Sacred Music Spring 2019 | Volume 146, Number 2
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FACTUS CIBUS VIATORUM VERE PANIS FILIORUM NON MITTENDUS CANIBUS NON ECCE PANIS ANGELORUM ECCE PANIS Sacred Music Spring 2019 | Volume 146, Number 2 Editorial Musica humana | William Mahrt . 3 Articles The Number Seven as Signifier of Symbolism in the Sacred Music of the Renaissance | William Elders . 7 Musica Sanans: Individual and Communal Reintegration in Augustine’s Expositions of the Psalms | Fr. Samuel Bellafiore . 28 Repertory Frank La Rocca’s The Mass for the Americas: Two Composers Discuss a Major New Sacred Work | Mark Nowakowski . 35 Commentary Incense | William Mahrt . 43 Last Word An Organ Comes Home | Kurt Poterack . 44 CMAA Announcements . 45 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 Editor William Mahrt Managing editor Jennifer Donelson Editor at large Kurt Poterack Editorial assistant Jacek Burdowicz Nowicki Ty pesetter Judy Thommesen Membership & Circulation: CMAA, P.O. Box 4344, Roswell, NM 88202 Church Music Association of America Officers and board of directors President William Mahrt Vice-president Horst Buchholz Secretary Mary Ann Carr Wilson Treasurer Steven Holc Chaplain Father Robert Pasley Director of Publications Vacant Directors Charles Cole, Jennifer Donelson, David Hughes, Susan Treacy, Edward Schaefer 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 Membership in the Church Music Association of America includes a subscription to the quarterly journal Sa- cred Music. Membership is $60.00 annually (U.S.), $60 (Canada), and $65 (other countries). Parish member- ship is $300 (U.S. and Canada), $325 (other) for six copies of each issue. Single copies are $15.00. Send requests and changes of address to Sacred Music, 2014 Corn Drive, Las Cruces, NM 88001. Make checks payable to the Church Music Association of America. Online membership: www.musicasacra.com. Sacred Music archives for the years 1974 to the present are available online at www.musicasacra.com/archives. LC Control Number: sf 86092056 Sacred Music is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index, Music Index, Music Article Guide, and Arts and Humanities Index. © Copyright 2019 by the Church Music Association of America. This work is licensed under a Creative Com- mons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. ISSN: 0036-2255 Sacred Music is published quarterly for $60.00 per year by the Church Music Association of America. 2014 Corn Drive Las Cruces, NM 88001 Periodicals postage paid at Richmond, VA and at additional mailing offi cies. USPS number 474-960. Postmaster: Send address changes to SACRED MUSIC, 2014 Corn Drive, Las Cruces, NM 88001 Editoral Musica humana Various kinds of liturgical music reflect and elicit the internal ordering of the motions of the soul. by William Mahrt e understand that music affects Thus the harmony of music is for the the human soul, an import- sake of the internal harmony of our souls. Want fact in its use in the liturgy. Boethius gave a classification of the three The foundation of this under- kinds of harmony: musica mundana, musica standing goes back at least as far as Plato. humana, and musica instrumentalis. Musica In the Timaeus, he described the purpose of hearing: So much of music as is adapted to the We understand sound of the voice and to the sense of hearing is granted to us for the sake of that music aff ects harmony. And harmony, which has mo- tions akin to the revolutions of our souls, the human soul, an is not regarded by the intelligent vota- ry of the Muses as given by them with important fact in its a view to irrational pleasure, which is deemed to be the purpose of it in our use in the liturgy. day, but as meant to correct any discord which may have arisen in the courses of the soul, and to be our ally in bringing her into harmony and agreement with humana is that internal harmony of the herself, and rhythm too was given by soul, which is aided by the hearing of musica them for the same reason, on account of instrumentalis, sounding music, and which the irregular and graceless ways which reflects the harmony of all of creation, prevail among mankind generally, and 1 to help us against them. Collected Dialogues, ed. Edith Hamilton & Hun- tington Cairns, Bollingen Series, 71 (New York: 1Plato, Timaeus, 47, c–e, tr. Benjamin Jowett in Th e Pantheon Books, 1963), p. 1173, William Mahrt is the president of the CMAA and the editor of Sacred Music. Sacred Music | Summer 2019 Volume 146, Number 2 Y 3 musica mundana, sometimes called music is quite simple, yet it allows for a penetra- of the spheres. Although Boethius imag- tion of the scriptural text; the parallelism ined the spheres as simply the course of the of the parts of the psalm line is articulated known planets and their motions, which by the parallelism of the psalm tone. This were in harmonic relation each to the oth- chanting supports the singer in assent- ers, our notion of the universe is far greater, ing whole-heartedly to the text itself and indeed even expanding. And at the root of in assenting to the deepest meaning of the it one observes order, the order of the plan- text. ets and stars moving in predictable motion, 2) Syllabic chants. Such chants as hymns but also the order of the components of the or the pieces of the Ordinary of the Mass atom; as well as the order of genes in every serve some of the same purposes as psalm- cell; our understanding of these is con- stantly growing, but at the root of it all we can observe order and purpose. I wish to examine here musica humana, the purposeful internal ordering of the soul Musica humana, the as it relates to the various kinds of liturgical music, and how that ordering relates to the purposeful internal purposes of music in the liturgy. I begin with chant. Gregorian chant ordering of the soul as is pure melody; it sets in a very direct way sacred texts, mainly texts of the scripture, it relates to the various and mainly the texts of the psalms. The music contributes a beauty to the sacred kinds of liturgical texts, and singing has traditionally been seen as an elevated way to address God. As music, and how that Joseph Jungmann put it, each chant pres- ents its text as if on a silver platter. Each ordering relates to the has an intrinsic relation to the purposes of the liturgy, underlining and emphasiz- purposes of music in ing the particular purpose of the liturgi- cal action of which it is a part. But it also the liturgy. has a fundamental role in the ordering the soul of the worshiper to the purpose of that action. There are four basic kinds of chant, each of which confirms these purpose in a different way. 1) Psalmody. The chanting of psalms ody, but with the addition of the beauty in the Divine Office unifies the voices, so of melody; the shape of a beautiful mel- that the whole is greater than the sum of ody underlines the poetry of the text, and, its parts; each singer becomes absorbed as with psalmody, unifies the singing and into the sacred action. The musical element elevates the proceeding. The chant gives a 4 Y Volume 146, Number 2 Sacred Music | Summer 2019 consistent rhythm to the text that draws the mind. I have observed this effect: when singer into its poetry. singing a gradual at Mass there is suddenly 3) Processional chants. When sung by a stunning silence, there are no distractions; a choir, an introit, for example, conveys everyone is focused upon the singing or the in a rhythmic way the purposefulness of lesson it complements. This recollection is the motion of the procession to the altar. based upon an setting the “motions of the When the procession consists of a hierar- soul,” as Plato calls it, in equilibrium, and chy of members—cross-bearer, candle hold- this creates a freedom to address the highest ers, acolytes, lectors, deacon, priest, even levels of thought and adoration. bishop—all moving to the place where the A second kind of liturgical music is polyphony. It bears quite a different rela- tion to the sacred text than does the chant. The paradigm of a polyphonic movement is that every sentence of the text is set to a sub- Th e synthesis of ject, which is imitated in turn by each of the parts in a carefully coordinated way. This is complex interaction the beauty of polyphony, that the intersec- tion of voices produces a harmony that is and harmony is the intricately controlled, but that supports the web of the interacting voices. The listener key to the experience of hears this intersection with wonder, hearing an intricate coordination of the parts. This polyphony. suggests several kinds of order, in which parts intersect, the greatest of these is the order of the universe itself. Boethius’s musica mundana is the harmonious intersection of liturgy will be celebrated, one can be struck the elements of the sky, which suggests to by the beauty of the order and purpose of humanity all other kinds of intersection and what is about to happen.