Jewish chant and the early church/ preserving sacred music/ YOUR PARISH!

[opus101]

In the very earliest days of the Church, Jewish chant was used in the sacred lirurgy. After Pentecost, due to the influence of of the Greco-Roman world, the Church began it’s long history of issuing guidelines for liturgical music rejecting certain types of music, and preserving its sacred music.

With the long history of, and huge body of, sacred music ranging from the different types of chant, to polyphony, hymnody, and psalmody, there is much to preserve.

How does your parish participate in the preservation of the Church’s heritage?

If you would like more info on the history of the transfer of Jewish sacred music into the Mass, sacred music in the early Church and preservation of sacred music, Bishop Olmsted has a brief description of it all in his article “Singing the Mass”.

I will try to provide a link to those parts.

 

[OraLabora]

The abbey I’m associated with uses Gregorian chant every day for the Divine Offce and the OF Mass. I also sing in a schola that rotates around different parishes and the cathedral once a month. We also do mostly Gregorian chant, the exception being a small amount of French plainchant.

 

[opus101]

Thanks, Ora Labora! Sounds really awesome, in the true sense of the word!

 

[dshix]

My EF parish choir sings the full Gregorian chant propers, a large number of chant motets, and polyphony every Sunday.

 

[opus101]

I don’t know how to excise sections of the article for a link, so I will type out some pertinent parts. Jewish chant was:

“a concrete decision for a specific way of singing, which was a rejection of the frenzied and intoxicating music of the neighboring and threatening pagan cults. This way of singing the psalms, traditionally viewd as established by King David (f. II Sam. 6:5), disrupted only by the Babylonian exile, remained in use at the coming of Christ. Sung with respect to and during sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem, the early Jewish Christians assumed this tradition into the sacrifice of the eucharistic liturgy.”

from “Singing the Mass” (Bishop Olmsted), under the heading “Sacred Music in Judaism before Christ”

also, after Pentecost and the new encounter between Judaism and the Greek-Roman world: “for the first time, the Church had to preserve her sacred music, and then foster it. Although early Greek-style songs quickly became part of the Church’s life (e.g., the prologue of John and the Philippians hymn, 2:5-11), this new music was so tightly linked to dangerous gnostic beliefs that the Church decided to prohibit its use.”

 

[Ohana]

We went to a major city cathedral the past weekend for Mass. The Cantor chanted something that the congregation was supposed to repeat. It was perfectly unmelodic and awful. It was distracting to the beauty of the Mass. Where is this stuff coming from? The Cantor had a really good voice, so it was not poorly sung, just poor music. If this is what we can expect from chant, I will avoid it big time.

I love some the the hymns that take me to a deeper place in my spirit. Those times at Mass are ampng my closest moments to Christ and the Father during the week.They are emotionally and spiritually evocative. I don’t get the sterilization of the music at Mass. In fact, I may write a letter to the Cardinal Bishop of that church.

 

[opus101]

Thanks, Ohana, for your response. Since the heritage of sacred music is so vast and varied, with such a variety even in the chant category, I hope you will be willing to expose yourself to more than just one chant response at one Mass on one particular day, before forming an opinion of it or writing to a Bishop about it.

Our Lord intoned the Passover chants at the Last Supper. I hope the apostles didn’t think it was “sterile”.

 

[OraLabora]

We went to a major city cathedral the past weekend for Mass. The Cantor chanted something that the congregation was supposed to repeat. It was perfectly unmelodic and awful. It was distracting to the beauty of the Mass. Where is this stuff coming from? The Cantor had a really good voice, so it was not poorly sung, just poor music. If this is what we can expect from chant, I will avoid it big time.

I love some the the hymns that take me to a deeper place in my spirit. Those times at Mass are ampng my closest moments to Christ and the Father during the week.They are emotionally and spiritually evocative. I don’t get the sterilization of the music at Mass. In fact, I may write a letter to the Cardinal Bishop of that church.

Gregorian chant, if it’s butchered, can be awful. It can also be movingly beautiful if well done, in particular if sung a cappella.

I’d be interested to know what was being sung. Plainchant is most certainly not “poor music”. It’s very old, somewhat primitive, and unmetered. But some pieces are brilliantly composed. Almost all of the repertory, with the exception of the hymns of the Divine Office, are from scripture or psalm verses, at least for the propers.

This one is coming up on Palm Sunday:

Christus factus est pro nobis

Hymn for Vespers of Holy Week:

Vexilla Regis

And on Good Friday, Crux Fidelis, a hymn so haunting I can barely listen to it without tears welling up. Composed in the 6th century by Venantius Fortunatus; this is chanted at our abbey during the veneration of the Cross.

Crux Fidelis

On a lighter note, the introit for the 4th and 30th Sundays of Ordinary Time:

Laetetur Cor

For communion on Corpus Christi (and ad libitum on some Sundays):

Qui manducat

I suspect your cantor was trying to get the faithful to sing part of the ordinary. It probably wasn’t a good idea to spring something unknown on them like that.

 

[drafdog]

We prepare the Introit and the Communion in Gregorian chant each week.
We sing a variety of sacred choral music. This week in preparation for the special mass to celebrate the election of the new pope we worked on “Tu Es Petrus” in a setting by Palestrina. In preparation for Lent and Easter we also have a couple of settings of “Meditabor,” a “Beati Quorum Via,” Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus” and a host of other things.
The congregation gets to sing along with selections from “Glory and Praise.”
For accompaniment we use the parish’s pipe organ or piano or upon rare occasion the harpsichord. Other masses have guitar and piano; special celebrations (Christmas and Easter especially) add a brass ensemble to the main mass.
The variety is called “catholic.”

Reb Levi

 

[Sarabande]

Our music director will often take works from older masses spanning a few centuries for special masses like Christmas, Easter, etc. We’ll do some chant as well, but not too much.

Since Jewish chant was brought up, when my husband and I were married, my former voice teacher, who is Jewish and also well-trained in Jewish chant (completely different way of singing from her operatic voice - Jewish cantors go through A LOT more formal training than Catholic cantors. I learned a lot from her about role as a cantor) chanted the prayer of the faithful using Jewish chant, while our choir and guests responded in a simple “Lord, hear our prayer” which was, I believe, taken from a Byzentine choral harmony. The chanting was so beautiful and different. I actually did not expect it because I had handwritten the plainchant for her for each petition. When she sang, “Let us pray to the Lord”, she went back to what was written, so that the choir would come in correctly. And she has perfect pitch, so she never went off-key.

For the rest of the wedding, we had a Palestrina mass for the Kyrie, Gloria and Agnus Dei. The other parts of the mass, including the “Our Father” were chanted in Latin by our choir, my husband and I, the priest, my little choir students who came to the wedding and anyone else who knew them. We also had sacred music by Tallis, Faure, and Mozart, along with organ instrumentals by Bach. So, my husband and I did our best that day to preserve the sacred music we fell in love with and heard at mass every Sunday in the parish where we were married.

 

[Elizabeth779]

Listening to the Christus factus…it is so beaituful…wow…so peaceful

Question: a schola group is always only male singers?

 

[OraLabora]

Listening to the Christus factus…it is so beaituful…wow…so peaceful

Question: a schola group is always only male singers?

Most certainly not, there are many in women’s monasteries! There are also mixed choirs doing Gregorian chant. The schola I sing with is all-male, but I’ve occasionally sung with mixed choirs. It’s a bit tougher in a mixed choir due to the different dynamic ranges of the male and female voices.

 

[Sarabande]

Most certainly not, there are many in women’s monasteries! There are also mixed choirs doing Gregorian chant. The schola I sing with is all-male, but I’ve occasionally sung with mixed choirs. It’s a bit tougher in a mixed choir due to the different dynamic ranges of the male and female voices.

This is true. I sang in a schola when I was younger with males and females, but the sound is different. Still beautiful, but different sound than when you hear all males or all females.

 

[Ohana]

Thank you all for some feedback and suggestions for listening. I do have a chant album that I like to listen to from time to time. Trust me, the chant at the cathedral did not approach anything I heard. I do not mean to be really critical, but it was jarring. Perhaps they are just getting into it and if in early development, could be a bit unfinished.

That being said, I think I have a hard time with not being able to have community participation. There is something about singing, breathing, opening my chest, posture etc, that assists me in adoration. Maybe in time . . . .

 

[Sarabande]

Thank you all for some feedback and suggestions for listening. I do have a chant album that I like to listen to from time to time. Trust me, the chant at the cathedral did not approach anything I heard. I do not mean to be really critical, but it was jarring. ** Perhaps they are just getting into it and if in early development, could be a bit unfinished. **

That being said, I think I have a hard time with not being able to have community participation. There is something about singing, breathing, opening my chest, posture etc, that assists me in adoration. Maybe in time . . . .

That could be it. I really wish that parishes did have the money or at least the foresight (if they can afford it) to send the cantors or, better, the music director who could then teach the cantors and choir how to chant. That way, when they make a go at it for the first few times, it wouldn’t sound so poorly done and it will be easier for the congregation to pick up. I think of my voice teacher who went through very serious study with one of the most reknown Jewish cantors of his day to make sure that her Hebrew was correct, the chanting and the style of singing was near to perfect, etc. As cantor, she was also the one who had to teach the Bat and Bar mitvah kids their Hebrew prayers and chants. She really had to be an “expert” at it… and you didn’t have to be a classically trained singer, like herself. You just needed to know how to chant well and understand the importance of being a cantor, everything required of you in that position and the knowledge you need to have to fulfill that position. Of course, cantoring at a Catholic church is different, but the level of responsibility and expertise of leading and chanting/singing, I think, is still high. When you hold it to that level, rather than have a person go in without any actual training you will get more quality.

Don’t worry, in time you will more than likely get it. Sometimes learning something well does take a while. Think of all the things we do/say at mass or sing at mass now. Most of us have been doing it since we were old enough to talk. Even if we don’t notice it, for some of the things it has taken years to perfect. Just like playing an instrument or learning how to sing well. You can’t always have quality after the first few times. If the entire congregation is going through this learning stage together, it is, in a way, the “community” participating in terms of trying to make it work.