A friend gave me some Gregorian Chant music on my computer.
Welcome to heaven.
The music is ideally supposed to be sacramental at mass. … Also, without getting into random pejoratives (please!), what is the criteria for sacred music? What exactly makes it sacred?
Sacred music is not just an addition to the liturgy; it is “a complementary [or: integral] part of the solemn liturgy” as Pope St. Pius X put it back in 1903. Vatican II said the same thing: “[sacred music] forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn Liturgy”. Therefore, you are right that it has a “sacramental” quality to it.
As for its criteria, I’ll let Pope St. Pius X have the floor:
2. Sacred music should consequently possess, in the highest degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, and in particular
sanctity and
goodness of form, which will spontaneously produce the final quality of
universality.
It must be holy, and must, therefore, exclude all profanity not only in itself, but in the manner in which it is presented by those who execute it.
It must be true art, for otherwise it will be impossible for it to exercise on the minds of those who listen to it that efficacy which the Church aims at obtaining in admitting into her liturgy the art of musical sounds.
But
it must, at the same time,
be universal in the sense that while every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesiastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its native music, still these forms must be subordinated in such a manner to the general characteristics of sacred music that nobody of any nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them.
- These qualities are to be found, in the highest degree, in Gregorian Chant, which is, consequently the Chant proper to the Roman Church, the only chant she has inherited from the ancient fathers, which she has jealously guarded for centuries in her liturgical codices, which she directly proposes to the faithful as her own, which she prescribes exclusively for some parts of the liturgy, and which the most recent studies have so happily restored to their integrity and purity.
On these grounds Gregorian Chant has always been regarded as the supreme model for sacred music, so that it is fully legitimate to lay down the following rule: the more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savor the Gregorian form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple.
The ancient traditional Gregorian Chant must, therefore, in a large measure be restored to the functions of public worship, and the fact must be accepted by all that an ecclesiastical function loses none of its solemnity when accompanied by this music alone.
Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times.
That rule, that the closer a form of music is to Chant the better suited it is for the liturgy, was adopted by Pope John Paul II as his own in 2003, and I think it’s safe to say that Pope Benedict XVI has followed suit.
There are a half-dozen Magisterial documents, since 1903, that talk about just what types of music are permissible at Mass. Pre-Vatican II:
Tra le sollecitudini (1903),
Divini Cultus (1928),
De Musica Sacra (1955),
Musicae Sacrae (1958). Post-Vatican II:
Musicam Sacram (1967), Chirograph on the centary of
Tra le sollecitudini (2003).
Musicam Sacram is still the latest official statement from the Magisterium, and has not been superseded.
