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Thursday, July 28, 2022

JOHN NOLAN HITS THE NAIL ON THE HEAD AS IT CONCERNS THE DISMAL STATE OF VERNACULAR MUSIC IN THE SO CALLED REFORMED MASS…

 


Regarding the recent Mass in Edmonton, Fr McDonald laments the lack of chanted Propers. In fact the lectionary Propers (Responsorial Psalm and so-called Gospel acclamation) were chanted. There are no prescribed melodies for these, and some settings can verge on the operatic. This is particularly noticeable, to English ears at least, in St Peter's where the RP is rendered in Italian by a cantor who sees himself as a reincarnation of Pavarotti.


The Introits and Communions given in the Missal are not designed to be sung. Of course the optimal choice would be the Propers from the 1974 Graduale (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia/Tract, Offertory, Communion) and whereas they would suit a Solemn Latin Mass, they would seem anomalous in a celebration where even the sung Ordinary is in the vernacular and in a popular up-beat style. They require considerable skill in execution, and how many modern pew-sitters would opt to sit through a long melismatic Gradual, even when provided with a translation? After all, they have had nigh on sixty years of dumbed-down liturgy whose musical content would make an advertising jingle seem like high art.

4 comments:

TJM said...

As always, John Nolan gets to the essence of the problem and his writings always contain mots justes

Православный физик said...

The day the make the Gradual (or a translation there of) mandatory is perhaps the day you'll begin to see liturgy change, until then, it will be a case of the Lowest Common Liturgy for the majority of parishes that use the NO.

TJM said...

Sadly you are probably right. I believe the Church will shrink a great deal more before the loons in Rome get it!

John Nolan said...

The problem with the lectionary Propers in the OF is not so much the Responsorial Psalm - the Gradual may well have taken this form at the time of St Augustine - but the so-called 'gospel acclamation' which elbows out the Alleluia with its jubilus and the Lenten Tract. It often seems that the only Alleluia ever used is the three-fold Mode 6 one which can replace the Communion antiphon at the Easter Vigil (GR p.195).

The easiest Graduale Propers are the Introits and Communions. The 1974 GR specifies how the Introit may be shortened or lengthened to suit (Praenotanda p.9) but the traditional formula of antiphon-verse-doxology-antiphon should cover the entrance procession. Please don't follow it with a non-liturgical hymn, since the Introit marks the beginning of Mass!