Music Selection for New Missal

[Cavaille-Coll]

After having reviewed the hymns in the 2011 OCP Breaking Bread, it appears that they are plunging ever deeper into the realm of solo music adapted for congregational singing. Perhaps 10-20% of the music is in a traditional time signature, but the rest of their repertoire, including most of the new Mass parts, contains the usual ever-changing time signatures, sixteenth notes, and four-measure holds that makes average parishioners shy away from attempting to sing it. Not to mention, of course, some highly questionable theology and a general ambience of 1980’s elevator music.

 

[iloveangels]

At Mass this weekend we started learning the music for the new Missal. Do all parishes sing to the same musical notes while singing the prayers?

The music selection for the prayers (in my opinion) has gone from singable to insane.

High notes that 7/8 ths of women in the pews can’t reach, staggered beats that make the prayer a bit odd to sing, (people only joining in on the refrains).

Although I’m not a good singer I like to try, but the new music selection is making me think twice about participating.

I can imagine what most men in the pews are thinking of this music.

Some of the big liturgists in the Catholic music business hate the new missal and are trying to sabotage it, and you can see that on some of their blogs. In particular there is one very influential high profile liturgist with a popular blog among liturgists, who was on music detail with ICEL until he resigned last year under some pressure. His blog continues to be very interesting along these lines.

I’m not surprised if the music is awful. Not for a minute. But we’ll survive it. There are more important things afoot.

 

[iloveangels]

If people are not singing, I am not doing my job right.

What if they’re praying?

I don’t think people have to sing if they’re praying.

 

[iloveangels]

Take a cue from the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that calls for a “full, conscious and active participation by the congregation” which is their “right by Baptism” (SC 14) and goes further to say “Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs” (SC 114).

I believe that this practice of reducing the congregation to be ‘mere spectators’ with choirs giving ‘performances’ is to be deplored. Like pnewton rightly pointed out, “if the congregation is not singing, the choirs are not doing their job”

The quote is from CSL. But the interpretation below it is complete mishmash. There are all kinds of active participation. Praying silently is active participation too. Reading along with the service in your missal is active participation too.

 

[pnewton]

What if they’re praying?

I don’t think people have to sing if they’re praying.

The two are not contradictory. I was not referring to everyone. There are always some who can not sing, or will not. I was speaking in a general sense. But since I was referring specifically to the music for the new Missal, I disagree. I do not think that engaging in private prayer during parts like the Sanctus is participation.
vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_p-vi_exh_19740202_marialis-cultus_en.html
.

Secondly there are those who, without wholesome liturgical and pastoral criteria, mix practices of piety and liturgical acts in hybrid celebrations. It sometimes happens that novenas or similar practices of piety are inserted into the very celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice. This creates the danger that the Lord’s Memorial Rite, instead of being the culmination of the meeting of the Christian community, becomes the occasion, as it were, for devotional practices. For those who act in this way we wish to recall the rule laid down by the Council prescribing that exercises of piety should be harmonized with the liturgy not merged into it.