Friday, July 8, 2011

Dramatic Changes in Music Rubrics for New Missal

Dramatic Changes in Music Rubrics for New Missal

Posted by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Some of the most advanced thinkers in the world of music and liturgy have long identified the critical problem in Catholic music today. They have pointed out that the Mass itself provides for the texts and the music for the Mass, but in the General Instruction on on the Roman Missal, there appears a loophole. Musicians can sing what is appointed, or (“option 4”) they can sing something else, and that something else is limited only by what the musicians themselves deem as “appropriate.” What this has meant, in effect, is: anything goes. This is why it often seems that when it comes to music at Mass that, well, anything goes.

I’m happy to report that the legislative ground has just shifted, and dramatically so. The new translation of the General Instruction removes the discretion from the music team to sing pretty much whatever it wants. The new text, which pertains to the new translation of the Missal that comes into effect on Advent this year, makes it clear beyond any doubt: the music of the Mass is the chanted propers of the Mass. There are options but these options all exist within the universe of the primary normative chant. There can be no more making up some random text, setting it to music, and singing it as the entrance, offertory, or communion.

 Link to Tucker blog...

H/t:  Stella Borealis
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousJuly 9, 2011 at 9:08 AM

    One litnik (Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB, at the infamous Collegeville) queried another one in the bishops' USCCCP and got a reply that throws water on Jeffrey Tucker's interpretation. As reported on his Pray Tell blog (http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2011/07/08/no-big-deal/):

    I just emailed Fr. Rick Hilgartner at the Bishops’ Committee for Divine Worship about this. My question and his response:

    AWR: Rick, does the fourth option for the entrance chant in GIRM 48 still refer to an appropriate hymn or song chosen by local liturgical planners?

    RH:Yes.

    Fr. Hilgartner also noted that, in his understanding, the paragraph is about the text to be sung, not the musical form it takes. The point is that the prescribed antiphons can, and perhaps should, influence the choice of hymnody. An example (from him) is using the hymn “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” if the entrance antiphon is from Psalm 23.

    My advice to would-be interpreters: First, check out all the ways cantus has been used in the papal documents of the 20th century on sacred music, especially to refer to popular congregational songs of various nations and peoples. Second, check out the history of indults allowing such songs to replace Latin propers, how this made its way into Musicam sacram no. 32 (“The custom…widely confirmed by indults, of substituting other songs for the songs in the Graduale…”,) and how this prehistory informs GIRM 48.

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