Popular music has always been part of the Mass. It was baroque music during the Baroque era, Romantic during the… well, you get my drift. I’m sure there was mediocre Chant, too.
Hey there.
You’ve got part of this right on. Every era had popular music and classical music. Although Baroque music was “new”, it wasn’t “popular” in the sense that rock music is “popular” music. Most of the popular music of various eras isn’t well-known today because it was their “pop” for the time period. Although there are musicians who have dug up old manuscripts and will perform them and record them. I have a number of popular music recordings from various centuries.
The classical compositions of various eras were well-loved as the current era of classical composition is enjoyed today. But there was popular music back then that is not considered classical and would be what you’d hear in the average person’s pub, living room, etc. Then you have opera which, although falls under the classical style, is considered popular, secular music especially when opera was extremely popular over the centuries. It’s even considered the “low” music by some classical musicians today.
We also have to remember that if a sacred composition composed by a well-respected classical composer sounded too much like the popular/secular music of their day, many times they would be given hell for it, or forbidden to be used. They either had to “refine” the music or fine a place where the bishop would allow it to be played. Some of Mozart’s masses were hated by his home town’s archbishop in Salzburg (But they had a mutual dislike for each other - the archbishop wasn’t a great guy and Mozart didn’t have patience for mediocre musicians and felt stymied by being stuck under his patronage - not a good combination so they parted ways in a bad way). The Viennese bishop, though, welcomed Mozart’s sacred music. But looking at some of his compositions, there were a few movements or pieces that bordered on the secular popular.
Then you have the masses and other formats written just for concert performance - not for mass. For instance, Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” would not be used for mass, nor was it composed to be used for mass.That wasn’t his intent. It was written as a concert piece. It’s too operatic (ie. popular/secular) for a mass.
Polyphony was also another one of those things where it started out as “popular” music and was actually banned and forbidden for use at mass by at least three Popes. It sounded different from what we are used to hearing at mass today. The sound was very “pop” for the time and it was the reason why the music was banned when it was discovered that the style was creeping into mass. It wasn’t until Guillame de Machaut in the 1360s composed a polyphonic mass which was
refined to the point where the “pop” was taken out of it and became intertwined with the sacred. That was when it became accepted into the Church.
Chant was never popular. It was around long before Christianity was around, and many faiths incorporate chant into worship. It’s one of the only kinds of music that has been synonomous by the ancient religions - Judaism, Catholicism, Hiduism, Bhuddism, etc.
I’ll hazard a guess that there was a good deal of mediocre music during the days of “classical” music, just as there is now. The mediocre didn’t survive. That’s why we still have the Masses by Bach and Beethoven, but not by… well, I don’t know who, because their music didn’t survive…
Classical music is still being composed today, so those days are still here. And you are right, there was always mediocre and bad classical compositions being created then, including now. The same goes with other genres - pop music, blues, jazz, folk, rock, etc.
The mediocre won’t survive. *Great *Mass music of the currently popular genres will survive, and be added to the classics.
Meanwhile, we have to suffer through the mediocre stuff, as part of the winnowing process.
I agree with that.
We also have to be aware that this isn’t the first time that popular music made it’s way into sacred music. Sometimes talented composers will take the pop music of the time and refine it to be acceptable as sacred music. i.e. Polyphony. Other times, it will just be thrown out altogether. There was a period in the late 1800s/early 1900s where very sentimental, saccharine pop-style music made it’s way into church music and the Church had to put its foot down.
It was also during that time where some great and wonderful compositions by the best composers were being performed at mass, but were actually not appropriate for sacred music. Verdi’s Requiem, for instance. The style in which the musicians had to sing was too operatic which is a secular and “popular” style of singing of the time (you really can’t perform it any other way) and that it required a full orchestra to perform it. Those things were getting out of hand, and a stop had to be made for that as well.
I’ve always believed the same is happening now. There is a lot of popular music trying to creep into the mass like in the past. We had the folk mass and the rock mass, etc. We are going through these decades of the winnowing process, as you called it. I’m very thankful we don’t hear some of the garbage which made its way in during the 1980s and 1990s, although some of it did stay and still sounds like secular broadway songs. We are in a time, though, where the strings are being tightened and that stuff can’t creep in as well as it did in the 70s, 80s and 90s. The music will either have to be refined or dropped altogether. I’m seeing it happen in my diocese and I believe it is a good thing - but an expected thing just based on Church history alone.
Praying for inspired music at Mass,
Me Too!!!
I dunno. I prefer not to hear that stuff. I like to come to youth group so I can socialize and learn about the faith, not waste time doing mindless twaddle .