My good friend Meggan  – next to whom I stood many times in college singing Lord of Glory, Sing to the Mountains, Blest be the Lord etc…(and enjoying it very much, I have no problem admitting) raises the question of difficulty of incorporating the ideals for sacred music that the Church lays out  – and she is not alone. Ask the people who have actually done it – they will not, for a second, tell you it is as easy process, for many reasons.

But is chant just too difficult for an average parish, anyway?

Again, my caveat is I’m not an expert and I have no idea what I’m talking about. But it seems to me that there are different levels of chant, of ways to incorporate chant, some of which you’ll only hear in monasteries, but some of which is workable in a parish.

Not, I add, that I have ever seen it done. My evidence is only what I know is being done around the country, and, as I mention in the thread below, the comments we get on every thread of this type – someone or other of "a certain age" mentioning how they were taught chant in Catholic grammar school, how they provided the music for the school Masses and even the Sunday parish Masses.

I’ll also mention, again, my experience at the Legatus conference a couple of weeks ago, in which the Credo was intoned, and lots and lots of folks around me – again, of a certain age – jumped right in, and chanted along without recourse to the worship program at hand for at least the first third of the piece. I was fascinated.

But exhibit #3 is more concrete, and is sitting right in front of me. It’s The Progressive Music Series: Book One – Catholic Edition published by Silver Burdett – the book I have has copyrights of 1914 and 1915.

The first three-fourths of the book are children’s songs "Oh, What a Sweet Little White Mouse," "Playing Soldier," "The Airship," "Higgledy, PIggledy," etc..- but at the end we have the "Gregorian Chant Supplement" – by Right Reverend Joseph Schrembs, Bishop of Toledo, and Reverend Grego9ry Huegle, O.S.B. of the Conception Abbey in Missouri.

Remember – this is Book One – "…planned to cover the work of the first three school years, and to be placed in the hands of the pupils and some time during the second year."

The Gregorian Chant section is introduced:

"Simple selections based upon the Tonic Chord and the Tonic Chord with neighboring tones: introducing the simplest forms of Neums or Note Progressions involving two and three group-notes."

Following is a three-page "Practical hints for the study and the correct execution of the Plain Chant Selections."  I’ll pull some of these hints, because they are so illuminating:

First: Read attentively the interlinear literal translation to get the meaning and spirit of the selection to be rendered.

Second: Next read aloud the Latin text, taking care to pronounce each syllable clearly and distincly, laying a gentle stress on the those syllables which are marked with the accent. Let the reading of the Latin text be perfectly smooth and even.

Third: Let all sing the entire selection on a "recitative" note (pitch G or A), observing carefully the breathing and phrase marks, the accent and the Mora Vocis, or the lingering of the voice indicated by a dash over the note…

What follows is a fuller explanation of how to read the notes and how to breath.

….It is this even, legato movement that makes for the peculiar religious charm of Plain Chant, stripping it of every vestige of sensuous passion, and clothing it with the sacred atmosphere of prayer.

The compiler of these graded lessons in Plain Chant will feel more tha compensated if their work shall serve to create a new and more widespread interest in the beautiful liturgical music of the Church.

30 selections are presented – some only a couple of lines long like "Attende – Refrain During Lent"  – the Solesmes Version.  Then there’s three settings of O Salutaris Hostia, a couple of settings of Tantum Ergo, Veni, Domine Jesu, Parce Domine, Panem Vivum,Veni  Creator, Stabat Mater,  as well as the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei from "Mass XVIII- Vatican Version."

I am thinking here… a bishop and the musical director of a Benedictine Abbey involved in the design of the musical education of Catholic school children?  Can you even imagine such a thing?

So, as several commentors have mentioned – cathedrals, monasteries, and yes, Catholic schools…it could happen.

Could it?

Also at hand – Cantus Populi: Humns and Chants for the People’s Participation in Holy Mass. This was from my mother’s stash, is copyrighted 1962, and was apparently used by her aunt in her capacity as church organist up there in Sanford, Maine.  Many hymns in English (considering how the Catholic population was mostly French, I wonder if they were singing French hymns, as well – as a student, my mother’s school days up there were half in English, half in French) – and then 105-123 were Latin "Chants for Sung Mass." In chant notation, not standard musical notation.

Finally, to live in the now:   At NLM, Jeffrey Tucker posts this week’s Communion Chant that his St. Cecilia Schola will be doing this week down at St. Michael’s Church in Auburn, Alabama.

Here is their webpage and please note their fourth "Sacred Music Workshop" is coming up in February.

I ran across this entry from the Diocese of Knoxville communications office blog – I assume the entry is from Mary Weaver, the paper’s editor – on her experience of attending the workshop last year, with members of the Schola from Immaculate Conception, my old parish.

(My primary musical memory of which is the over-dramatic Irish tenor cantor plaintively singing Why Me Lord (yes, the Kris Kristofferson song) at the highest decibels possible. Yes, it was the 70’s.)

She says:

At the end of February I was at St. Michael’s, along with the other singers of Immaculate Conception’s Schola Cantorum, and had the great pleasure of meeting Jeffrey Tucker, the schola’s director, and spending an intense weekend with him, his choristers, about 100 other church musicians from the Southeast and far beyond, and an expert brought in to instruct us all in the finer points of Renaissance polyphony and Gregorian chant.

I call Jeffrey’s schola a musical treasure for a whole slew of reasons, some of which I enumerate below. For starters, he and the rest of the schola members are singing glorious music every single Sunday, music that has stood the test of time (some of it is 800 or more years old) and has proven its ability to lift the hearts and minds of worshipers to God.

Lest you think, sure, fancy parishes loaded with resources can do these things, you should know that none of the schola members are professional musicians, music experts, paid singers, or people who have studied Renaissance music or chant in college. They are typical church musicians, the kind found in parishes everywhere, albeit church musicians with a special dedication to what they’re doing and a commitment to keep learning excellent music.

snip

Jeffrey proves that anyone who is sufficiently dedicated—and the dedication required is not inconsiderable— can learn to chant and to sing Renaissance polyphony. These days the St. Cecilia Schola sings some very ambitious music (check its website for details: www.ceciliaschola.org), and I find this thrilling because one of the popular objections to singing such music in church is that supposedly “ordinary” choristers can’t do it. Yes, they must know how to read music. But ordinary singers can indeed perform the repertory of the “inestimable treasury of sacred music” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, No. 112) if they 1) care enough, 2) take time to learn something about the technique, and 3) practice a lot.

snip

I can’t adequately convey the excitement of taking part in this weekend of immersion in the church’s ancient musical prayer. Each year, Jeffrey said, attendance has grown, and God willing, the number of participants will continue to grow.

He and the schola’s members have thrown the proverbial stone into the pond. Who knows how far the ripples will spread?

And just a note…remember that my original post on this, earlier this week, was not so much about musical "style" – the point that ever liturgical music discussion seems to come down to these days – but rather a challenge for us to look back to the principles of the use of music in the liturgy and the fact that the ideal of "singing the Mass" rather than "singing at Mass" is fairly routinely ignored. I repeat it simply because I sense us (probably me included) edging away from that point.

BTW, in the post below, check out the very interesting comment from Nicole:

…. Which leads me to another point. I don’t think it can be underestimated how the Anglican schism has undermined the English-speaking church. The needs of "English" Catholics were subsequently ignored by the rest of the European church, while the Anglicans managed to produce gorgeous English hymns, sacred poetry, and prayers.