SACRED MUSIC Summer 2008 Volume 135, Number 2 EDITORIAL On the Graduale Romanum and the Papal Masses | William Mahrt 3 ARTICLES One Hundred Years of the Graduale Romanum | John Berchmans Göschl 8 Beyond Medici: The Struggle for Progress in Chant | Anthony Ruff 26 ARCHIVE Gregorian Chant: Its Artistic Value and Its Interpretation | Joseph Lennards 45 REPERTORY Hernando Franco’s Circumdederunt me: The First Piece for the Dead in Early Colonial America | Javier Marín 58 Tallis’s If Ye Love Me | Joseph Sargent 65 DOCUMENTS A Parsing of Two English-Language Translations of Musicam Sacram | David E. Saunders 70 Music and Hope | Benedict XVI 77 COMMENTARY Is Chant for Everyone? | Jeffrey Tucker 79 Musical Illiterarcy Revisited | Quentin Faulkner 86 NEWS 89 LAST WORD The Strange Rejection of the Roman Gradual | Kurt Poterack 91 SACRED MUSIC Formed as a continuation of Caecilia ,published by the Society of St. Caecilia since 1874, and The Catholic Choirmaster , published by the Society of St. Gregory of America since 1915. Published quarterly by the Church Music Association of America. Office of Publication: 12421 New Point Drive, Harbour Cove, Richmond, VA 23233. E-mail: [email protected]; Website: www.musicasacra.com Editor: William Mahrt Managing Editor: Jeffrey Tucker Editor-at-Large: Kurt Poterack Editorial Assistant: Jane Errera Editorial Help: Richard Rice Typesetting: Judy Thommesen, Richard Rice Membership and Circulation: 12421 New Point Drive, Harbour Cove, Richmond, VA 23233 CHURCH MUSIC ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA Officers and Board of Directors President: William Mahrt Vice-President: Horst Buchholz Secretary: Rosemary Reninger Treasurer: William Stoops Chaplain: Rev. Father Robert A. Skeris Directors: Susan Treacy, Jeffrey Tucker, Scott Turkington Directors Emeriti: Rev. Father Ralph S. March, S.O.Cist; Kurt Poterack; Rev. Father Robert Pasley; Paul F. Salamunovich; Very Rev. Monsignor Richard J. Schuler† Membership in the Church Music Association of America includes a subscrip- tion to Sacred Music. Membership is $36.00 annually. Parish membership $160 for six copies of each issue. Single copies are $8.00. Send requests and changes of address to Sacred Music, 12421 New Point Drive, Harbour Cove, Richmond, VA 23233. Make checks payable to the Church Music Association of America. Online membership: www.musicasacra.com. 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. Sacred Music for the years 1975 to the present is available online at musicasacra.com/archives. Copyright © Church Music Association of America, 2008. ISSN: 0036-2255 Periodicals postage paid at Montgomery, Alabama. Cover: Image courtesy of Bro. Lawrence, O.P. SACRED MUSIC is published quarterly for $36.00 per year by the Church Music Association of America 12421 New Point Drive, Harbour Cove, Richmond, VA 23233. Periodicals postage paid at Richmond, VA and at additional mailing offices. USPS number 474-960. Postmaster: Send address changes to SACRED MUSIC, 12421 New Point Drive, Harbour Cove, Richmond, VA 23233. EDITORIAL On the Graduale Romanum and the Papal Masses By William Mahrt he present issue of Sacred Music observes the hundredth anniversary of the publication of the Graduale Romanum. This prompts some reflections upon history, the present, and the future. John Berchmans Göschl’s arti- cle recounts the history of the Graduale Romanum, a history of some con- troversy, one brought to something of a conclusion by the decision of Pope St. Pius X to publish the new gradual that was the fruit of the research of the monks of Solesmes. This was, of course, a direct consequence of his motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini of 1903, in which he decreed the restoration of Gregorian chant to public worship, authorized classical polyphony for use by choirs and the use of the organ, and disapproved of theatrical music and the use of secular instru- ments. The lynch-pin of this program was Gregorian chant, and for the Mass, the Graduale Romanum of 1908 provided the melodies in officially authorized versions. The advantages of the new versions produced for the 1908 edition over the prevailing Medici edition are now beyond question. But an advantage we seldom realize is that of the notation itself. The Solesmes versions were set in a notation modeled upon high Medieval examples, now adapted to the needs of a printed text. A comparison of a page from Dom Pothier’s Liber Gradualis1 with the corresponding page from the Medici edition2 shows the nature of the improved notation as well as that of the restored melody. (See example next page.) The Second Vatican Council repeated the mandate for Gregorian chant, declaring “other things being equal, it should be given first place in liturgical services”;3 the liturgical calendar hav- ing received a major re-organization, a new edition of the Graduale Romanum was published in 1974, with the traditional chants arranged according to the new calendar. For scholars the Graduale Triplex (1979) provided the text of the 1974 edition with the staffless neumes from the earliest man- uscripts added above the conventional square notation. There is a seldom-acknowledged advantage to the post-conciliar Graduale Romanum. While the gradual of 1908 contained numerous new feasts for saints’ days, together with neo-Gregorian melodies usually composed at Solesmes, the edition of 1974 eliminated the preponderance of neo- Gregorian melodies in favor of older chants. My experience over the years is that these neo-Gre- gorian melodies do not wear as well as the chants from the earliest historical layer of the repertory. William Mahrt is associate professor of music at Stanford University and editor of Sacred Music and pres- ident of the CMAA. [email protected] 1Liber Gradualis Juxta Antiquos Codicum Fidem Restitutus, editio altera (Solesmes: E Typographeo Sancti Petri, 1895), p. 265. 2Graduale de Tempore et de Sanctis juxta Ritum Sanctæ Romanæ Ecclesiæ, editio typica (Rome: Sacred Congregation of Rites, Regensburg: Pustet, 1886), p. 184. 3Sacrosanctum Concilium, ¶116. I have translated principem locum as “first place,” rather than the slightly more vague “pride of place.” 3 Sacred Music Volume 135, Number 2 Summer 2008 4 Summer 2008 Volume 135, Number 2 Sacred Music In this respect the Graduale Triplex can serve a useful function, probably not anticipated by its com- pilers: A quick glance at any piece in the triplex shows whether that chant exists in a version in the oldest notation; if it does, then it belongs to the original layer of the notated repertory, a useful fact for its study and interpretation. The Gregorian Missal was published in 1990 containing all the chants needed for Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, together with supplementary English translation. Editions in French, Ital- ian, and Dutch have also appeared. These editions are witness to the on-going legitimacy of the singing of chant as the principal music of the Roman rite, not only in major churches and monas- teries, but in parish churches where only the days of obligation will be celebrated with solemnity. The Church Music Association of America has made contributions to this on-going use of chant, first of all by publishing practical books of particular parts of the repertory: 1) Communio, the com- munion antiphons together with psalmody for alternation with the antiphons, providing for the extended singing of chant during the distribution of communion;4 2) The Parish Book of Chant, a col- lection of chants for the congregation, containing a generous selection of the Ordinary of the Mass, accompanied by English translations, as well as numerous seasonal chants likely to be sung by a congregation. Secondly, our summer colloquium has provided the occasion for singers, organists, directors, and general laity to experience the treasury of sacred music in liturgical performances. Four years ago, we had forty in attendance; this year we are planning for more than two hundred. Indeed, sacred music in our country is presently at a cross road. Encouraged by Pope Bene- dict’s recent exhortation to greater use of chant, I desire, in accordance with the request advanced by the Synod Fathers that Gregorian chant be suitably esteemed and employed as the chant proper to the Roman liturgy,5 churches are upgrading their music programs and including more chant and polyphony. The Masses celebrated by Pope Benedict on his pastoral visit to the United States provide the occasion for some reflections upon the present state of Catholic Church music, and even upon the role of the Graduale Romanum. First of all, it must be emphasized how great a success this visit was. It seems to me that from the point of view of liturgy, several factors were important. Most important is what he said: his address and homilies, to no surprise for those who know his writings, were all models of intellectual substance and clarity, a substance that was fundamental, positive, and persuasive. For example, his homily at St. Patrick’s Cathedral spoke of the significance of elements of the archi- tecture: the stained-glass windows “flooding the interior with a mystical light,” illustrate the mys- tery of the church, “flooded with grace, resplendent in beauty, adorned by the manifold gifts of the Spirit;” the complex structure of the building, whose “exact and harmonious proportions symbol- ize the unity of God’s creation . but a unity born of the dynamic tension of diverse forces which impel the architecture upward, pointing it to heaven,” inspiring us to lead the life of the church in harmonious and purposeful action with one another; and, finally, the spires, “a vivid reminder of the constant yearning of the human spirit to rise to God.” But equally important, was his tranquil demeanor in the conduct of the liturgy, the ars cele- brandi which he spoke of in Sacramentum Caritatis;6 the proper juxtaposition of solemnity and joy 4These psalm verses are prescribed in the earliest text manuscripts for chant (such as those collated in Antiphonale Missarum Sextuplex, ed.