A cleric of my acquaintance was lamenting recently the ‘tyranny of choice’ in modern rites. This person is hardly conservative liturgically or theologically yet was able to recognize the wisdom of the steady rhythm of a more traditional rite in which those items that change do so as assigned by the Church according to occasion, not as decided according to local scheme, and are largely not the burden of the People to keep up with.
For this cleric as for many others, cleric and laic alike, however, the recognition of the burden of choice extends only as far as things such as forms of the Eucharistic Prayer and Prayers of the People, the shape of the Entrance Rite, and perhaps one or two other ritual elements. It does not dawn on them that a much greater burden is placed upon those responsible for choosing musical settings of ritual texts and the sung texts themselves.
The wholesale abandonment by the reforming Church of England of the system of proper chants of Mass and Office in the first place catastrophically impoverished these liturgical forms, and in the second created a vast vacuum that was gradually filled by, on the one hand, further over-elaboration of choral settings of such ritual texts as remained (particularly the Canticles of the Office) as well as of freestanding and freely chosen texts (i.e., anthems); and on the other, congregational settings of first ‘metrical Psalmody’ and then hymns and hymn-tunes nearly always in styles unsuitable for the liturgy and, until bcp1979 began to sort out their use, in unsuitable positions in the rites. All this, along with the loss of the chant as the basic medium of delivering liturgical text and the failure of any Anglican body to systematize the deployment of the repertory (the texts of ecusa’s Hymnal are officially approved, but their assignment is not regulated), has not only divorced ‘music’ from ‘liturgy’ (as it is often put), but has made church music into a field of constant and intractable battles among clerics, musicians, choristers, and parishioners over taste, style, length, familiarity, difficulty, forces, and so on.
This situation is not only intolerable for and unfair to those immediately involved – the Church hardly puts, e.g., the choice of Lessons to a popular vote – but is ultimately destructive of the Body, for the liturgy should never be about what I want, or which is your favorite, or whether some artificially imposed quota or balance has been met, and congregations should never, ever be divided (within or between particular celebrations) on the basis of musical taste: a yawning gap that is no less than a mouth of Hell.
How can this be mitigated, the tyranny of musical choice overthrown? By accepting the liturgy as a given, the tradition as a gift, returning to the full singing of the liturgy, each portion sung by the appropriate forces without fighting over liturgical ‘ground’:
This scheme is not only a traditionalist Roman (or Anglo-) Catholic one: the Service Music comes first in the Hymnal 1982, and the General Performance Notes in that book advocate that the People should learn to sing Prayer Book texts.
Settings for essentially all Prayer Book texts are provided in the Hymnal, Altar Book, and Psalters of the Episcopal Church (though the Service Music is, regrettably, not really usable directly from the Hymnal as it stands). The Mass Propers as assigned in the 1974 Graduale Romanum have been translated and their traditional melodies adapted by Bruce Ford in the American Gradual (2nd edition apparently still in preparation). Canon Douglas adapted the antiphons of the 1934 Antiphonale Monasticum into English, though similar work from the new Antiphonale Monasticum, and adaptation of this material to the Prayer Book system, still needs doing. Simpler chant versions of propers for both Mass and Office have also been made by many others: the Graduale Parvum, the Simple English Propers series, the Episcopal Church’s Plainsong Psalter, and others.
In whatever form, and from whatever source, chant – from simple dialogues and reciting formulae to syllabic-neumatic melodies to quite florid solo song, and based closely on Psalms and other scripture – is the true music of the liturgy, and all other music – polyphony for choir or keyboard, strophic or otherwise repetitive and approachable music for setting hymns or other texts for congregational singing – should grow out of this soil in which musical style is not at issue or up for debate. Until the chant – both the medium and the system – is restored to its proper place, the tyranny of choice will continue to hold sway over church musicians, clerics, and congregations, to the detriment of all.
For this cleric as for many others, cleric and laic alike, however, the recognition of the burden of choice extends only as far as things such as forms of the Eucharistic Prayer and Prayers of the People, the shape of the Entrance Rite, and perhaps one or two other ritual elements. It does not dawn on them that a much greater burden is placed upon those responsible for choosing musical settings of ritual texts and the sung texts themselves.
The wholesale abandonment by the reforming Church of England of the system of proper chants of Mass and Office in the first place catastrophically impoverished these liturgical forms, and in the second created a vast vacuum that was gradually filled by, on the one hand, further over-
This situation is not only intolerable for and unfair to those immediately involved – the Church hardly puts, e.g., the choice of Lessons to a popular vote – but is ultimately destructive of the Body, for the liturgy should never be about what I want, or which is your favorite, or whether some artificially imposed quota or balance has been met, and congregations should never, ever be divided (within or between particular celebrations) on the basis of musical taste: a yawning gap that is no less than a mouth of Hell.
How can this be mitigated, the tyranny of musical choice overthrown? By accepting the liturgy as a given, the tradition as a gift, returning to the full singing of the liturgy, each portion sung by the appropriate forces without fighting over liturgical ‘ground’:
· the basic dialogues by the Celebrant, Deacon, and People
· the Lessons by the Lector, Subdeacon/Epistoler, Deacon
· the Prayers by the Deacon
· the Canon by the Celebrant
· the songs of the Ordinary of Mass and Office by the People and/or Schola
(only the Sanctus is specifically required by bcp1979 to be sung by all,
though the congregational singing of the rest is certainly often desirable)
(only the Sanctus is specifically required by bcp1979 to be sung by all,
though the congregational singing of the rest is certainly often desirable)
· the proper chants by the Schola and/or Cantor.
This scheme is not only a traditionalist Roman (or Anglo-) Catholic one: the Service Music comes first in the Hymnal 1982, and the General Performance Notes in that book advocate that the People should learn to sing Prayer Book texts.
Settings for essentially all Prayer Book texts are provided in the Hymnal, Altar Book, and Psalters of the Episcopal Church (though the Service Music is, regrettably, not really usable directly from the Hymnal as it stands). The Mass Propers as assigned in the 1974 Graduale Romanum have been translated and their traditional melodies adapted by Bruce Ford in the American Gradual (2nd edition apparently still in preparation). Canon Douglas adapted the antiphons of the 1934 Antiphonale Monasticum into English, though similar work from the new Antiphonale Monasticum, and adaptation of this material to the Prayer Book system, still needs doing. Simpler chant versions of propers for both Mass and Office have also been made by many others: the Graduale Parvum, the Simple English Propers series, the Episcopal Church’s Plainsong Psalter, and others.
In whatever form, and from whatever source, chant – from simple dialogues and reciting formulae to syllabic-