After church last Sunday, a visitor asked me this. He is connected with the Benedictine Abbey of St. Meinrad, in southern Indiana and (I gather) was in town for the week.
I was confused; why would he think such a thing? It turns out that it was because of the Psalm. We had sung a plainsong setting of Psalm 132 in the service, and in his view, we sang it stylistically and well. The choir does good work with the psalmody; it is perhaps the best singing that we do. I do pester them about it quite a bit: shape of phrases (like a wave coming onto a tropical beach, then going back out), pause at the asterisk, diction. But the credit, if there is any, is mostly theirs; they have done this enough so that they listen to each other, and it is sung prayer – as it ought to be.
No, I am not a Benedictine. But my teacher was: Fr. Gerard Farrell, OSB (1919-2000). I am delighted to post a link to this page, which honors his memory.
He was an organ student of Flor Peeters and a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. He became Choirmaster at the great Abbey of St. John in Collegeville, Minnesota in 1951. Among his innovations, he instituted daily Choral Vespers, where it had previously been sung only on Sundays. I suspect that he would be pleased that the pendulum has swung back sufficiently so that a service such as the one I described in the previous essay, most of it in Latin, would again be valued, or indeed permitted by those in authority.
After the Second Vatican Council and the changes to the monastic liturgy, especially the use of the Vernacular and the desire of many to abandon the heritage of Gregorian Chant, he strove to hold the old and new together, as outlined on the memorial page, but eventually in 1969 resigned from the position, like many other Catholic Church Musicians of those dark days. He moved east, and (among other duties) taught at Westminster Choir College, serving also as associate priest in the local parish. I had the privilege of taking his graduate course in Gregorian Chant; I wish I had continued with his advanced class in Semiology and Paleography (that is, working with the original chant manuscripts and grappling with issues of interpretation of the ancient Neumes; he was one of the masters of his generation in that field), but my paths led in other directions.
In the end, he was permitted to return to the Abbey; he taught week-long summer courses in Chant there in his final years, and went there to die, as is appropriate for a Brother of the Order of St. Benedict. He arrived there on December 30, 1999 with terminal cancer, and died on January 9, 2000, with Requiem Mass at the Abbey on January 12.
May he rest in peace. May he remember us his students before the Throne of Grace.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Choral Vespers
The current BBC Choral Evensong broadcast from Westminster Cathedral is a good example of Roman Catholic Choral Vespers, which is an ancestor of Anglican Choral Evensong. (For those who wish to listen to it, hurry: it disappears from the Net tomorrow.)
As in Evensong, there is an opening dialogue (V. Deus in adjutorum meum intende. R. Domine ad adjuvandum me festina), then an Office Hymn (where we would sing the Phos Hilaron, “O gracious Light”), then Psalmody.
There is but one Lesson, followed by the Magnificat. In this service, a Homily then occurred, followed by the Lord's Prayer (sung by the choir), spoken intercessions, an Anthem, dismissal, and organ postlude.
Nearly all of the service was in Latin, and most of it in plainsong.
My impressions: I miss the polyphonic Preces and Responses. So far as I know, there is no Roman Catholic equivalent of the Smith Responses, or Ayleward, or any of the other settings. Instead, the Preces is in plainsong and the “responses” are spoken – in this service, they were in a litany form, with short intercessions each followed by the response “Lord, hear our prayer.” As I have written elsewhere, one must sing the Preces as a chorister with enormous energy; I liken it to thoroughbreds in the starting gate, bursting with excitement at the prospect of what lies ahead; in many respects, it is my favorite part of the entire Office. At the other end, what could be finer than the third Amen in Smith? Or its equivalent in many other settings?
Over time, I suspect that I would miss Anglican Chant. The psalmody in this service is splendidly done, with good shape to the plainsong tones and good pauses at the asterisk. But psalmody in Anglican Chant has its own virtues, without which we would be impoverished.
I miss the Nunc Dimittis. In nearly all of the Anglican musical settings, the Nunc Dimittis is a quiet counterpoise to the often more energetic setting of the Magnificat. On the other hand, the Roman version of the Office puts a greater emphasis on the Song of Mary, an emphasis that is not without its advantages. In the service from Westminster Cathedral, by the time one reaches the Magnificat, there has been nearly a half-hour of Latin plainsong, and now – Polyphony! It is like the return of flowers and sunshine in spring. In this service, the setting was the “St. Patrick's Magnificat” by the distinguished Scottish composer James MacMillan, a fine and challenging unaccompanied setting worthy of the long tradition of Latin settings of the Canticle. But I can think of a dozen or more Anglican settings of the Nunc Dimittis which are precious to me. Again, we would be impoverished without such music.
And, as much as I love the great and venerable language of the Western Church, I miss English, or at least the traditional “Rite One” English for which Choral Evensong is almost the final refuge. I hold many aspects of Roman Catholic liturgy, theology, and practice in high esteem, but I also espouse many of the Reformed concepts enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer, not least the idea of liturgy in the English language.
Roman Catholic Vespers is an honorable tradition, much older than what we have as Anglicans. But it may be that Anglican Choral Evensong is our finest gift to the larger Church. There is nothing quite like it in any other tradition.
[Footnote: I commend the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, which outlines the theology of the Daily Office and how it is to be conducted in the Roman Catholic manner. I know of no document equivalent to this in Anglicanism – can anyone suggest something?]
As in Evensong, there is an opening dialogue (V. Deus in adjutorum meum intende. R. Domine ad adjuvandum me festina), then an Office Hymn (where we would sing the Phos Hilaron, “O gracious Light”), then Psalmody.
There is but one Lesson, followed by the Magnificat. In this service, a Homily then occurred, followed by the Lord's Prayer (sung by the choir), spoken intercessions, an Anthem, dismissal, and organ postlude.
Nearly all of the service was in Latin, and most of it in plainsong.
My impressions: I miss the polyphonic Preces and Responses. So far as I know, there is no Roman Catholic equivalent of the Smith Responses, or Ayleward, or any of the other settings. Instead, the Preces is in plainsong and the “responses” are spoken – in this service, they were in a litany form, with short intercessions each followed by the response “Lord, hear our prayer.” As I have written elsewhere, one must sing the Preces as a chorister with enormous energy; I liken it to thoroughbreds in the starting gate, bursting with excitement at the prospect of what lies ahead; in many respects, it is my favorite part of the entire Office. At the other end, what could be finer than the third Amen in Smith? Or its equivalent in many other settings?
Over time, I suspect that I would miss Anglican Chant. The psalmody in this service is splendidly done, with good shape to the plainsong tones and good pauses at the asterisk. But psalmody in Anglican Chant has its own virtues, without which we would be impoverished.
I miss the Nunc Dimittis. In nearly all of the Anglican musical settings, the Nunc Dimittis is a quiet counterpoise to the often more energetic setting of the Magnificat. On the other hand, the Roman version of the Office puts a greater emphasis on the Song of Mary, an emphasis that is not without its advantages. In the service from Westminster Cathedral, by the time one reaches the Magnificat, there has been nearly a half-hour of Latin plainsong, and now – Polyphony! It is like the return of flowers and sunshine in spring. In this service, the setting was the “St. Patrick's Magnificat” by the distinguished Scottish composer James MacMillan, a fine and challenging unaccompanied setting worthy of the long tradition of Latin settings of the Canticle. But I can think of a dozen or more Anglican settings of the Nunc Dimittis which are precious to me. Again, we would be impoverished without such music.
And, as much as I love the great and venerable language of the Western Church, I miss English, or at least the traditional “Rite One” English for which Choral Evensong is almost the final refuge. I hold many aspects of Roman Catholic liturgy, theology, and practice in high esteem, but I also espouse many of the Reformed concepts enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer, not least the idea of liturgy in the English language.
Roman Catholic Vespers is an honorable tradition, much older than what we have as Anglicans. But it may be that Anglican Choral Evensong is our finest gift to the larger Church. There is nothing quite like it in any other tradition.
[Footnote: I commend the General Instruction of the Liturgy of the Hours, which outlines the theology of the Daily Office and how it is to be conducted in the Roman Catholic manner. I know of no document equivalent to this in Anglicanism – can anyone suggest something?]
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Evensong: What's the point?
One of the choristers, a ten-year old girl, asked this of me as we were vesting for Evensong today. “What's the point? Why are we doing this?” I did not answer her well; at first I made light of it, saying something about getting through it so we could have the pizza supper after. But she persisted; it was a serious question. I still did not answer well, telling her that people have been doing this for thousands of years, and it is our turn to take part in it. This is true, but not a sufficient answer.
Similar thoughts were in my mind this week as I prepared the organ music for this day's services. The postlude this morning was a large-scale fantasy on Sine Nomine by Craig Phillips, a fine piece. As I struggled with it and grew weary, I asked myself: “Why am I playing this?” My answer: “To honor the Saints.” This was the parish celebration of All Saints' Day, transferred to Sunday, one of the seven principal Feasts of the Church.
Were St. Cecilia, or J. S. Bach, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, or R. E. Lee, or Hezekiah the King to walk in the door of my home, I would extend them every honor within my power. I would give them the best chair, bring them the best of my food and drink, try to tell them how much they have meant to me. Or so I imagine. But am I willing to do what is actually in my power – more than that, the work which is my proper and bounden duty as a church musician? Am I willing to do a little extra work to prepare some Music to honor them, and through them the Lord whom they served? And on this day, not only these few, but all the company of heaven: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and “all other thy righteous servants, known to us and unknown” (BCP p. 489)?
Aided by such thoughts and encouraged by their examples, I gave it a good effort this week. In the event, the Phillips had more errors than is fitting, but some of the other music in this week's liturgies did go well. When we sang “For all the saints” this morning, all eight stanzas of it with a fanfare going into stanza seven, it was an Event.
When the combined youth and adult choirs sang the Bainton anthem “And I saw a new heaven” at tonight's Evensong, it was likewise an Event. For that matter, their singing of Psalm 150 to the chant in C major by Stanford was equally extraordinary.
To my young friend and fellow chorister in the Lord's service: No, I cannot give you a proper answer, not with words. But I pray that the very experience of it may lead you in the direction of an answer. Were you to stand where I stood, in the midst of the choristers as they sang, and see the intensity in the faces of many of them, young and old, perhaps you would begin to understand. I know you could hear it all around you – I saw a bit of it in your face, as well.
What's the point? What's the point of two months' choral rehearsals to get to one evening service? Or ten hours and more on the organ bench for one postlude that ended up not going very well? Behind these questions, why have people sung or said or prayed Matins and Evensong in one form or another all these years, in every imaginable language and setting and circumstance? Some of the point lies in what singing and praying together before God, and working at it with all our energies and skills, does to bring us a little closer to our maturity in the image of Christ, a little closer in every rehearsal and service. The preparations for this service have made us a better choir, and better choral singers individually. I believe that it was also beneficial to those who were in tonight's congregation, many of them parents of choristers.
But there is more: all of it, all of the work, all of the thousands of years of prayer and psalmody and praise embodied in the Daily Office, especially the Choral Office, is our “reasonable service” (Romans 12:1) for the honor of the One before whom we stand, who alone is worthy of praise.
Similar thoughts were in my mind this week as I prepared the organ music for this day's services. The postlude this morning was a large-scale fantasy on Sine Nomine by Craig Phillips, a fine piece. As I struggled with it and grew weary, I asked myself: “Why am I playing this?” My answer: “To honor the Saints.” This was the parish celebration of All Saints' Day, transferred to Sunday, one of the seven principal Feasts of the Church.
Were St. Cecilia, or J. S. Bach, or the Blessed Virgin Mary, or R. E. Lee, or Hezekiah the King to walk in the door of my home, I would extend them every honor within my power. I would give them the best chair, bring them the best of my food and drink, try to tell them how much they have meant to me. Or so I imagine. But am I willing to do what is actually in my power – more than that, the work which is my proper and bounden duty as a church musician? Am I willing to do a little extra work to prepare some Music to honor them, and through them the Lord whom they served? And on this day, not only these few, but all the company of heaven: patriarchs, prophets, apostles, martyrs, and “all other thy righteous servants, known to us and unknown” (BCP p. 489)?
Aided by such thoughts and encouraged by their examples, I gave it a good effort this week. In the event, the Phillips had more errors than is fitting, but some of the other music in this week's liturgies did go well. When we sang “For all the saints” this morning, all eight stanzas of it with a fanfare going into stanza seven, it was an Event.
When the combined youth and adult choirs sang the Bainton anthem “And I saw a new heaven” at tonight's Evensong, it was likewise an Event. For that matter, their singing of Psalm 150 to the chant in C major by Stanford was equally extraordinary.
To my young friend and fellow chorister in the Lord's service: No, I cannot give you a proper answer, not with words. But I pray that the very experience of it may lead you in the direction of an answer. Were you to stand where I stood, in the midst of the choristers as they sang, and see the intensity in the faces of many of them, young and old, perhaps you would begin to understand. I know you could hear it all around you – I saw a bit of it in your face, as well.
What's the point? What's the point of two months' choral rehearsals to get to one evening service? Or ten hours and more on the organ bench for one postlude that ended up not going very well? Behind these questions, why have people sung or said or prayed Matins and Evensong in one form or another all these years, in every imaginable language and setting and circumstance? Some of the point lies in what singing and praying together before God, and working at it with all our energies and skills, does to bring us a little closer to our maturity in the image of Christ, a little closer in every rehearsal and service. The preparations for this service have made us a better choir, and better choral singers individually. I believe that it was also beneficial to those who were in tonight's congregation, many of them parents of choristers.
But there is more: all of it, all of the work, all of the thousands of years of prayer and psalmody and praise embodied in the Daily Office, especially the Choral Office, is our “reasonable service” (Romans 12:1) for the honor of the One before whom we stand, who alone is worthy of praise.
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