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Catholic bishops’ system of commissioning music verges on corrupt, says director of London Symphony Chorus
There’s a magnificent article in the Tablet this week – yes, you read that right – by Joseph Cullen, the director of the London Symphony Chorus. He begins by pointing out that the excellent liturgies that Pope Benedict XVI saw during his visit to Britain were untypical of the vast majority of our Catholic churches. He says: “There is a glaring lack of sympathy for the heritage which should be the bedrock of worthy sacred music in today’s Church and it is hard to discern any attention to the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram, the Instruction on Music in the Liturgy.”
Cullen – one of the world’s foremost symphonic choir directors – makes the point that the Church guards the text of its rites with diligence. But “less diligent are the checks on the texts and settings used in liturgical music. Low-quality material in both inspiration and facility is commonplace … Double standards in the scrutiny of musical repertoire are baffling … This is to say nothing of the ineptness of much melody-writing, the stultifying limitations of harmonic treatment of accompaniments and the unhappy marriage of syllables to musical notes in so much repertoire. The misuse of one booming voice behind a microphone, an ecclesiastical karaoke, seems to have killed off unified congregational singing.”
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There’s a magnificent article in the Tablet this week – yes, you read that right – by Joseph Cullen, the director of the London Symphony Chorus. He begins by pointing out that the excellent liturgies that Pope Benedict XVI saw during his visit to Britain were untypical of the vast majority of our Catholic churches. He says: “There is a glaring lack of sympathy for the heritage which should be the bedrock of worthy sacred music in today’s Church and it is hard to discern any attention to the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram, the Instruction on Music in the Liturgy.”
Cullen – one of the world’s foremost symphonic choir directors – makes the point that the Church guards the text of its rites with diligence. But “less diligent are the checks on the texts and settings used in liturgical music. Low-quality material in both inspiration and facility is commonplace … Double standards in the scrutiny of musical repertoire are baffling … This is to say nothing of the ineptness of much melody-writing, the stultifying limitations of harmonic treatment of accompaniments and the unhappy marriage of syllables to musical notes in so much repertoire. The misuse of one booming voice behind a microphone, an ecclesiastical karaoke, seems to have killed off unified congregational singing.”
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