text of the propers to the 3. In a Matins antiphon of the Feast of Clementine Vulgate edition, issued decades the Most Holy Rosary: Crucis impe- earlier by the same pope (1592). On July 7, rium super humerum ejus: regnavit a 1604, in the bull Cum Sanctissimum, Clem- ligno Deus (The empire shall be upon ent acted decisively against what he called the “temeritas et audacia” of these printers 38Tertullian, Adversus Judæos, 13.12; tr. Geof- and others who dared to eliminate the Old frey D. Dunn, Tertullian (London: Routledge, Latin texts, declaring their copies null and 2004), p. 98. void, and even threatening excommunica- 39St. Augustine, Expositions of the Psalms: 73–98, tion latæ sententiæ against printers or book- tr. Maria Boulding, O.S.B. (Hyde Park, N.Y.: New City Press, 2002), p. 425. 41After the reforms of John XXIII, sadly, two 40As reported in Carl Marbach, Carmina scrip- out of fi ve of these references dropped out, ca- turarum, scilicet antiphonas et responsoria, ex Sacro sualties of the suppression of the Finding of the Scripturæ fonte in libros liturgicos Sanctæ Ecclesiæ Cross on May 3, as well as the Paschaltide com- Romanæ derivata (Strasbourg: F. X. Le Roux, memoration of the Cross at Lauds and Vespers, 1907), p. 197. in both the Roman and monastic breviaries.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 19 sellers who persisted in printing and selling of ancient textual variations is shown also in the bastardized missals.42 the use made in the traditional Roman Lit- The modern church seems less tolerant urgy of Psalm 138 for the feasts of apostles of this kind of diversity. As far as I have and evangelists. The following form of v. 17, been able to discern, in the modern Latin from the Psalterium Gallicanum, and derived liturgical books, surprisingly all references literally from the LXX, forms the basis of to the ancient variant of Psalm 95:10 have numerous proper parts of both Office and been completely expunged, except for one Mass: Mihi autem nimis honorati sunt amici last place: the Alleluia verse of the Friday tui, Deus: nimis confortatus est principa- after Easter in the 1974 Graduale Romanum. tus eorum (To me, O God, thy friends (the The reformers of the Consilium even saw fit Apostles) are most highly honored: their to brush under the proverbial rug the refer- dominion is strengthened exceedingly). ence to Christ reigning from the tree in the As Neale and Littledale remark, Vexilla Regis. The barbarism and contempt for immemorial tradition here is shocking, The Chaldee and all the other ancient to say the least. There could not be a more versions with one voice translate [the perfect example of a “hermeneutic of rup- Hebrew word] 9´yt Thy friends instead of ture” or “discontinuity” than this. Dom Thy thoughts. . . . And the commentators, Lentini, in his first draft (1968) of revised with one voice, explain the verse of the hymn texts for the Liturgia Horarum, specif- Saints of God, under the leadership of ically retained it, with the comment: “We the Apostles. . . . In this sense this verse dare not (non audemus) suppress the strophe has suggested the use of the Psalm in the nor change the line.” Clearly something Common of Apostles, and has furnished happened between the first draft and the its antiphon.44 publication of the editio typica.43 The dependence of the sacred liturgy, The Psalter of theNova Vulgata (first the lex orandi, and therefore the theology of issued in 1969 in tandem with the new litur- the church, the lex credendi, upon these sorts gical books), taking its cue from the MT, gives us: Mihi autem nimis pretiosæ cogita- 42An English translation of the bull can be found tiones tuæ, Deus: nimis gravis summa earum at
20 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Furthermore, having also made nonsen- Nova Vulgata as the text of reference for litur- sical the reference to the princedom of the gical translations in the ordinary form of the apostles, the reformers proceeded also, in a Roman Rite, whereas the traditional senses to systematic way, to eliminate all psalm verses which it refers are based entirely on the LXX/ from the liturgy which speak of the apostles Vulgate tradition. as having monarchical or princely character: Therefore Liturgiam Authenticam con- thus we no longer speak of the apostles as ceals a deeper and more profound theo- princes over all the earth (Ps. 44), crowned logical rift. The authority of the MT is with glory and honor (Ps. 8). Thus, as Peter unchallenged and even confirmed. The Jeffery writes, “An entire line of patristic point of reference is not the textual tradition exegetical thinking, which could not have of the church, East and West, but a rabbinic been more Roman, has been systematically Jewish production, originating well into the excised from the renewed Roman rite.”45 Middle Ages,47 which was never regarded Thus the problem with liturgical texts as a standard in the Christian Church in the Roman rite goes far beyond the usual before the Reformation, and contains nota- disagreements about “inclusive language,” ble instances of what some have argued or “dynamic equivalence,” or which styles of were attempts to eliminate, or at least blunt, translation appeal more to John and Mary Christological interpretations.48 Catholic. The problem is much more funda- For the fathers, and for the liturgy, all these mental. It is a problem of root texts themselves, details matter, even those which according to which leads me to say that Liturgiam Authen- a more literal reading seem to be taken out ticam is simply not enough. It is true that the of context or over-interpreted. Even apparent document has done an immense service to minutiae, such as differences in verb tenses, can Catholics who attend the holy mysteries cele- become the occasion for profound theological brated in their mother tongue, defending them insights. Take, for instance, Psalm 121:2. The from the importation of heterodox ideologies MT reads “Our feet shall stand in thy gates, by means of non-literal methods of transla- O Jerusalem,” whereas the LXX and Vulgate tion. Yet while Liturgiam Authenticam states have “Our feet were standing.” Neale and Lit- that “the greatest care is to be taken so that tledale, in the spirit of the Fathers, offer this the translations express the traditional Chris- beautiful explanation: tological, typological and spiritual sense,”46 nonetheless it then endorses the MT-based The very sign and cause of our hope that we shall go into the House of the Lord 45Peter Jeff ery, Translating Tradition: A Chant Historian Reads Liturgiam Authenticam (Col- 47Th e scribes known as the Masoretes fl ourished legeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2005), p. 35. between the seventh and tenth centuries AD. 46Congregation for Divine Worship and the Th e oldest complete MT manuscript is the early Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction eleventh century Codex Leningradensis. Liturgiam authenticam, ¶41.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 21 is that our feet are, even now, already on the unity existing within the immanent standing in the gates of Jerusalem, that tri-personal Godhead. is, that our desires and contemplations Ultimately, it matters very little, accord- are fixed and stablished in the mansions ing to the church’s spiritual vision, where of the kingdom of heaven, because our particular constructions came from, and conversation is in heaven, and accord- whether or not they are, critically speaking, ingly the Apostle speaks in similar lan- the “best” readings. Liturgists and theolo- guage to those still on pilgrimage, “Ye gians simply do not have the authority to are come unto Mount Sion, and unto suppress elements of the liturgy that they the city of the Living God, the heavenly find strange or unsettling or hard to under- 49 Jerusalem.” stand. The words Regnavit a ligno Deus have become sacred and authoritative by virtue Likewise, odd renderings and construc- of their venerable liturgical use, their very tions (according to a critical approach), adoption in the perennial tradition of the such as the sixfold appearance in the Old Latin Church, and they are, in a non-tech- Latin Psalter (preserved also in the Vul- nical but in a nonetheless authentic theo- gate) of the mysterious word Idipsum, give logical sense, the words “that David told, in Augustine the occasion for a startlingly true prophetic song of old.” beautiful insight about the nature of God Thus there is not merely a Christolog- and our participation in him.50 Idipsum, ical key to the Psalter, but a liturgical key. for him, becomes a title of God, a differ- The church, through the liturgy, not only ent way of rendering the “I AM THAT I gives us prompts for our meditation on the AM,” God’s self-revelation to Moses in the Psalms, but also applies in some way the burning bush: in Greek , or the grace of any particular psalm to different of Christ’s halo in Orthodox iconogra- phy: “I am the Existing One, I am Being, I contexts. With a kind of playfulness, and am Existence itself.” So, in the same Psalm a profound freedom in the Holy Spirit, the 121, the city of God is said to be “in Idip- liturgy teaches us to view the mystery from sum”: that is, the unity of the church is based every possible direction, in an almost kalei- doscopic fashion: applying the same phrase or image here to Our Lord in one and then 49Neale and Littledale, Commentary on the the other mystery; here to Our Lady, and Psalms, IV, 183. there to a holy martyr or confessor; here in 50Th e most thorough of Augustine’s discussions the mouth of a penitent, there in the mouth of Idipsum can be found in his commentary on of a departed soul. Psalm 121: “Th at you might participate in Be- Consider, for example, Psalm 23, ing-Itself (idipsum), [Christ] fi rst became a par- Domini est terra. One of the most impor- taker in what you are; the Word was made fl esh tant psalms in terms of Christology, it so that fl esh might be a partaker in the Word (ut autem effi ciaris tu particeps in idipsum, factus appears, in the classical Roman rite, in a est ipse prior particeps tui; et Verbum caro factum wide array of different liturgical contexts, est, ut caro participet Verbum).” Enarrationes in not only the Mass and Office but also the Psalmos (Patrologia Latina, 37:1622). ritual and pontifical.
22 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 1. On the Second Sunday after Epiphany, 4. In the ritual and pontifical, the one who in a Matins responsory, we sing of the is worthy to ascend, who seeks the face whole earth as the domain of Christ the of Jacob’s God, is the young cleric receiv- Lord, all its fullness and all who dwell ing tonsure, or the abbot chosen to shep- therein: that is, the Gentiles. “For he has herd his sons, or even, most poignantly, founded it upon the sea, and established the little child who dies in the Lord. All it upon the floods”— a reference to the these receive “the blessing of the Lord” beginning of a new creation and a new and his mercy through the ministry of humanity when Christ the God-Man the church. arose from the waters of the Jordan. 5. And finally, one of the most picturesque 2. In other contexts, such the propers of rites of our Roman liturgical tradition Advent and Christmas, the psalm sets is the dialogue that takes place between forth the innocent and pure-hearted the bishop and the deacon at the door Man as Christ himself, who alone was of the church before its consecration worthy to ascend the hill of Calvary (Bishop: “Lift up your gates, ye princes, and therefore to ascend into the heav- and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, ens. Yet another Christological insight and the King of Glory shall come in!” is brought to the fore, in the same sea- Deacon: “Who is this King of Glory?” sons, and especially in Advent Masses of Bishop: “The Lord, strong and mighty; Our Lady, with the verse commanding the Lord mighty in battle,” etc.) that the portæ æternales be thrown open, so that the King of glory may enter in. The issues here are not minor, nor are Is this not an image of Christ coming they merely poetic or æsthetic in nature. forth from the womb of the Virgin, the They are about the very basic stuff of our porta cæli? Catholic faith, especially our Christol- ogy, and about reverence for tradition just 3. In another Marian context, the third as we have received it. The debate between antiphon from Matins of the Immac- Augustine and Jerome on the Hebraica veri- ulate Conception reads: In Concepti- tas in some way anticipates our dilemma. In one sua accepit Maria benedictionem a the words of Mogens Müller: “To Augus- Domino, et misericordiam a Deo salutari tine history has a meaning which is lost suo. Is this not the dogmatic definition upon Jerome, who thinks it possible to start of 1854 clothed in sacred song: that Our all over again.”51 Lady, “at the first instant of her concep- Catholic biblical scholars can, do, and tion,” receives the “blessing,” the “singu- should examine multiple manuscript tradi- lar privilege,” of freedom from all stain tions, but the sacred liturgy does not depend of original sin, and “mercy” through upon the current state of biblical scholar- Jesus Christ her Son, both the Savior of ship.52 In the church it is the liturgy, not the mankind, and her Savior? 51Müller, Th e First Bible, 94. 52Witness the disastrous “Bea Psalter,” or “Pian
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 23 lecture hall, the academic journal, or the overpriced monograph, which is the priv- ileged place of the interpretation of Scrip- ture and of the Psalter in particular. The liturgy is where these obscure songs and In the church it is poems are transformed from being dead, inert relics of a long-dead civilization into the liturgy, not the a living and life-giving participation (one might say even sacrament, small “s”) of the lecture hall, the Mystical Body in the prayer of the Christ the Head. academic journal, Our liturgical life as Roman Catholics bears the wounds, still very raw, of a giv- or the overpriced ing into this same temptation of “starting all over again” according to a kind of pure monograph, which is standard, which is only a figment of the reformer’s imagination. As church musi- the privileged place of cians, and clergy, and simply as Catholics, we do not work in a vacuum—the fathers the interpretation of of the Second Vatican Council did not, nor did the experts of the Consilium, nor Scripture and of the do any of the successors of St. Peter. If we are Catholics, we stand within a tradition Psalter in particular. which first became incarnate in the inter- section of biblical faith with Greco-Roman culture, even as the Savior took flesh in the womb of a Jewish Virgin, subject of a Hel- things theological and liturgical a “herme- lenized Roman Empire. neutic of continuity,” but said hermeneutic The situation, I think, is quite serious, cannot blind us to the bare fact that there and as with the more general liturgical cri- has been in this area, as in many other areas sis in the Latin Church, there are no easy of the church’s life, a rupture, a breach, a solutions. We must continue to apply to all discontinuity with the past. It is my conviction that the ancient Greek and Latin texts of Christian psalm- Psalter” (approved by Pope Pius XII). By bas- ody must be at the forefront of our efforts ing itself on the MT, not only does it depart radically from the inheritance of patristic and to bring about a “restoration of all things medieval commentary, but it also jettisons the in Christ” (Eph. 1:10, cf. Acts 3:21). The precious heritage of Christian Latin in favor of challenge is immense, but I do have a few a stale, sterile, “correct” sort of classical (pagan) preliminary, fragmentary ideas about how Latinity (for which it received a well-deserved Latin Catholics can at least begin to recover trouncing by Christine Mohrmann, champion the Christian Psalter, liturgically, theologi- of the heritage of Christian Latin). cally, and spiritually.
24 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 My first observation is that this issue the lay faithful should pursue this same sort highlights once again the dire need for of study. How wonderful would it be to see “mutual enrichment” between what we now in our parishes bible study groups dedicated call the “two forms of the Roman Rite.” I to reading through the psalms line by line, am not a believer in the idea that the mod- comparing translations, and learning from ern form of the liturgy has absolutely noth- the old commentators and the liturgy itself ing to offer the usus antiquior, but I believe the various ways in which Christ reveals his that in this area, the enrichment must come face in the Psalms. exclusively from the direction of the old to My fourth and final observation is that the new. Concretely, this means fostering in the time is long overdue for a fresh trans- any way we can in our celebrations of the lation of the Old Testament based on the ordinary form the use of the 1974 edition Latin Vulgate, with an eye perhaps also to of the Graduale Romanum, either according LXX and Vetus traditions where variant to their proper melodies, or in the various readings give rise to significant theological simplified versions of its text which have or spiritual insights. The Douay-Rheims been made available by the CMAA. Bible, of course, is a much loved and his- My second observation is that pastors, torically significant translation, but I think both bishops and priests, as well as dea- there is a need for a somewhat updated cons, should seek to immerse themselves in idiom, perhaps in the style of the RSV. the mystical and Christological approach Such a translation ought to be fairly literal, to the Psalter, and then to open up those especially given the genius of the fathers riches little by little to the faithful. There is and the medieval commentators for min- no requirement whatsoever that the homily ing even the tiniest linguistic details for the be on the Gospel or one of the other read- choicest of spiritual gems. It would also be ings. You can and should—and this goes extremely beneficial for such a text to be for homilies in the usus antiquior—preach accompanied by some form of gloss or cat- from time to time or even regularly on the ena, synthesizing the insights of these com- introit, the gradual or responsorial psalm, mentators, as well as of modern ones who or the communion antiphon. write in their spirit. It is easier than ever for pastors to After all, we inherit not merely bare texts, instruct themselves in the school of the but ones which have been passed down cen- fathers through, for instance, the two psalm tury after century by holy men and women, volumes of the Ancient Christian Commen- guided by the Spirit of truth, as they prayed tary on Scripture (an ecumenical effort pub- it, preached it, and lived it. In the face of such lished by the evangelical InterVarsity Press), a treasure, we can only say with David in or the four-volume Psalm Commentary by Psalm 15: Funes ceciderunt mihi in præclaris, Neale and Littledale, cited several times etenim hæreditas mea præclara est mihi (To me above. In terms of individual fathers, it the boundary lines have fallen in the fairest would be hard to match the Enarrationes of places: my inheritance, how goodly it is to in Psalmos of Augustine; I would argue that me!) this is his finest work. A third and related observation is that
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 25 The Primacy of Gregorian Chant: Reflections on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Musicam Sacram Why has Gregorian chant all but disappeared from vernacular- language liturgies?
by Ted Krasnicki
regorian Chant and Latin are This conciliar document also mandated rarely heard in the reformed that, second, Gregorian chant have a spe- GMass, the Novus Ordo Mass cial place in the reformed liturgy: which Pope Paul VI authorized after the Second Vatican Council for use in 116. The Church acknowledges that the celebration of the Roman Rite. Yet the Gregorian chant is proper to the Roman Vatican II document on liturgy, Sacrosanc- liturgy: therefore, other things being tum Concilium (SC), while calling for some equal, it should have first place in litur- liturgical reforms, specifically mandated gical services.2 that Latin continue to be used in the re- formed liturgy: Moreover, the faithful too had a role sing- ing in Latin: 36.1 Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be 54. In Masses which are celebrated with preserved in the Latin rites.1 the people, a suitable place may be allot- ted to their mother tongue. . . . 1“Linguæ latinæ usus, salvo particulari iure, in Ri- tibus latinis servetur.” Second Vatican Council, rendering of the Latin meaning. Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum 2“Ecclesia cantum gregorianum agnoscit ut Concilium, ¶36.1. For the English texts of Latin liturgiæ romanæ proprium: qui ideo in action- documents, I use the Vatican online English texts, ibus liturgicis, ceteris paribus, principem locum but I modify them when needed for a more precise obtineat.” Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶116.
Ted Krasnicki received his Ph.D. from the Université de Montréal and studied Gregorian chant under the late Père Clément Morin. His musical services for the Latin Mass extend from Montreal to Northern Vermont.
26 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 The answer lies inMusicam Sacram (MS) How is it that over fi fty the official instruction on music in the sacred liturgy published soon after the council. years after the Second This document authoritatively interprets, presents, and mandates the musical princi- Vatican Council we ples that are found in SC. In it, we find a very important distinction being made: continue to have this 50. In sung liturgical services celebrat- lacuna of Gregorian ed in Latin:
chant and Latin in the (a) Gregorian chant, as proper to the Roman liturgy, should be given first reformed Mass despite the place, all things being equal. 5
mandates in SC? The statement “In sung liturgical services celebrated in Latin” is not found in SC. Its implication is that, if the sung liturgy is not Nevertheless steps should be taken so in Latin, then 50 (a) above need not apply. that the faithful may also be able to say Indeed, when we continue reading the next or to sing together in Latin those parts article, 51, any Latin sacred music, which of the Ordinary of the Mass which per- would include Gregorian chant, is not re- tain to them.3 quired at all in a vernacular liturgy but “could” [conveniat] be used: How is it, then, that over fifty years after the Second Vatican Council we continue 51. Pastors of souls, having taken into to have this lacuna of Gregorian chant and consideration pastoral usefulness and the Latin in the reformed Mass despite these character of their own language, should mandates in SC? This question is increas- see whether parts of the heritage of sa- ingly being asked, especially in the Catho- cred music, written in previous centuries lic blogosphere.4 terfi ve.com/song-befi ts-the-lover-understanding- the-place-of-gregorian-chant-in-the-mass/>. 3 “Linguæ vernaculæ in Missis cum populo cele- 5“In actionibus liturgicis in cantu lingua lati- bratis congruus locus tribui possit. . . . na celebrandis: a) Cantus gregorianus, utpote Provideatur tamen ut christifi deles etiam lin- liturgiæ romanæ proprius, principem locum, gua latina partes Ordinarii Missæ quæ ad ipsos ceteris paribus, obtineat.” Instruction Musicam spectant possint simul dicere vel cantare.” Sacro- Sacram, March 5, 1967. Th e Latin text of Musi- sanctum Concilium, ¶54. cam Sacram has, as of this writing, still not been 4For instance, the remarks by Peter Kwasniewski, posted at the vatican.va website. I am using the “‘Song Befi ts the Lover’: Understanding the Place document posted at the MusicaSacra website: of Gregorian Chant in the Mass,” One Peter 5
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 27 for Latin texts, could also be conveniently used, not only in liturgical celebrations in Latin but also in those performed in the vernacular. There is nothing to prevent dif- Th e tasks of interpreting ferent parts in one and the same celebra- tion being sung in different languages.6 SC and implementing
That is to say, MS assumes that there are its proposed reforms were two forms of post-conciliar liturgical cele- brations, one in Latin and the other in the given to the Consilium. vernacular. If the liturgy is in Latin then 50 (a) necessarily applies; if it is in the vernacu- lar, or even partly so, then 50 (a) could apply ular forms of liturgical celebrations does not at the will of the pastor of souls. Latin sa- prima facie appear in SC, but was derived cred song, in other words, is not necessary from an underlying tension that the Consil- although it could be used. But did not SC ium perceived in SC and which eventually call for Latin to be retained, and Gregorian came to the surface when preparing the in- chant to have first place in the reformed lit- struction on music. If there is one word with urgy we saw above? its derivatives that characterizes the man- dated liturgical reforms, it is “participate,” Latin vs. Full Participation appearing twenty-seven times in SC. The The tasks of interpreting SC and imple- participation by the faithful in the liturgy menting its proposed reforms were given to was of paramount importance for the litur- the Consilium (Consilium ad exsequendam gical reforms: “In the renewal and promo- Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia) headed tion of the sacred liturgy, this full and real by its secretary, Msgr. Annibale Bugnini.7 participation by all the people is the aim to This distinction between Latin and vernac- be considered before all else.”8 Because most of the parish-based faithful could not un- derstand Latin, the Consilium saw its use 6“Videant insuper animorum pastores, præ oculis in the liturgy as conflicting with that “full, habitis locorum condicionibus, fi delium utilitate 9 pastorali et cuius que sermonis ingenio, utrum conscious, and real” participation asked of partes thesauri musicæ sacræ, quæ pro textibus the faithful. As Bugnini said: lingua latina exaratis superioribus saeculis con- scriptæ sunt, præterquam in actionibus liturgi- If, then, the purpose of using the vernac- cis lingua latina celebratis, etiam in iis adhiberi ular in the liturgy is to enable the assem- conveniat, quae lingua vernacula peraguntur. bly to participate consciously, actively, Nihil enim impedit quominus in una eademque celebratione aliquæ partes alia lingua canantur.” 8“Quæ totius populi plena et participatio actuosa, in Musicam Sacram, ¶51. instauranda et fovenda sacra Liturgia, summopere 7Cf. Marini, Piero, A Challenging Reform: Real- est attendenda.” Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶14 izing the Vision of the Liturgical Renewal (Col- 9“. . .ad plenam illam, consciam atque actuosam legeville: Liturgical Press, 2007), p. 34. . . .” Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶14.
28 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 and fruitfully, there is no justification authority, so the use of the musical reper- for using in any part of the sacred ac- tory that is connected with the Latin text tion a language that the people do not is for celebrations in Latin, although it is understand.10 possible to use some parts of it even in celebrations in the vernacular.12 The Consilium found a solution to this conflict through a more nuanced interpre- In preparing the instruction on sacred tation of SC. The conflict arises only when music, then, the idea of two forms of cel- the faithful do not understand the language ebration appeared in order to reconcile of the liturgy. This suggests that, when SC the perceived tension between the use of stressed participatio actuosa, it assumed that Latin and participatio actuosa as the Con- some would understand Latin while oth- 13 ers would not. Therefore, SC intrinsically silium understood it. Latin and Gregorian distinguished two forms of liturgical cele- chant are to be used in the settings where bration, one in Latin for those who could it was mainly understood, such as at reli- understand it, and one in the vernacular for gious houses and monasteries;14 at the local those who could not. The Consilium inter- parish, where it was generally not under- preted passages on music, such as SC ¶114 stood, the liturgy was to be in the vernac- which states that “the treasury of sacred ular because “of the great advantage to the music is to be preserved and cultivated with 11 great care,” correspondingly: 12Bugnini, Reform, 907. 13It should be noted, that Bugnini had also been The reference [in SC ¶114] is to the mu- infl uential in the Preparatory Commission re- sical repertory connected with the Latin sponsible for drafting the schema on the liturgy texts of the liturgy. When therefore the that was to be presented to the Council Fathers Constitution [SC] allowed the intro- for approval and which later became SC. As duction of the vernaculars, it necessarily its secretary, he had “a position of considerable anticipated that the preservation of this importance,” so much so that when Cardinal “treasure of sacred music” would be de- Larraona became the head of the new Litur- pendent solely on celebrations in Latin. . . gy Commission later set up by the Council he “considered Bugnini too progressive and held In this part of the text, the instruction him responsible for the disagreeable schema he intends to make it clear that just as there inherited”; John W. O’Malley, S.J., What Hap- pened at Vatican II? (Cambridge, Mass.: Har- are two forms of celebration, one in Latin, vard University Press, 2010), pp. 129–130. the other in the vernacular, in accordance 14 with the norms established by competent Nonetheless, this two-form interpretation was also applied to the Divine Offi ce: “Th e Latin language is to be retained for clerics celebrating 10 Annibale Bugnini, Th e Reform of the Liturgy the Divine Offi ce in choir.” In the case where (1948–1975) (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, it is sung “both by the faithful and by nuns 1990), p. 112. and other members of Institutes professing the 11“Th esaurus Musicæ sacræ summa cura serve- evangelical virtues, who are not clerics” it is to be tur et foveatur.” Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶114. sung “in the vernacular.” Musicam Sacram, ¶41.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 29 people.”15 Accordingly, the statement in The key word here is præterquam”“ which SC 36.1 that Latin is “to be preserved in usually indicates an exception to some- the Roman liturgy” was interpreted in the thing, in this case to the vernacular. In other sense of there being two forms of liturgi- words, “besides the vernacular” is taken to cal celebration, one in Latin with its Gre- mean that the vernacular is the norm, and gorian chant and treasure of Latin sacred that in the exceptional case that the Mass music, and the other completely or partly in is in Latin, the faithful ought to be able the vernacular with vernacular songs. to say or sing the ordinary in Latin just as This two-forms interpretation of par- they would sing the vernacular ordinary in ticipation introduces another way of vernacular Masses. That would be the case understanding SC ¶54 above. The origi- when people come from different countries, nal context of SC ¶54 is within a limited as is suggested next in MS: use of the vernacular, where it is assumed that Latin would continue to be exten- Where the vernacular has been intro- sively used. But MS foresees the possibility duced into the celebration of Mass, the of greater use of the vernacular, consider- local Ordinaries will judge whether it ing that SC ¶54 actually continues with may be opportune to preserve one or “and wherever a more extended use of the more Masses celebrated in Latin—espe- mother tongue within the Mass appears cially sung Masses (Missæ in cantu)—in desirable.” MS ¶47 relates the participation certain churches, above all in large cities, in song to the language of the celebration, where many come together with faithful restricting the faithful to singing “together of different languages.17 in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass” to a Latin Mass: Bugnini had some interesting com- ments about this two-forms solution while one will therefore employ that form of defending the Consilium against accusa- participation which best matches the ca- tions that it was trying to rid Latin from pabilities of each congregation. Pastors the liturgy. He admitted that “it cannot be of souls should take care that, besides denied that the principle, approved by the (præterquam) the vernacular, “the faith- Council, of using the vernaculars was given ful may also be able to say or sing togeth- a broad interpretation,” but that it was “in er in Latin those parts of the Ordinary line with the spirit of the conciliar decrees,” of the Mass which pertain to them (SC 54).”16 simul dicere vel cantare seiant.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶54). Musicam Sacram, ¶47. 15 Musicam Sacram, ¶47 and Sacrosanctum Con- 17“Videant locorum Ordinarii utrum, inducto cilium, ¶54. usu linguæ vernaculæ in celebrationem Missæ, 16“congrua participationis forma pro cuiusque opportunum evadat ut, in aliquibus ecclesiis, coetus facultatibus opportune adhibeatur. præcipue vero in magnis urbibus, quo fi deles Curent animarum pastores, ut, præterquam lin- diversi sermonis frequentius conveniunt, unam gua vernacula «christifi deles etiam lingua latina aut plures Missas lingua latina celebrandas ser- partes Ordinarii Missæ, quæ ad ipsos spectant, vent, præsertim in cantu.” Musicam Sacram, ¶48.
30 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 and “cannot be said to contradict the Con- the musicians, however, even “listening stitution on the Sacred Liturgy.”18 And he to good, devout, and edifying music . . . adds, “This, then, is a classic example of a promotes ‘active’ participation.”20 legitimate post-conciliar development.” In other words, extending the vernacular to Even though the musicians quoted St. the entire liturgy, including its songs, was Thomas Aquinas in their defense,21 Bugni- in the same “spirit of the council,” subse- ni was opposed to their position.22 He saw quently used to justify all sorts of novelties them as having “a mentality that could not and changes to the liturgy. come to grips with new pastoral needs,” so that their position “could not be accepted The Liturgists vs. the Musicians without betraying the mandate the Consili- This two-forms solution became particular- um had received.”23 On the musicians’ side, ly important for the final version of MS. A year after Bugnini’s Consilium was asked we had to fight many a battle over this to produce the instruction on music, there instruction, as the liturgists did not want was so much disagreement between main- to hear about the true value of good ly liturgists and the musicians invited to the church music in the liturgy. They tried to committee assigned for this task that, as destroy everything that belonged to the Susan Benofy has pointed out, a final ver- old Roman rite.24 sion became impossible.19 Most of these in- vited musicians did not believe participatio 20Bugnini, Reform, 904. actuosa implied that people necessarily had 21 to sing in order to participate fully in the lit- “Th e soul is distracted from that which is sung urgy, since attentive listening was also active by a chant that is employed for the purpose of participation. But the liturgists felt that “full giving pleasure. But if the singer chant for the sake of devotion, he pays more attention to what participation” required the faithful to act in he says, both because he lingers more thereon, an outwardly detectable way, by singing: and because, as Augustine remarks (Confess. x, 33), ‘each aff ection of our spirit, according to its Here precisely is where the views of the variety, has its own appropriate measure in the two sides diverged: in the view of the voice, and singing, by some hidden correspon- liturgists the people must truly sing in dence wherewith it is stirred.’ Th e same applies order to participate actively as desired by to the hearers, for even if some of them under- the liturgical constitution; in the view of stand not what is sung, yet they understand why it is sung, namely, for God’s glory: and this is enough to arouse their devotion.” St. Th omas 18Bugnini, Reform, 110. Aquinas, Summa Th eologiæ, tr. Fathers of the 19Susan Benofy, “Th e Instruction Musicam English Dominican Province (New York: Ben- Sacram after Fifty Years: Rediscovering the ziger, 1920), II-II, ques. 91, art. 2, ad. 5
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 31 On the surface, the disagreement con- verged on whether people or trained choirs ought to sing at Mass. One would think Th e disagreement that both are possible, such as the people singing the ordinary, and the schola the converged on whether propers. Yet, Bugnini adds a perplexing statement on this: people or trained choirs
. . . two conceptions of the function of ought to sing at Mass. sacred song were at work. One type of musician looked upon song primarily as an art-form and an adornment of the cel- ebration. Liturgists and pastors, on the other hand, as well as musicians more that the musicians apparently attacked him conscious of pastoral needs, saw song “on the grounds that some points in the as having a structural role and serving [music] instruction depended on his ideas, to give better expression to the mystery as though the document was aiming to being celebrated.25 canonize these ideas.”27 Although himself a musician, he was vehemently on the side This “structural role” of sacred song is that of the pastoral liturgists in emphasizing the the people singing constitutes an essential priesthood of the faithful as a community of part of the liturgy, and not some artistic or- solidarity in faith united in singing. Singing namentation; singing belonged to the en- for him was a kind of “mystery of faith” be- tire assembly if participatio actuosa was to cause God “gave music to mankind that it be achieved. One of the most ardent propo- might signify the suffering and glory, the nents of this position was Joseph Gelineau, sacrifice and love of His Son who dies and whose influence on MS was so significant26 lives among His brethren.”28 When human speech is transformed into music Consilium committee on sacred music, as quot- song is a complete expression of the per- ed in Richard, J. Schuler, “A Chronicle of the son, coming from within him, involving Reform,” in Cum Angelis Canere, ed. Robert A. Skeris (St. Paul, Minn.: Catholic Church Music Associates, 1990), p. 376
32 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 all his powers of desire and development, filled with life because of its rhythm, with meaning because of its words, and with emotion because of its melos, springing Gelineau acknowledged forth toward another in a cry of appeal or exclamation of loving admiration.29 that this goal was
He believed that as a complete expres- contrary to what had sion of the person, singing had an essential function in the ritual action for a participa- existed in the Latin tio actuosa. Although the choir was a subset of the people, its role in the Mass was only Church for at least to lead or support the singing for the rest of the people.30 fi fteen hundred years. Gelineau acknowledged that this goal was contrary to what had existed in the Latin Church for at least fifteen hundred years: “The first blow suffered by active par- their fundamental role in the assem- ticipation of the faithful in worship came bly, and the choir should be limited to at the end of the ancient culture when the its own subordinate function of embel- barbarians invaded the West.”31 The pris- lishment and support. The restoration to tine times of the patristic era when “peo- the people of their active participation in ple’s singing in the liturgy was taken for the rites, desired by the Church in these granted,”32 had been corrupted over all the days, absolutely requires the correction centuries until the Second Vatican Council of imbalance when the proper equilibri- came along to remedy it. um has been disturbed.33
We cannot regard as a norm that histor- As problematic as this historical interpreta- ical evolution of the choir’s role which, tion might be today, these ideas greatly in- in order to give greater prominence to fluenced the Consilium and its liturgists, the achievements of art, has progressive- and, apparently, Paul VI. ly invaded the rites to the detriment of the people’s part in them. It would be Modern vs. Traditional incorrect, for example, to conclude that Although the division over sacred music was the singing in church is primarily en- about the theology of the Mass, as Schuler trusted to the choir, even if it is com- has noted,34 this disagreement was found- posed of clerics. The people should keep ed on deeper philosophical principles. Since the Council of Trent, much had changed in 29Gelineau, Voices, 22. the worldview of society, particularly during 30Gelineau, Voices, 89. 31Gelineau, Voices, 82. 33Gelineau, Voices, 87–88. 32Gelineau, Voices, 82. 34Schuler, “Chronicle,” 376.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 33 the European Enlightenment when the re- ligious sense of mystery was greatly lost as was the recognition of God’s active work in the world. Vatican II itself was called for an Th is view required aggiornamento or updating of the church, “to adapt more suitably to the needs of our that the faithful own times those institutions which are sub- ject to change.”35 The liturgists in the music primarily encounter committee had in mind this “modern man” to whom the pre-Vatican II “mediæval” lit- the liturgy with the urgy no longer spoke. To address this per- ceived problem, important elements of the intellect to compensate Enlightenment were to be advanced, the very ones found in twentieth-century philo- for the loss of the sense sophical modernism which the later form of the liturgical movement had also been ad- of mystery that came vocating. Rationalism, and along with it, egalitarianism founded on the Enlighten- with the Enlightenment. ment ideal of the independence of reason, appeared in the emphasis on the liturgical assembly as composed of priests of the faith- ful who, as such, were entitled to participate fully and “actively” in the liturgy as much as This view required that the faithful pri- the “presider” did: marily encounter the liturgy with the intel- lect to compensate for the loss of the sense The Council’s intention was to open up of mystery that came with the Enlighten- the treasures of the table of the Word ment. Bugnini’s “principle of intelligibili- and of the Eucharistic table to the peo- ty”37 permeated the work of the Consilium ple. Is there anything that is not part of and if not dangerously approaching a sort of the liturgical action of God’s people? modern version of the gnostic salvation by No! Everything belongs to them. Noth- knowledge, placed it ahead of liturgical tra- ing is excluded from their attention and dition. It seems everything had to be easi- their participation. They are to take part ly intelligible for a full participatio actuosa. in the singing with minds and voices; in As historian Thomas Munck has pointed the readings through hearing and un- out, “If the Enlightenment was anything, it derstanding, for the first thing a speaker was about exposing all inherited beliefs to wants is to be understood; in the pres- reason and open debate, and ultimately re- idential prayers and Eucharistic Prayer placing passive acceptance with active par- through understanding.36 ticipation.”38 Tradition, including liturgical
35Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶1. 37Bugnini, Reform, 110, 36Bugnini, Reform, 112. 38Th omas Munck, Th e Enlightenment: A Com-
34 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 tradition, constitutes a large part of such Its purpose is to express in human works inherited beliefs. the infinite divine beauty of which it is, The committee, then, was divided as it were, the reflection.41 between modernists and traditionalists on the very nature of sacred music in respect of And likewise participatio actuosa. For the former, the form of sacred music, the people singing, fol- religious art is even more closely bound lowed its function in the liturgy, just as form to God and the promotion of His praise followed function in the modernist archi- and glory, because its only purpose is to tecture of the twentieth century. Beauty give the faithful the greatest aid in turn- was no longer seen in relation to God as it ing their minds piously to God through was for Augustine, but to the judgments of the works it directs to their senses of reason, a criticism that twentieth century sight and hearing.42 modernism in the arts used against elitist art. Beautiful melodies in the liturgy con- For the musicians, the church’s time- tained no truth; only words and ideas did. less musical treasure possessed beauty and Elitist art-music was secondary, mere orna- truth, and it had to be passed on to future mentation within the liturgy and so had lit- generations in the liturgy. As important as tle place in it. “Popular sacred song” was words were, the melodies also had affec- primary and had to be fostered.39 In short, tive meaning, and, like all true art, myste- since the liturgists accepted Gelineau’s main riously reached the admirer, a function that ideas, it made no sense to the Consilium if follows its form. For the musicians, listen- the assembly could neither understand what ing to beautiful sacred art-music could help they sang nor be able to sing it easily, for move the hearts of people towards God, “without singing there can be no adequate thereby being an important form of actuo- expression of the people’s participation.”40 sa partcipatio. Like Gelineau, Bugnini and By emphasizing artistic value, on the his Consilium liturgists had a problem with other hand, the musicians had a more tra- this.43 ditional understanding of art-music as connected to beauty. The beauty of sacred 41Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Letter, Musicæ Sacræ music, expressed by its form, could lead the Disciplina (1955), ¶25
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 35 Bugnini saw the musicians’ firm posi- tion in the impasse as an attack “against Bugnini saw the the entire liturgical reform,”44 so he asked the pope to intervene in 1966.45 Paul VI did musicians’ fi rm position so, and, following Bugnini’s suggestions,46 revised the drafts on sacred music, trying in the impasse as an to make them acceptable to the two oppos- ing parties. A compromise solution was attack “against the reached using Bugnini’s two-forms celebra- tion interpretation. In this interpretation, entire liturgical reform,” the traditional view of sacred music as a participatio actuosa through listening as well so he asked the pope to as singing could be kept in the Latin form of the Mass, while the rationalist version intervene in 1966. of participatio actuosa as the people’s com- plete expression through singing could be enacted in the vernacular Mass. Following and it retained the two-forms of celebration the pope’s intervention, the instruction was interpretation. In all, Bugnini was very sat- completed in a timely manner and became isfied with MS: known as Musicam Sacram by March 1967, In fact, this instruction remains one of in civilization, particularly in the arts and the the soundest documents of the reform; it humanities, including art-music. Cf., Louis opened the way for the progress made in Bouyer, Mémoires (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, subsequent years and supplied it in ad- 2014), p. 198. Bouyer was not alone in such vance with balanced guidelines that were strong ad hominem attacks against members of in harmony with the spirit of the litur- the Consilium. In an August 2009 Interview gical Constitution and the authentic re- with Monsignor Domenico Bartolucci by Pucci newal of the liturgy.47 Cipriani and Stefano Carusi, the late Maestro in Perpetuity of the Sistine Chapel, who served under six popes, said: “the reform [of the lit- Farewell to Latin and Gregorian Chant urgy] was done by arid people—arid, I repeat The two-forms interpretation as espoused to you. And I knew them. As far as doctrine in MS was readily accepted at that time is concerned, I recall that Cardinal Ferdinand because, on the one hand, Latin was still Antonelli, of venerable memory, often said: being retained in significant parts of the ‘What are we to make of liturgists who don’t provisional liturgy, which satisfied the mu- know theology?’” See Th e Remnant Newspaper, sicians. On the other hand, the liturgists Aug. 31, 2009
36 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 to the use of Latin and Gregorian Chant, Prior to the release and at that time refused them permission to use the vernacular.50 The musicians did of MS, Paul VI had not foresee that the Latin form of celebra- tion would soon almost disappear from the already been under face of the earth, and along with it Grego- rian Chant. increasing pressure In any case, that which Paul VI expected of religious houses he no longer expected of to allow completely ordinary parishes because of the pressure. Eventually, and considering that the pres- vernacular liturgies. sure came from “the same bishops who had voted for SC,”51 Paul VI capitulated in view of the Consilium’s unanimous interpreta- tion of the two forms of celebration.52 He bishops and their conferences against the became resigned to Latin and Gregorian limited use of the vernacular in the litur- Chant becoming less and less common in gical changes that went into effect in 1965. SC had given to the bishops’ conferences 50Pope Paul VI, Apostolic Letter Sacrifi cium Lau- the permission from the Holy See to ex- dis (August 15, 1966)
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 37 ordinary parish churches, meanwhile desir- Given the Consilium’s interpretation in ing that “Gregorian chant be preserved and MS, how do we understand these last two performed in monasteries, religious houses paragraphs? and seminaries as a privileged form of The first paragraph of GIRM 41 above prayer in song and as an element of supreme is a paraphrase of SC 116 and MS 51. The cultural and pedagogical value.”53 His later second paragraph is a paraphrase of SC 54 authorization of Jubilate Deo, a collection and MS 47 which adds specific examples of simple Gregorian chants sent to each of the ordinary as well as noting the desir- bishop around the world, shows that he was ability and utility of having Latin Masses in not opposed to using Gregorian chant for global worship as suggested in MS 48. Since congregational singing of the ordinary at MS is the interpretation for these two arti- the local parish. cles from SC, the GIRM, therefore, is to be The two-forms interpretation also raises interpreted likewise; that is to say, GIRM a question with regards to the current Gen- 41 does not apply to a vernacular form of eral Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) Roman Mass, but only to a Latin one. In which closely follows the wording of SC: the latter case, it would be desirable for the faithful to then know certain Latin chants of 41. The main place should be given, all the ordinary, but it is not necessary. things being equal, to Gregorian chant, MS became the official instruction as being proper to the Roman Liturgy. derived from SC that specifically dealt with Other kinds of sacred music, in partic- the musical participation of the faithful in ular polyphony, are in no way exclud- the reformed liturgy of the Latin Church. ed, provided that they correspond to the Because a pope promulgated it, it is church spirit of the liturgical action and that law and binding on all Catholics using the they foster the participation of all the Novus Ordo. When a Mass is in the vernacu- faithful. lar form, whether in whole or in part, it need not have any Gregorian Chant. Those who Since the faithful from different countries are using SC or the GIRM to justify the use come together ever more frequently, it is of Gregorian chant or any Latin in a vernac- desirable that they know how to sing to- ular Mass are mistaken since MS does not gether at least some parts of the Ordinary support their view. MS allows for Latin and of the Mass in Latin, especially the Pro- Gregorian Chant, but does not mandate it. fession of Faith and the Lord’s Prayer, ac- Unless someone clearly shows that Paul VI cording to the simpler settings.54 violated the Deposit of Faith by permitting a completely vernacular form of the Roman 53Letter by Cardinal Vilot sent in the name of Rite, devoid of Gregorian Chant or Latin Paul VI on September 26, 1973 to Cardinal Siri sacred music, MS will remain unchanged for of Genoa and the National Congress on Sacred any foreseeable future. Music, in Sacred Music, vol. 101, no, 1 (Spring 1974), 23. 54Th is instruction may also be found on the prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruc- USCCB web site:
38 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Conclusion A re-evaluation of the Consilium’s two- forms of celebration solution as found in MS, however, may not be farfetched even Unless someone clearly under the current widespread neglect of using Latin and Gregorian Chant in ordi- shows that Paul VI nary parish Masses. As the musicians had tried to point out to the liturgical experts violated the Deposit of of the Consilium, participatio actuosa need not necessarily presuppose only the cogni- Faith by permitting a tive function of verbal language. The Mass is more a work of art than an intellectual- completely vernacular ly didactic event. Even Paul VI was aware that melody is a non-verbal language of the form of the Roman Rite, soul through which Gregorian Chant illu- minates the beauty of the sacred text and devoid of Gregorian invites a spiritual participatio actuosa. Chant or Latin sacred That choir from which is removed this language of wondrous spiritual power, music, MS will remain transcending the boundaries of the na- tions, and from which is removed this unchanged for any melody proceeding from the inmost sanctuary of the soul, where faith dwells foreseeable future. and charity burns—We speak of Gre- gorian chant—such a choir will be like to a snuffed candle, which gives light sume that prayer is precluded for the no more, no more attracts the eyes and deaf, dumb, paralyzed, etc. Now if their minds of men.55 prayer is just as valuable as that of the shouting masses . . . it certainly is evi- Since time immemorial Christians have dent that what counts is not the quan- called the inmost sanctuary of the soul tity or the volume but the intention and “the heart.” Gregorian chant is liturgical the intensity of the one praying. Now it art-music whose spiritual power is its beau- is precisely in artistic music that this is ty as a sung prayer of the heart in a sacred at its highest.56 language devoted to the ineffable Trinity. As Eric Werner has pointed out 56Eric Warner, “Problem of Congregational Singing and Art Singing in the Liturgy,” in Sa- since it is stated in Holy Scripture that cred Liturgy and Music Reform after Vatican II: God desires the heart, we cannot as- Proceedings of the Fifth International Church Mu- sic Congress Chicago-Milwaukee, August 21–28, 1966, ed. Johannes Overath (Rome: Consocia- 55Pope Paul VI, Sacrifi cium Laudis. tio Internationalis Musicæ Sacræ, 1969), p. 144.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 39 As it was for Pius XII, such participa- ful listening is united with the voices of tion is in the order of devotion “which is the singers in one worship of God.58 the principal act of the virtue of religion.”57 And this is primarily an internal activity. Furthermore, the medium of liturgical Listening to art-music, which includes the Latin as a language, made sacred for the Mass Propers of Gregorian Chant, is an church in the West by its use on the Cross, important internalized form of participa- is itself the message, having metaphysical, tio actuosa. Whether such listening moves sociological, psychological, and linguistic hearts to God as much as singing, if not dimensions in fostering reverence towards a more, was and remains the main issue for God whose sacred essence is beyond verbal Gregorian chant and Latin sacred music in the liturgy. We saw that MS took sides description and intellectual comprehension 59 by adopting the views of a certain group of in the first place. To honor God because of liturgical experts that followed Gelineau’s his sacredness, as Mohrmann has pointed narrow ideas on the nature of music. But as out, “from very earliest times, Chris- Ratzinger has made quite clear, tians sought for prayer forms that were far removed, in their style and mode of expres- We must go on to say that listening, the receptive employment of the sens- 58Joseph Ratzinger, Th e Feast of Faith: Approaches es and the mind, spiritual participation, to a Th eology of the Liturgy, tr. Graham Harri- are surely as much “activity” as speak- son (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), pp. ing is. Are receptivity, perception being 123–24. moved, not “active” things to do? What 59Since the release of Musicam Sacram, much we have here, surely, is a diminished has been done in the fi elds of sociology, psy- view of man which reduces him to what chology, and linguistics that concerns religion is verbally intelligible, and this at a time and religious language. Th e sociologist Danièle when we are aware that what comes to Hervieu-Léger, for instance, in her Religion as a the surface in rationality is only the tip Chain of Memory (tr. Simon Lee, New Bruns- of the iceberg compared with the totali- wick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2000), has ty of man. In more concrete terms, there brought to our attention the importance of tra- are a good number of people who can dition—the handing of belief on to others in a sing better “with their heart” than “with chain through time—in religion to nourish the their mouth”; but their hearts are really individual believer in the face of “a modernity that rejects the notion of a necessary continuity stimulated to sing through the singing of between past and present” (p. 4). For Catholics those who have the gift of singing “with of the Latin rite, I would argue that this makes a their mouths.” It is as if they themselves strong case for the use of Latin with Gregorian actually sing in the others; their thank- chant to connect the faithful with their Cath- olic heritage as nourishment in a hostile secu- 57Pope Pius XII, Encyclical Letter, Mediator Dei, lar world, not unlike the role that Hebrew has ¶32
40 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 sion, from the language of everyday life.”60 and rejoicing in the treasury of sacred So too does Gregorian Chant accommo- music that is ours, most especially that date the ineffability of God. Following St. music proper to the Roman rite, Grego- Augustine,61 Gregorian Chant uses word- rian chant. [. . .] less melismatic melodies as a way for the heart to sing about a God that no human We must get the right balance between words can describe with the intellect. In the vernacular languages and the use of many ways, this is absolutely opposed to Latin in the liturgy. The council never in- the mainly syllabic melodies used in today’s tended to insinuate that the Roman rite vernacular liturgical song which render the be exclusively celebrated in the vernacu- melodies “easy” for people to sing. lar. But it did intend to allow its increased More recently, the current prefect of the use, particularly for the readings.63 Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments (the church’s As encouraging as Cardinal Sarah’s re- liturgy chief), Cardinal Robert Sarah, has marks are, they are, of course, unofficial. noted various misinterpretations of SC fol- Time will reveal the extent of their influ- lowing the council, not only arguing that ence which, if substantial, would require a “the council sees participation as primar- revision of MS, still the current official in- ily internal,”62 but calling for a greater use terpretation of SC on sacred music. A revi- of Latin and Gregorian chant in vernacu- sion would not be a task to be taken lightly lar Novus Ordo liturgies. As he continues, considering that its realization was a divisive “way of the cross” for the Consilium that fi- Before I conclude, please permit me to nally required a papal intervention.64 In the mention some other small ways that can meantime, MS mandates neither Gregorian also contribute to a more faithful imple- Chant nor Latin sacred music in a vernac- mentation of Sacrosanctum Concilium. ular liturgy, only in a Latin one. These are One is that we must sing the liturgy, we allowed as an option, which, as such, be- must sing the liturgical texts, respecting come arbitrary and usually ignored as we the liturgical traditions of the Church have seen over the decades. But, then, per- haps that was Bugnini’s and Gelineau’s in- 60Christine Mohrmann, Liturgical Latin: Its tention after all. Origin and Character (London: Burns &Oates, 1959), p. 26. 61St. Augustine, In psalmum xxxii, II, S.I, 8 from Enarrationes in Psalmos in J.P. Migne, ed., Pa- trologia Latina, XXXVI, 283. 62Robert Cardinal Sarah, “Towards an Authen- tic Implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium,” keynote address Sacra Liturgia UK conference, London, July 5, 2016.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 41 Progressive Solemnity and the Dominican Liturgy What can medieval liturgical and theological traditions teach us about effective approaches to liturgical solemnity?
by Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P.
n recent years, there has been Preachers in the mid-thirteenth century. much discussion of the con- The Dominican liturgy is a useful locus of I cept of “progressive solemnity,” study because, in addition to being textual- a principle that seeks to mod- ly and musically well-documented, it served ulate a particular celebration of the litur- as the backdrop and inspiration for several gy based on the importance of the day or important theologians and liturgists of the office in question. Although the term was thirteenth century. In this paper, I will ex- first coined in the twentieth-century, the amine the concept of solemnity as articu- concept has existed in the church’s litur- lated by the Dominican friars St. Thomas gical practice for centuries.1 As we try to Aquinas, Humbert of Romans, and Jerome interpret and apply this concept today, we of Moravia, and as expressed in the chants can gain much insight from a careful exam- of the Dominican liturgy itself, with the ination of historical theories and applica- aim of providing resources for enriching tions of progressive solemnity. Among the various liturgical traditions of the church, contemporary reflections on this topic. one that is of particular value for under- standing this principle is the medieval Do- Thomas Aquinas on Solemnity minican liturgy, developed by the Order of To begin with, we must consider what so- lemnity is in itself. For Thomas Aquinas, solemnity in the liturgy and the sacraments 1Cf. Mary Frandsen, Crossing Confessional Boundaries: Th e Patronage of Italian Sacred Music helps the Christian to come to the worship in Seventeenth-Century Dresden (Oxford: Ox- of God with greater devotion, and thus to ford University Press, 2006), p. 353. be better disposed to receive the fruits of
Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P. is a Dominican friar of the Province of St. Joseph. He is presently as- signed to the Priory of St. Vincent Ferrer in New York City.
42 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Thus, the worship of God by human beings has both internal and external aspects:
Th e worship of Since man is composed of soul and body, each of these should be applied to the God by human worship of God; the soul by an interior worship; the body by an outward worship beings has both ... And as the body is ordained to God through the soul, so the outward wor- internal and ship is ordained to the internal worship [which] consists in the soul being united external aspects. to God by the intellect and affections.4
According to St. Thomas Aquinas, the use of the body and the voice in divine wor- the sacraments.2 For Aquinas, in divine ship helps to arouse devotion in the heart worship of the worshipper, and allows one to “serve God with all that he has from God, that is we pay God honor and reverence, not to say, not only with his mind, but also with for His sake . . . but for our own sake, his body.”5 The voice, in particular, helps to because by the very fact that we revere “excite interior devotion, whereby the mind and honor God, our mind is subject- of the person praying is raised to God.”6 As ed to Him; wherein its perfection con- Thomas clarifies, “vocal prayer is employed, sists ... Now the human mind, in order not in order to tell God something He does to be united to God, needs to be guided not know, but in order to lift up the mind by the sensible world ... Wherefore in the of the person praying or of other persons Divine worship it is necessary to make to God.”7 As Thomas writes elsewhere, use of corporeal things, that man’s mind “we employ words, in speaking to God, may be aroused thereby, as by signs, to not indeed to make known our thoughts the spiritual acts by means of which he is to Him Who is the searcher of hearts, but united to God.3 that we may bring ourselves and our hearers to reverence Him. Consequently we need to praise God with our lips, not indeed for His sake, but for our own sake; since 2Cf. Sr. Th omas Augustine Becker’s survey of Th omas’s writings on the topic of solemnity: by praising Him our devotion is aroused “Th e Role of Solemnitas in the Liturgy Ac- cording to Saint Th omas Aquinas” in Matthew Levering and Michael Dauphinas, eds., Redis- 4Ibid., I-II.101.2.R. covering Aquinas and the Sacraments: Studies in 5 Sacramental Th eology (Chicago: Hillenbrand Ibid., II-II.83.12.R. Books, 2009), pp. 114–136. 6Ibid., II-II.83.12.R. 3Summa theologiae, II-II.81.7.R. 7Ibid., II-II.83.12.1um.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 43 towards Him.”8 Thomas points out further that “the use of music in the divine praises is a salutary institution, that the souls of the faint-hearted may be the more incited to devotion,”9 although he makes a character- In liturgy and the istically Dominican clarification by point- ing out that “to arouse men to devotion by sacraments, we teaching and preaching is a more excellent way than by singing.”10 encounter God through In liturgy and the sacraments, we encounter God through physical symbols physical symbols and and words. God takes this initiative in pro- viding modes of reaching him that are suited words. to our nature. In instituting the sacraments, Jesus Christ chose certain words and objects to serve as the form and matter of the indi- vidual sacraments. However, as a study of the diversity of legitimate liturgical forms concerned with the human institutions and reveals, the church has the right and duty to arrangements that help us to celebrate the develop liturgical rites for the divinely insti- liturgy and the sacraments in such a way tuted sacraments, a fact of which Thomas that we may be brought to true, inward, is well aware. For Thomas, these ecclesial spiritual worship by means of exterior, arrangements help us to receive the sacra- bodily worship. As we have seen, singing ments with the proper disposition: “human has a particularly important role in exciting institutions observed in the sacraments are devotion, and it is fitting that some liturgi- not essential to the sacrament; but belong cal rites are celebrated with greater solem- to the solemnity which is added to the sac- nity than others. raments in order to arouse devotion and reverence in the recipients.”11 Among the Humbert and the Ancient Constitutions various liturgical rites, Thomas states that Now that we have outlined a basic under- the Eucharist is fittingly celebrated “with standing of solemnity in itself, we will con- greater solemnity than the other sacra- sider early Dominican approaches to the ments,” because the whole mystery of our principle of progressive solemnity. Two im- salvation is comprised in the Eucharist.12 portant sources for understanding this topic For Thomas, then, solemnity is principally are the Ancient Constitutions formulated during the first decades of the Order’s ex- 8Ibid., II-II.91.1.R. istence and the Commentary on the Consti- tutions written by Humbert of Romans. The 9Ibid., II-II.91.2.R. Constitutions contain detailed regulations on 10 Ibid., II-II.91.2.3um. the performance of the liturgy, constituting a 11Ibid., III.64.2.1um collective attitude about the liturgy that pre- 12Ibid., III.83.4. dates the formulation of the distinctive rite
44 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 observed to a greater or lesser extent ac- St. Th omas writes cording to the season.13
within this tradition This succinct description captures sev- eral important details about early Domini- when he states that can attitudes to the liturgy. First, the liturgy is to be sung “briefly and succinctly” so that liturgical prayer should the devotion of the brothers may not become lax, and that their study be impeded as little not last such a long time as possible. According to Humbert, study is not to be preferred to prayer as such, but that the devotion of to overly prolix prayer.14 St. Thomas writes within this tradition when he states that the participants would liturgical prayer should not last such a long time that the devotion of the participants grow slack. would grow slack.15 Humbert offers several reasons why a shorter office is better than a longer one, the first of which is that other- of the Order. Humbert of Romans, a con- temporary and close collaborator of Thom- 13Constitutiones antique, d. 1, c. 4. For a critical as Aquinas, who, as Master of the Order, edition of the Constitutiones antique (also known played a central role in the standardization as the “Primitive Constitutions”), see Antoninus of the Dominican liturgy, wrote a partial Hendrik Th omas, ed., “Constitutiones antique commentary on the Constitutions which of- Ordinis Fratrum Predicatorum,” in De oudste fers precious insights into Dominican atti- Constituties van de dominicanen: Voorgeschiedenis, tudes about the liturgy. tekst, bronnen, ontstaan en ontwikkeling (1215– One important passage from the Ancient 1237), Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ec- Constitutions that determined the Domin- clésiastique 42 (Louvain: Bureel van de R.H.E. ican approach to the performance of the Universiteitsbibliotheek, 1965), 304–69. liturgy was a succinct description of the 14Humbert of Romans, “Expositio in Consti- performance of the Divine Office: tutiones,” in Opera de vita regulari, ed. Joachim Joseph Berthier, vol. 2 (Rome: A. Befani, 1889), All the hours in the church should be 1–178, at 97. said briefly and succinctly, lest the broth- 15Summa, II-II.83.14: “It is becoming that ers should lose devotion or be at all im- prayer should last long enough to arouse the peded in their study. We say that this is fervor of the interior desire: and when it exceeds to be done such that in the middle of the this measure, so that it cannot be continued any longer without causing weariness, it should be verse a metrum with a pause should be discontinued. ... And just as we must judge of preserved, not by extending the voice at this in private prayers by considering the at- the pause or at the end of the verse, but, tention of the person praying, so too, in public as was said, they should be ended briefly prayers we must judge of it by considering the and succinctly. However, this should be devotion of the people.”
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 45 wise the choir would be evacuated as many would seek occasions of staying away based on this prolixity!16 Despite the emphasis on brief and suc- Th ere is a clear cinct singing, the constitutions also order that pauses are to be made in the middle recognition that the of verses of the psalms, showing that the desired rapidity was not to be sought at the earthly liturgy prefi gures expense of a certain dignity of performance. This metrum or mediant pause is “observed the heavenly liturgy and to a greater or lesser extent according to the season.” This statement of theConsti- that this prefi gurement is tutions leads Humbert to offer an extensive reflection on the reasons why the liturgy is more clearly articulated performed with greater solemnity on feast days. First of all, the fact that the friars by liturgical solemnity. are not occupied with lectures or study on major feast days removes the necessity of a rapid performance of the liturgy. Secondly, on feast days more outside guests come to solemnity in the liturgy. First of all, the the priory for the liturgy, and Humbert duties of study, preaching, and teaching are suggests that “it is just that the [liturgy] is seen to necessitate concision with respect to said more devoutly for the sake of their edi- the liturgy, but these duties do not preclude fication.” Thirdly, because feasts are insti- a more solemn celebration on certain occa- tuted so that people may have leisure to be sions. Next, the greater solemnity of feast with God, it is fitting that they should lin- days is seen to be of pastoral benefit for assist- ger more in performing the liturgy. Fur- ing the laity in coming to the liturgy with ther, Humbert points out that the devil devotion. Further, we see that the devotion hates feast days and tries to disturb them, enkindled by solemnity is understood within and that thus the choir should perform the the context of both commitment to God liturgy with greater solemnity and devotion and protection from demonic distractions. to prevent the devil’s victory. Finally, Hum- Finally, there is a clear recognition that the bert points out that feast days prefigure the earthly liturgy prefigures the heavenly lit- “great future feast in which there will con- urgy and that this prefigurement is more tinual and most devout praise,” and that thus clearly articulated by liturgical solemnity. the liturgy should be performed with great Although these principles are articulated in devotion on feast days so that they may pre- the context of Dominican conventual life, figure the eternal feast more clearly. by extension they are of great relevance to In this presentation, we see a concise pastoral practice, for instance in articulat- summary of early Dominican attitudes to ing the reason why there should be a dif- ference between a daily parish Mass and a 16Expositio, II:85–86. Sunday celebration, or for helping the faith-
46 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 ful to understand that liturgical solemnity various occasions.18 The invitatory at Mat- is not merely a question of aesthetics, but ins, for instance, is led by one cantor on one that is deeply related to spiritual com- feasts of the lowest rank, but is sung by bat and preparation for heaven. two cantors on Simplex and Semiduplex feasts, and by four cantors on Duplex and The Dominican Liturgy and Jerome of Totum Duplex feasts.19 Similarly, the long Moravia responsories are each led by one cantor on Having considered the perspectives on so- Simplex feasts, but by two cantors on Semi- lemnity offered by Thomas and Humbert, duplex and four cantors on Duplex feasts.20 we will now consider the ways in which the In addition to the extra cantors, Duplex Dominican liturgy itself utilizes gradations feasts are distinguished by being offici- of solemnity to demarcate the relative im- ated by the superior of the community, portance of feasts, offices, and components by the cantor and subcantor singing cer- of the liturgy. tain chants from the middle of the choir In the medieval Dominican liturgy, five rather than from their choir stalls, and by ranks of liturgical feasts are observed: from the incensation of the altar at the Gospel highest to lowest, these are: Totum Duplex, canticles of Vespers and Lauds.21 Finally, Duplex, Semiduplex, Simplex, and Trium the antiphons at the Magnificat and Ben- Lectionum.17 The various feast ranks effect edictus are sung both before and after the the way in which the liturgy is performed canticles on Totum Duplex feasts, whereas principally in two areas: the ministers of the on lower ranks the antiphon is only fully liturgy and the musical settings employed sung after the canticle.22 These variations in the liturgy. are subtle, but taken as a whole contribute With respect to the ministers of the lit- to a liturgical ethos that demarcates they urgy, the major difference between the var- importance on a particular feast. ious ranks is found in the number of singers When we consider the music of the who perform various chants. The Domini- can Ordinarium, which gives both a list of 18Th e Ordinarium from Rome, Santa Sabi- chants and texts used throughout the year na XIV L1 has been edited in Franciscus-M. at Mass and Office as well as instructions Guerrini, ed., Ordinarium juxta ritum Sacri Or- for the general performance of the liturgy, dinis Fratrum Praedicatorum jussu rev.mi patris provides specific instructions for the num- fr. Ludovici Th eissling eiusdem ordinis magistri ber of singers who ought to sing chants on generalis editum (Rome: Apud Collegium An- gelicum, 1921). 17In the Dominican Calendar of 1254, there 19Ordinarium, ¶¶269, 272, 282 (pp. 69, 71). were 23 Totum Duplex feasts (including the ma- 20Ordinarium, ¶¶272, 274, 278 (pp. 69–71). Th e jor feasts of the Temporale such as Christmas number of cantors for the responsories on Du- and Easter), 4 Duplex feasts, 22 Semi-duplex, plex feasts has further variations for individual 36 Simplex, and 30 Trium Lectionum feasts. Cf. responsories: cf. Ordinarium, ¶¶278, 283, 287 Ludovicus Rousseau, De ecclesiastico offi cio Frat- (pp. 71–72). rum Praedicatorum: secundum ordinationem ven- 21 erabilis magistri, Humberti de Romanis (Rome: Ordinarium, ¶¶275, 277, 280 (pp. 70–71). A. Manuzio, 1927), pp. 78–83. 22Ordinarium, ¶287 (p. 72).
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 47 Dominican liturgy, we find the gradations 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM W of feast rank most clearly present in the *O UPUP EVQMJDJ FU EVQMJDJ texts that are invariable or metrically reg- ular, namely the chants of the Kyriale such as the Gloria and Sanctus, and the hymns 0 TBOOB JO FY DFM TJT of the Divine Office. In the Dominican lit- urgy, seven cycles are provided for the Ordi- 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SB *O GFTUJT TFNJEVQMJDJCVT nary of the Mass based on the rank or class of the feast, ranging from a very simple set- ting for ferial days to an ornate setting for Totum Duplex feasts. The development of 0 TBOOB JO FYDFMTJT the Mass cycle was a thirteenth-century 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC phenomenon in which the Dominicans *OEPNJOJDJTFUGFTUJTTJNQMJDJCVT (along with the Franciscans) took a lead- ing role—in prior centuries, musical manu- scripts had provided a selection of melodies for each part of the Mass without group- 0 TBOOB JO FYDFM TJT ing the settings according to feast rank.23 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM WB Thus, the Dominican arrangement of Mass *O QSPGFTUJT EJFCVT cycles was rather avant-garde, which helps us realize that the friars were self-conscious in their use of musical solemnity to articu- late liturgical solemnity. 0TBOOB JO FYDFM TJT To demonstrate this arrangement, note the final line of the Sanctus, “Osanna in When we consider the hymns of the Divine Office we find an even more sophis- Excelsis,” from four settings as they are ticated system which, by carefully arrang- hierarchically arranged in the Domini- ing the use of texts and melodies, links and can liturgy. As we descend from highest distinguishes Sundays and weekdays, feasts to lowest, there is a shift from melismatic of different ranks, and the liturgical seasons settings (where four or more notes are fre- of the year. In the first case, the Domini- quently used on a syllable) to neumatic set- can liturgy employs only one text for each tings (where two- or three-note neumes of the major hours in the time throughout predominate) and finally to a syllabic set- the year, rather than providing the more ting where most syllables get only one or common seven-day cycle of hymns. How- two notes. ever, the Dominican liturgy assigns a sol- emn melody for these texts on Sundays and a simple melody of weekdays. One exam- ple of this is the Vespers hymn Lucis Cre- 23Cf. David Hiley, “Kyriale,” in Grove Music On- ator optime: the Sunday melody is neumatic, line. having two or three notes on many of the
48 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 syllables, while the ferial melody is almost hours and the minor hours; the melodies for entirely syllabic, providing more than one the minor hours tend to have a smaller musical note on only a single syllable. range and to be somewhat simpler than those assigned for the major hours. 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM WC In addition to the melodic differentia- %PNJOJDB QSJNB QPTU PDUBWBT &QJQIBOJF BE tion of weekdays and Sundays, the seasons WFTQFSBT ZNOVT of the liturgical year are differentiated by the character of the melodies assigned for the seasonal hymns. This is strikingly illus- trated in the difference between the sim- -VDJT DSF B UPSPQ UJNF MV DFN EJ F ple, syllabic melody assigned for Vespers during Advent, Conditor Alme Syderum, and the complex, neumatic melody assigned for Christmas, Veni Redemptor Gentium. SVN QSP GF SFOT QSJNPS EJ JT MV DJT OP 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC *OBEWFOUV%PNJOJBEWFTQFSBTZNOVT WF NV OEJ QB SBOT P SJ HJ OFN 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SB $POEJUPS BMNF TZ EF SVN F UFSOB MVY DSF $BOUVT GFSJBMJT BE WFTQFSBT FU DPNQMFUPSJVN
EFOUJ VN $ISJ TUF SFEFNQUPS PNOJ VN -VDJT $SF BUPS PQUJNF MVDFN EJ FSVN FYBV EJ QSF DFT TVQQMJDVN QSPGFSFOT QSJNPSEJ JT MV DJT OPWF NVO 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC *O OBUJWJUBUF %PNJOJ BE WFTQFSBT ZNOVT EJ QB SBOT P SJ HJ OFN As we can see, the ferial melody is purely 7F OJ SFEFNQUPS HFO UJ VN PTUFOEF QBS syllabic, whereas the Sunday melody is neu- matic, having two or three notes on many of the syllables. A similar use of melodic complexity to distinguish Sunday and ferial days is found UVN WJSHJ OJT NJ SF UVS PNOF TF DVMVN for all of the hymns used in the time through- out the year. Within the melodies assigned for ferial days or for Sundays, we can further dis- tinguish between those assigned for the major UBMJT EFDFU QBSUVT %F VN Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 49 When we compare the melodies feast ranks. One distinctive aspect of the assigned for Lent and Easter, we find a dif- Dominican liturgy is that the melodies for ference based not on the number of notes the common of the saints are not based on for each syllable but on the range of the the category of the saint (for instance pro- melody, with the Lenten tune possessing viding a distinct melody for virgins and a a constrained range of six tones in com- different melody for martyrs) but instead parison to the nine tones of the Easter are assigned on account of the rank of the melody. feast being celebrated. Hymns from the 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SB Common of Saints in iambic dimeter (long %PNJOJDBQSJNBJO2VBESBHFTJNBBEWFTQFSBT meter) have four melodies assigned for the ZNOVT various ranks of feasts (with a fifth provided for within octaves of other feasts): 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC *O UPUJT EVQMJDJCVT FU EVQMJDJCVT "VEJ CFOJHOF DPOEJUPS OPTUSBT QSF DFT *BN MV DJT PSUP TZEF SF %F VN QSF DF F UJCVT JO IPD TBDSP JFJV OJ P ٽ DVN NVS TVQQMJ DFT VU JO EJ VSOJT BD UJCVT GVTBT RVBESBHFOBSJ P 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC *OPDUBWJT1BTDIFBEWFTQFSBTZNOVT OPT TFS WFU B OPDFOUJCVT 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC *O GFTUP TFNJEVQMJDJ "E DFOBN BHOJ QSPWJ EJ FU TUPMJT BMCJT *BN MV DJT PSUP TZEF SF %F VN QSF DBOEJ EJ QPTU USBOTJ UVN NB SJT SVCSJ DFNVS TVQQMJDFT VU JO EJ VSOJT BD UJ $ISJTUP DB OBNVT QSJODJQJ The third type of melodic differenti- ation closely parallels the structure of the CVT OPT TFSWFU B OPDFOUJCVT Kyriale settings by providing a set of melo- dies that are coordinated with the different
50 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC *O GFTUP TJNQMJDJ As with the Kyriale, the higher ranked feasts *BN MV DJT PSUP TZ EF SF %F VN QSF DF are assigned more NVS TVQQMJDFT VU JO EJ VSOJT BD UJCVT ornate melodies, with the diff erentiation OPT TFSWFU B OPDFOUJCVT being based both on the 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC number of notes per *O GFTUP USJVN MFDUJPOVN syllable and the range of the melody. *BN MV DJT PSUP TZ EF SF %F VN QSFDFNVS TVQQMJ DFT VU JO EJ VSOJT BDUJ CVT OPT TFS As with the Kyriale, the higher ranked feasts are assigned more ornate melodies, with the differentiation being based both WFU B OPDFOUJCVT on the number of notes per syllable and the range of the melody. 3PNF 4BOUB 4BCJOB 9*7 - GPM SC A different aspect of solemnity is artic- *OGSB PDUBWBT ulated by the Dominican music theorist Jerome of Moravia in chapter twenty-four of his Tractatus de Musica:24 in compos- *BN MV DJT PSUP TZ EF SF %F VN QSF DF 24Hieronymus de Moravia, Tractatus de Musica, ed. Christian Meyer, Guy Lobrichon, and Ca- rola Hertel-Geay, Corpus Christianorum Con- NVS TVQ QMJ DFT VU JO EJ VSOJT BDUJCVT tinuatio Mediaevalis 250 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), p. 166: “Hic igitur est quinto notandum, quod si musicus pulcherimam istoriam de sanc- to uel de sanctis facere cupit, hunc in faciendo OPT TFSWFU B OPDFOUJCVT ordinem debet habere, ut scilicet antiphonam Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 51 ples that lead to the most beautiful type of chant, whereas the other antiphons may be fittingly composed in a less beautiful man- Progressive solemnity ner. This indicates that within a particular set of chants for a feast, some may deserve based on genre is greater solemnity than others. This phe- nomenon may be often observed in the implicit in the more Dominican office when comparing the antiphons for the psalms of an office with solemn melodies assigned those assigned for the canticles. This paral- lels the distinction between the tones pro- for the Mass, where vided for the recitation of the psalms and the elaborated versions provided for the rec- the gradual, alleluia, itation of the Gospel canticles. Progressive solemnity based on genre and off ertory melodies is implicit in the more solemn melodies assigned for the Mass, where the gradual, are considerably more alleluia, and offertory melodies are consid- erably more ornate than those of the introit ornate than those of the and communion antiphons. The character of these proper chants of the Mass remain introit and communion constant throughout the various seasons and feast ranks of the year: thus, Advent and Lent antiphons. or lower ranked feasts are not given simpler proper chants, despite the simpler settings used on these occasions for the Kyriale and hymns of the Divine Office. In fact, Lent is one of the most solemn seasons of the year ing new melodies for feasts, Jerome sug- when it comes to the proper chants, as the gests that the Magnificat antiphons should extremely ornate tract replaces the alleluia be composed according to a set of princi- and as distinct chants are given for each day of the season rather than repeating the Sunday chants on the ferial days. uel anthiphonas in primis uesperis super psal- In the Dominican liturgy, the use of mos statuat in duobus mixtis gradibus, et simi- more and less ornate liturgical genres is liter omnes antiphonas in laudibus in matutinis. Antiphonas uero scilicet ad magnifi cat in primis the principle musical mode of distinguish- uesperis et in secundis, et eciam ad benedictus, ing the minor hours of Prime, Terce, Sext, in missa sequenciam faciat de gradu pulcherimo None, and Compline from the major hours siue de tercio, primum autem nocturnum cum of Matins, Lauds, and Vespers. The major antiphonis, responsoriis et uersibus de primo hours employ the musically solemn long gradu, secundum de secundo, tercium uero de responsories and canticle antiphons in tercio gradu constituat.” addition to the psalm antiphons and short
52 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 the melody used to chant the short read- ings at the Divine Office.25
Conclusion Th e Dominican In this paper, we have examined Domin- ican perspectives on progressive solemnity liturgical and theological as expressed by Thomas Aquinas, Humbert of Romans, and Jerome of Moravia. These tradition can be of great sources help us to understand the nature of solemnity in itself as well as the pastoral assistance in off ering a and theological considerations that led the early Dominicans to celebrate the liturgy practical and pastorally with brevity on certain occasions and with greater solemnity on others. The medieval sensitive example Dominican liturgy in itself gives an exam- ple of an historical form of the liturgy that of progressive has an intrinsic and sophisticated system of progressive solemnity. This system modu- solemnity. lates the performance of certain aspects of the liturgy based on the season and rank of the celebration while arranging other ele- ments in a fixed hierarchical order. As we attempt to articulate the principle of pro- responsories shared with the minor hours. gressive solemnity and apply this principle In contrast to the normal practice through- to contemporary celebrations of the litur- out the year, it is interesting to note that the gy, the Dominican liturgical and theolog- medieval Dominican liturgy provides long ical tradition can be of great assistance in responsories for the minor hours during offering a practical and pastorally sensitive Lent. Thus, in a way that is perhaps con- approach of progressive solemnity. trary to our expectations, the Dominican liturgy gives a greater solemnity to even the minor hours during this season of the year. A related feature of the major and minor hours is the assignment of one tone for the orations at Mass, Vespers, and Lauds, and a different tone for the orations at the minor hours. Although when heard out of con- text the tone for the minor hours may seem more musically complex than the solemn tone, there is a musical parallel between 25I am thankful to Fr. Th omas Donoghue, O.P., the solemn collect and the melody used to for pointing out the parallel between the collect chant the Gospel and the simple collect and tone and the gospel tone.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 53 Repertory Palestrina’s Singer’s Lament: Super flumina Babylonis How does this motet compare with Palestrina’s famous Sicut Cervus?
by William Mahrt
The Psalm
1. Super flumina Babylonis, illic sedi- By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat and mus et flevimus: dum recordaremur wept: when we remembered Zion: Sion: On the willows in the midst thereof we 2. In salicibus in medio ejus, suspendi- hung up our harps. mus organa nostra. For there they that led us into captivity 3. Quia illic interrogaverunt nos, qui required of us the words of songs. And captivos duxerunt nos, verba cantio- they that carried us away, said: Sing ye num: Et qui abduxerunt nos: Hym- to us a hymn of the songs of Zion. num cantate nobis de canticis Sion. How shall we sing the song of the Lord 4. Quomodo cantabimus canticum in a strange land? Ps. 136 (137):1–4 Domini in terra aliena? [of 9 vss.]
salm 136 (137), Super flumina the Temple did not belong in Babylon, and Babylonis, is the quintessential so when their captors mockingly demand- Ppsalm of exile. It is in the voice ed a “Song of Zion,” the Hebrews respond- of one looking back to the Bab- ed, “How can we sing a Song of Zion in ylonian captivity, where the Hebrews “sat a foreign land?” and they sadly hung their weeping as they thought of the glories of harps upon the willows which lined the Jerusalem’s worship, in which they had at rivers. The psalm is also understood in a one time shared.”1 But the sacred music of spiritual sense—we are all exiles in this valley of tears longing for the joys of the 1Patrick Boylan, Th e Psalms; A Study of the Vul- heavenly Jerusalem. gate Psalter in the Light of the Hebrew Text, 2 vols. This psalm is the basis for the offertory (Dublin: M. H. Gill & Son, 1924), vol. 2, p. 339. for the Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary
William Mahrt is the president of the CMAA and the editor of Sacred Music.
54 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Example 1: Offertory Super flumina Babylonis, melisma of verse one Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbwabbbbbbbbbbbb2zzAWzfzfzzgzzhzygzzhzhzzzFY7z%$zzzFTzzFTz@!zsbbbbbb{bbbbbbbAWfzfzzgzzhzygzzhzhbbbbbbbb[bbbbbbbbGYzkzkzkzkz9z*^v{bbbbbbbFYzzghgzzfgfzzs∂Rz#z!zzsbbbbbb{bbbbbbbbAWzfGYΔiz&^zzzbzFT6z%$zgbbbbbbbfzfzbbbbbbbb} sus-pen di- mus
Time (ordinary form) and the Twentieth including verses 4 through 7.3 Sunday after Pentecost (extraordinary form). The offertory chant sets just the first verse of A double-choir setting of the same psalm the psalm and this is all that has been sung by Tomás Luis de Victoria served anoth- since the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. er occasion of lamenting, though one not Before that, the first verse of the offertory so dire. The Jesuits had founded two col- was a respond, to which were added two or leges in Rome, German and Roman, for three relatively melismatic verses. The first the education of seminarians, who at first of these verses contains the evocative phrase studied together. In 1573 it was decided “suspéndimus órgana nostra” (we hung up to separate the students of the two col- our harps), the accented syllable “-pén-” of leges, a farewell ceremony was celebrat- which receives a melisma of sixty-six notes, ed, and Victoria’s psalm was sung. The the longest of any melisma in the chant.2 psalm of exile expressed the musical sep- (See Example 1 above.) aration of the two bodies of students, Super flumina Babylonis has tradition- being a lament of musicians.4 ally been used to express the lamentation of musicians. From the period of classical polyphony, there are several such settings; three are most notable: Super fl umina
After persecution of Catholics in En- Babylonis has gland had intensified, Philippe de Monte sent an eight-part setting to William traditionally been Byrd in 1583. While this appeared to be a simple biblical psalm, the order of vers- used to express the es was inverted: 1, 3, 4, and 2, being a cryptic expression of explicit sympathy. lamentation of Byrd responded by sending an eight- musicians. part, canonical setting of the ensuing text, beginning “Quomodo cantabimus,”
3 2Cf. Off ertoriale sive Versus Off ertoriorum Cantus Cf. Joseph Kerman, Th e Masses and Motets of Gregoriani, ed. Carolus Ott (Tournai: Desclée, William Byrd (Berkeley: University of Califor- 1935), p. 120; because of these verses as well as nia Press, 1981), pp. 44f. its more melismatic style, the off ertory should 4Cf. Robert Stevenson, Spanish Cathedral Music be called a responsory (as are the gradual and in the Golden Age (Berkeley: University of Cali- alleluia) and not an antiphon. fornia Press, 1961), pp. 357f.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 55 Upon the death of the aged King Louis XII of France, Costanzo Festa composed a motet whose text began with the first two verses of our psalm, but the motet included texts from five other sources. While some of these texts have been read as cryptic criticism of the young queen, the ostensible content included repeated mention of the lamenting of musicians, for example, from Job (30:31) “Versa est in luctum citara nostra et organum nos- trum in vocem flenctium” (My harp is turned to mourning, and my organ into Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina the voice of those that weep). This fu- 1525–1594 neral motet thus strongly features the mourning of musicians. 5 of more verses include a twelve-part tri- ple-choir motet, variously attributed to Two extensive cycles of polyphonic Luca Marenzio and Giovanni Battista offertories include a setting of the first Locatello, and four-voice motets of Nico- verse of Psalm 136 (137): Lasso’s cycle of las Gombert and Giacomo Carissimi. offertory motets in four voices for Advent Francisco Guerrero composed a beautiful and Lent includes Super flumina for the five-voice Missa super Super flumina Bab- Thursday after Passion Sunday; Palestri- ylonis, ostensibly a parody Mass, although na’s five-voice setting is for the Twentieth the motet upon which it is supposed to be Sunday after Pentecost.6 Other settings based has never been found. While Lasso’s motet and Palestrina’s for five-voices consist of the first verse of the 5Cf. Edward E. Lowinsky, Th e Medici Codex of 1518, Historical Introduction and Commentary, psalm and were meant as offertory motets, Monuments of Renaissance Music, III (Chicago: Palestrina’s motet for four voices is not an University of Chicago Press, 1968), pp. 42–51. offertory motet, since it includes the sec- ond verse of the psalm, a significant part of 6See Orlando di Lasso, Sacræ Cantiones for Four Voices (Munich, 1585), the Complete Motets, vol. the composition. Palestrina certainly could 14, ed. David Crook (Madison: A-R Editions, not have known the offertory verse quoted 1997), p. xiii; in the early 1580s, Lasso provided above, but he responded to the expressive a motet for each day of Advent and Lent (ex- potential of the same text “suspendimus cept for the third and fourth Sundays of Lent), a organa nostra” as eloquently as the chant cycle of forty-six motets; Palestrina’s cycle con- verse had done; this is a principal point of sisted of sixty-eight motets in fi ve voices for the his motet. Sundays of the entire year, published in 1593; cf. Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Le Opere Com- plete, Vol. 17, ed. Lavinio Virgili (Rome: Fratelli Scalera, 1952), pp. 205–08.
56 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Super Flumina Babylonis
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
j c ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ Ó ˙ ˙ ˙ . œ œ œ œ ˙ & Su -- -per #flu-mi-naœ œ Ba - - - by-œ
c ∑ ∑ j Œ & w ˙ œ. œ ˙ œ œ œ ˙ j œ œ œ œ Su - per flu-mi - na Ba- - - by œ - lo----˙ œ. œ œ œ V c ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ ∑ w ˙ œ œ. œ œ œ ˙ ˙ ? c #œ. œ J œ ˙ ˙ œ. œ œ. œ ˙ œ. œ œ œ Su - per flu-miJ - na Ba - by-lo - nis, suJ -- - J - - per flu - mi-J na Ba-by-
9 j œ. œ œ ˙ œ œ œ. œ . & lo˙ - nis,suœ œ - perœ flu˙ - miœ - na˙ Ba -J -œ - by - lo#œ - œ nis il˙ - licœ se˙ - di-œ musœ et˙ fleœ -
& œ œ œ œ œ ˙. œ ˙ œ nis,suœ - perœ flu˙ œ œ - œ mi-œ na Ba -œœ œ - œ byœ - loœ œ œ -˙ nisœ # il˙ - licœ se - di-mus# et˙ j j Ó ˙ ˙ ˙ . œ œ œœ˙ Œ ˙ œ ˙. œ œ œ. V Su - per #flu-mi-naœ œ Ba - - byœ - lo˙ - nis˙ il - lic se - di-mus etœ fleœ - œ œ œ. œ œ. œ ? J ˙ ˙ ∑ ∑ Œ œ ˙. œ ˙ lo----J nis ˙ il˙ - lic se - di-mus et˙
17 j œ . œ w Œ ˙ œ œ œ œ. œ Œ œ & œ œ œ œ viœ - mus, il˙ - licœ se˙ - di - mus et fle - - - vi - mus,#w dumre-corœ œ -
& ˙. œ w Œ ˙ œ œ ˙ Œ œ fle˙. - ciœ - mus,#œ il˙ - licœ se - di - mus et fleœ - œ œ viœ - mus, dum re-cor-da-reœ œ œ œ œ - ˙ V ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ w ˙ ˙. œ w Œ œ œ ˙ vi˙ - mus,œ il - lic se - di - mus __ et fle - vi - mus, dumre-corœ - œ ˙ œ ˙ ? . Ó Œ ˙ . ˙ ˙. œ w ∑ bfle˙ - viœ - mus,˙ il - lic se - di - mus et fle - vi - mus,
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 57 25 j œ œ œ ˙ Ó ∑ Œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ. œœœ œœœ & da-re-murœ tu -œ i Siœ - on,˙ dumre-corœ œ - da-reœ - murtuœ - i
Ó Ó Œ & ˙ œ ˙ œ œ œ œœ mur tu - i Siœ -œ œœ -œ œ - onw ˙ dumœ re-corœ ˙ - daœ - re-mur tu˙ - œ œ. V œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œœœ œ œ j œ da-re-murœ tu˙ - i Si - on,dumre-cor - da-re-mur tu - i Si - on, dum J __ re-cor-daœ. œ - re-murœ œ tu˙ - œ œ œ œ ˙ ? ∑ ∑ Œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ∑ ∑ dum re-cor - da-re-mur tu - i Si - on, ˙
33 œ ˙ w ∑ Œ œ œ œ œ ˙ Ó ∑ & #Si-on,œ dumre-corœ œ - da-re-murœ tu -œ i Siœ - on,˙ j & œ ˙ œ w w ˙ œ ˙ œ œ. œ ˙ œi Si-on,œ œ œ œœ dum re - cor-daœ œ - re˙ - mur tu - i Siœ - #on,œ in sa - li - ci - bus
˙ Ó Œ ˙ w ˙ œ ˙ #˙ œ œ. œ œ V œi Si-on,œ dumœ reœ - cor - daœ - re - mur tu -œ i Si˙ ˙ - on, in sa-li - ci-busJ ˙ œ œ. œ œ ? ŒŒ œ ˙ œ ˙ ˙. ˙ Ó ∑ Ó J dum˙ re-cor - da - re-murœ œ tu - iSi-œ on, in sa-li - ci-bus
41 j & Œ ˙ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ. œ #œ w œ œ ˙ œ ˙. œ in sa - li - ci-busJ in me-di - o e-ius, in me-œ diœ - œoe - ius, œ œ œ ˙ j Œ j j & œ œ œ. œ w œ œ.œ œ œ œ j j Œ œ œ œ œ. œ __ in me - di - o, in˙ sa - li-ci-bus in me-diœ. œ -#œ o œe-. œ ˙ ius,˙ in sa - li - ci- œ V œ. œ œ œœ˙ #œ œ œœœ œ œ ˙ Ó Œ˙ œ œ. œ œ œ in me-diJ - o e-ius, inœ me-diœ œ - ˙oe---œ ius, __˙ in sa - li-ci-busJ in œ œ. œ ˙ œ. œ ? J #œ ˙ ∑ ∑ ∑ Œ ˙ œ œ.œ œ œ J ˙ in me-di - o e - ius, in sa - li-ci-busJ in me-di-o
58 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 49
& Ó Ó Œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ ˙ w w ∑ ˙ in __ sa - li - ci-J busin me - di-o e - ius,
Œ j j & œ ˙ œ œœ œ œ ______œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ w œ. busin me - di-oœ e - ius, œ œ in me-di-oe---œ ius, sus-pen-diœ œ - musor-œ œ. gaœ œ - j œ j V œ œ.œ œ œ. œ œœœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ.œ œœœ œœ ˙ Œ œ œ. œ œ me-di-o e---J œ- ius, - in me-di-o e - ius, J sus - pen-di-musorœ - ˙ ? ˙ ˙ œ. œœœ œ œ œ Ó Œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ œ œœœ Œ œ œ. œ œ œ e- - -ius, ______œ ˙ in me - di-o e - ius, sus - pen-di-musorJ -
57 j j & Ó Œ œ œ. œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ.œ #œ w ˙ Ó ∑ sus-pen-dimusorJ - ganano - -œœœ - stra,œ __œ or-ga-na no - stra,
j j Œ j j & j œ œ. œ œ œ. œ œ œ œ œ ˙ œ #œ œ œ.nœ œ œ. œ œ noœ œ œ.# -œ œ stra,suspen-di-œ mus or - ga-na noœœ -œœ stra,˙ or - ga-naœ no -stra,suspen-di-musor-ga-na œ. ˙ ˙ V œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ ˙ œ œ œœ œ ˙ œ #œ ˙ œ.œ œ œ gananoœ œ ˙ - stra,suspen-di-œ J mus or - ga-naJ no - stra, or - - ga-na no - stra, no - stra, sus - pen-dimusorJ - œ˙ ˙ œ.œ œ ? œ œ œ Ó ∑ Œ œ œ. œ œ œ.œ œ œ. ˙ œ ganano˙ - stra,˙ sus-pen- diJ - mus or-ga-naJ noJ - stra, sus - pen-dimusorJ -
65 œ U Ó Œ œ . œ œ œ œœ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ Œ œ. œ œ w & sus - pen-di-musJ or - ga-na no - -#œ stra, or - ga-naJ no - stra.#w j j U & œ œ œ. œ œ œ. œ œ ˙ œ œ œ ˙ w w noœ -œ. œ -œ œ - stra,sus-penœ - di - mus or - ga-na no - stra,œ or - ga - na no - stra. œ. U œ œ œ œ œ œ œ. œ œ ˙ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙ ˙ w V ga-naœ noœ - stra,sus-penœ - diJ - mus or - ga-naJ no - stra, or - - - ga - na no - stra. œ œ. œ œ U ? œ œ ˙ ˙ Ó ∑ ˙ œ. œ œ J ˙ ˙ w ga-na no - stra, sus - pen - diJ - mus or - ga-na no - stra.
Example 2: Super flumina Babylonis by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 59 The Motet point of imitation, makes a brief cadence Super flumina Babyonis (See Example 2)7 in just two voices, leading directly to the shares the status of a widely sung and loved next section. The subject of this imitation motet with Palestrina’s Sicut cervus.8 It is, initiates the expression of lamentation by however, a very different kind of motet. beginning with a chromatic half step below Both motets make exquisite presentation of a, then leaping up a third and then mak- their texts, but while Sicut cervus uses per- ing a stepwise descent to E. This stepwise vasive imitation to achieve an effect of equa- descent I call a Phrygian descent—begin- nimity and balance, Super flumina sets each ning from c, the reciting tone of the mode text segment to strikingly various textures, and descending to E, its final; its last inter- differentiating the significance of each text val is the expressive descent of a half step. segment. Moreover, its modality vacillates At “illic sedimus et flevimus” (there we somewhat between E-Phrygian and A-Hy- sat and wept), a remarkable shift of tex- poaeolian.9 These remarkable shifts of tex- ture occurs, in which all the voices sing the ture and mode underlie the expression of text simultaneously (homophonic texture, lamentation, as will be shown below. or familiar style), and the accented syllable The motet begins with a formal point of of “sédimus” receives a long note, stopping imitation, each voice carrying the subject in the rhythmic progress momentarily, repre- turn (mm. 1–14). It does not, however, have senting sitting, and moves to a Phrygian the typical double exposition—two com- cadence to A by way of B-flat, an effective plete points of imitation10 in all the voices, representation of weeping. The whole text as in Sicut cervus—but rather after a single is repeated with a slight contrapuntal varia- tion (the bass imitates the other voices), and rises to a peak with a Phrygian cadence to 7Th e score is modifi ed from the fi le by Th omas F. Savoy in the Choral Public Domain Library. E. This higher iteration of the text gives an 8 intensity to the idea of weeping, especially Cf. “Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus: A Motet Upon through the Phrygian cadences. a Parallelismus Membrorum,” Sacred Music, 141, “Dum recordaremur tui Sion” (When we no. 1 (Spring 2014), 34–41, available online at
60 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 mm. text texture entry notes cadences 1–14 Super flumina formal imitation, one point A, E A 14–23 illic sedimus homophonic, then partially E A & E Phrygian imitative 23–39 dum recordaremur imitation in two subjects A, E A 39–57 in salicibus quasi-fauxbourdon, then E, A, D E Phrygian partially imitative 57–71 suspendimus organa quasi-fauxbourdon B, C, D, E, F#, G A, E Phrygian tates the bass voice exactly (m. 41), while the sure 68 is as close to a full four-voice cadence other voices break out in a fairly dense imita- as occurs in the motet, but the bass avoids it, tive texture. These imitations could be called moving E-F rather then the expected E-A; “three-pitch imitations,” since after entries the piece concludes with a Phrygian cadence on E and A, new ones on D answer the ones to E (between bass and alto), which, how- on A. The melody of this text rises to a peak ever has no suspension and gives an impres- on the accent of “salícibus” (willows), as if sion of being incomplete. A climax is created reaching for a branch upon which to hang when the quasi-fauxbourdon passage is placed the harp. a third higher (beginning m. 65). The entry The concluding section, on “suspendi- notes of the imitations comprise all diatonic mus organa nostra” (we hung up our harps) scale degrees except A, which is then the loca- constitutes a kind of peroration (in rhetoric, tion of that stronger cadence. The avoidance of the eloquent conclusion to an argument). full cadences is an important part of the sense Its dotted quarter rhythm causes a slight of incompleteness summarized by the hang- delay, suggesting interruption, suspension. ing up of harps. Likewise, the contrast of the The passage consists of pairs of three-voice, various entry-notes of this last section with quasi-fauxbourdon passages, alto-tenor-bass those of the previous sections also suggests the first, then soprano-alto-tenor. The lower disorder of the exile. voice of each trio quickly imitates the upper “Suspendimus organa nostra” thus elo- voice a seventh lower. This might lead the quently expresses the absence of music but listener to anticipate dissonant suspensions also the memory of the full sacred music of between the outer voices of each trio, but the Temple from which the exile occurred. aside from passing notes, they are entirely The textures of the piece appear above. consonant until the closing cadence of each What a contrast between these two motets! passage, with its the conventional suspension Sicut cervus expresses a serene confidence of in a two-voice cadence (m. 57, alto and bass the soul seeking the Lord, while Super flu- to A; m. 60, soprano and tenor to G; m. 63, mina laments the unhappy state of exile, both soprano and tenor to A; m. 65, alto and bass in Babylon and in the present vale of tears. to C; m. 68, soprano and tenor to A) It is, in fact, the dissonant interval of imitation, a this motet on YouTube, many of which are seventh, that intimates the lamentable situ- quite beautiful; one of the best is by Clare Col- lege (search Super Flumina Clare); there is also ation of the exile.11 The cadence to A at mea- a recording of the Sistine Chapel Choir from 1924, of considerable historical interest, but 11Th ere are well over a hundred recordings of somewhat diff erent from the rest.
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 61 Commentary “Hermeneutic of Continuity” Elements of the beauty of the liturgy are validated by the continuity of tradition.
by William Mahrt
he tradition of liturgy makes use Sight: the vestments, which are unlike of all the senses, all the arts, in anything in the secular world, but whose TDivine Worship. This is, howev- shapes and colors highlight the various er, not “art for art’s sake,” but for orders of ministers and the days of the year; the sake of the liturgy. the architecture, which creates a focus upon Many in charge of the liturgy have long the altar where the principal action will take labored under the misapprehension that the place and orders the entire congregation purpose of the liturgy is instruction. It follows to it. Smell: the incense, whose fragrance that the congregation is the object of the acts immediately evokes the sacred, reinforces of the liturgy, but in the end that is not so. the beginnings and highpoints of the two The purposes of liturgy are manifold, parts of the Mass: the liturgy of the word is and such purposes as preaching, confes- prepared by incensing the altar at the introit sion of sins, profession of faith, singing the and culminated by incensing the Gospel praise of God, and many more, all have at its peak; the Liturgy of the Eucharist is their focus upon the highest purpose: the prepared by incensing the altar upon which drawing of the entire Mystical Body of the sacrament will be offered and incens- Christ into offering the Sacrifice of the Son ing the participants of the liturgy in order to the Father. Everything else we do in the from priest through acolytes to congrega- liturgy leads us to this highest purpose. tion, preparing them to be holy participants The liturgy is a complex ordering of in the action. The high point is incensed, many elements. The various elements of the when after the consecration, the Body and liturgy aid in establishing a transcendent Blood of Christ are elevated for adoration; and sacred order that leads to the highest the incensation draws the attention to the purpose. All of the senses are involved in sacredness of the event. Hearing: The chants various elements that show forth the sacred- of the Mass differentiate and reinforce each ness of the action. of the parts of the Mass that prepare for the
William Mahrt is the president of the CMAA and the editor of Sacred Music.
62 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017 high point, the consecration and then the communion. But there are the sounds of bells and thuribles; at the consecration, the bells are rung; bells have a way of immedi- ately drawing forth our affections; likewise the chains of the thurible make a rhythmic clanking, a slight synesthesia of sound and Proper progressive smell, all in the service of adoration. Touch and taste: these senses find their culmina- solemnity is all within tion in receiving of the Body and Blood of the Savior. Many of these elements are the the beauty of a sung result of artistic effort that makes them all the more effective. These things transcend liturgy. mere instruction and draw the whole person into divine worship. Fr. Smith’s depiction of progressive solemnity in the Dominican Liturgy focuses upon an important element of such liturgi- cal order. Similar orders could be shown for the Roman and Monastic usages. The dif- ing a single sense. The tradition has always ferentiation of the times of the day and the understood the scriptures as having mul- year by simpler and more complex chants is tiple meanings, and in the context of the one of the reasons Gregorian chant has first liturgy, these become profound and sig- place in the liturgy. Recently theories of nificant support of the whole liturgy. His progressive solemnity have been proposed, advocacy of the Septuagint is something I in which the degrees of solemnity are varied have always thought was right. To go back by how much singing is employed in alter- to the Masoretic (Hebrew) text as original nation with spoken parts. I have not sup- overlooks the fact that this text comes to us ported such theories, because the proper from centuries after Christ. When Christ progressive solemnity is, just as Fr. Smith quotes scripture, he quotes the Septuagint. proposes, all within the beauty of a sung lit- A key text is that of the gradual of the urgy. When parts are sung, parts spoken, M idnight Mass on Ch r istmas: “ Tecum pr in- the differences are fairly rudimentary and cipium in die virtutis tuæ: in splendoribus perhaps not very significant, but when they sanctorum ex utero ante luciferum genui te” are differences between kinds of music, they (With thee is the principality in the day of all fall within the range of the beautiful and thy strength: in the brightness of the saints, are more persuasive. from the womb before the day-star I begot Fr. Andersen’s eloquent defense of Thee), Ps. 109 [110]:3. This text is a transla- the multifarious senses of the scripture in tion from the Septuagint, and at the Mid- underlining the meanings of the liturgy night Mass of Christmas, the propers focus goes strongly against the rationalism of the upon the eternal begetting of the Son from present day, which sees the scripture as hav- the Father, where “before the daystar,” i.e.,
Sacred Music | Winter 2017 Volume 144, Number 4 63 senses and the efficient use of art for litur- gical purposes that I have described above. Even more seriously, there was no place for beauty: “Beautiful melodies in the liturgy We no longer contained no truth; only words and ideas did.” Krasnicki points out that Musicam need Bugnini’s Sacram went beyond the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy by limiting the norma- imprimatur, we tive status of Gregorian chant—principem locum, first place—only to Masses cele- have the precedent brated in Latin as opposed to those cele- brated in the vernacular. What a different of continuity. reform it could have been had that distinc- tion not been enforced! However he is cor- rect that Musicam Sacram, despite the shady history of its compilation, has the status of the first light, the beginning, points to the liturgical law. eternal begetting. The King James version This means that we must rely upon the as well as the Revised Standard Version rely notion we have from Pope Benedict of the upon the Masoretic text and come up with Hermeneutic of Continuity—the prescrip- “Your people will offer themselves freely on tions of the council are to be read in the the day you lead your host upon the holy context of the tradition. When the coun- mountains. From the womb of the morn- cil gave Gregorian chant first place, it was ing like dew your youth will come to you” quite simply stating an element of continu- (RSV). The Septuagint was a translation by ity with the whole tradition. Thus, in spite seventy elders from the Hebrew to Greek, of the lack of a legal status for Gregorian whose work resolved some of the ambiguity chant from Musicam Sacram, we should of the Hebrew text. The modernist notion employ the chant according the precedent that you must go back to the earliest version of tradition. This goes for the rest of the ele- obliterates this meaning. ments of the liturgy alluded to above. We The most serious issues are raised by Ted no longer need Bugnini’s imprimatur, we Krasnicki concerning Musicam Sacram. The have the precedent of continuity. relegation of the normative status of Gre- gorian chant only to liturgies celebrated in Latin was an accomplishment of Archbishop Bugnini, and we have seen the fruits of this over the last fifty years. Kransnicki shows that Bugnini’s agenda—that active partici- pation could only be achieved through the vernacular—had as a premise a rational- ism that precluded the multiplicity of the
64 Volume 144, Number 4 Sacred Music | Winter 2017
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