There is a valid point to the following:
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Source: https://www.cathinfo.com/sspx-resistance-news/sspx-trad-culture-is-near-dead/msg670573/#msg670573
Wednesday, November 6, 2019
Speaking Out Against the Little Things
Source: https://www.cathinfo.com/sspx-resistance-news/sspx-trad-culture-is-near-dead/msg670573/#msg670573
Organ Music and Gregorian Chant (1956)
[3] The problem of the relationship between organ music and liturgical chant is not a new one. It has presented itself since the earliest days when, through a unique privilege, the organ became an instrument of the Church and was given the role of functioning with the choir, bringing to the service of the divine cult the multitude of its voices and the variety of its tonal resources.
All musicians whose duties place them at an organ console have felt to a greater or lesser degree the grandeur and nobility of the role given to them in the course of the liturgical Offices, and they have made some very fine declarations of principle in this regard. In spite of the diversity of their temperaments, their musical educations and their esthetic tendencies, they all agree in declaring that the church organist should not play "during the Office, but play the Office itself" (Maurice Emmanuel), and that he should "become as closely united with the Office as possible by drawing for inspiration on pieces of plain-chant" (Marcel Dupres [sic]).
Regarding these principles, then, there are neither difficulties nor disagreements; we have a fine and unanimous viewpoint. When it comes to the practical working-out, however, it is quite another matter. Problems have a way of multiplying, and what a wide diversity there is in the manner of solving them! In itself this diversity is not wrong, but we must maintain that the whim and caprice of an individual cannot be suitable to the norm of a religious Office, the prime quality of which must be unity. No doubt these are complicated matters, and are very difficult to describe with exactitude. Yet they are all too real. Perhaps an analogy will help us to see this more clearly.
[4] Go to Chartres and stand before the western facade. The "new" tower will not shock you next to the "irreproachable spire" of the "old" tower. You will, moreover, appreciate its beauty without difficulty, because it will seem to you to be the logical development of the romanesque tower on which it is erected.
Then go into the Cathedral up to the vault of the choir and look about you. Immediately something is upset within you. The "embellishments" of the canons of the eighteenth century, and in particular the group of the Assumption of Bridan seem to be out-of-place in such a place. They do not match the style, proportions or grace of the incomparable sanctuary.
The organist is faced with problems similar to these. He must blend into this unified ensemble in such a way that his listeners, far from being caused to resent him, will, on the contrary, silently be grateful for his having been able to enhance the prayers and chants of the whole congregation.
To get a complete picture of the problem, we would be obliged to go back to the very origins of organ music. Then, following the passing of time, we should study the different solutions which Church organists have applied to the problem at hand. We would be obliged, in short, to undertake a history of organ music in its liturgical roles. This would be a wonderful and very useful work, but of vast proportions which would easily fill a huge volume. In these few pages we shall content ourselves with taking a characteristic example which will permit us to show the essential error to avoid, and in the same process to uncover the essential elements of a proper and satisfying solution.
In 1685 at Paris, Nicholas Gigault, organist at Holy Spirit and of the churches of Saint-Nicholas and Saint-Martin-des-Champs, published a Livre de Musique pour l'orgue which contained about 180 pieces, all intended for [5] service playing, grouped according to the eight church tones and written to a great extent on plain-chant melodies.
In the opening remarks to his readers, Gigault shows a constant care to conform to the needs and demands of divine worship. Not only does he write somewhat short pieces in order not to cause delays in the service, but he even takes care to plan for cuts, if they should be necessary. He goes into certain details of the intonations of the different tones and remarks that he has tried to conform to plain-chant, and particularly to the finals in order to give the intonations to the choir more clearly. Finally, the book is dedicated "to the Blessed Virgin". In this noble dedication is said, among other things, that the Magnificat "is the most beautiful of all the canticles . . . on which our art will be applied eternally without even the most beautiful sounds, or all the harmony of music being able to equal the least of its divine expressions". In closing, our organist asks the Blessed Virgin "to grant that his chants may please the heart even more than the ear, to raise the soul of those who hear them to You and to Your Son, and to give them an ardent desire to rise to Heaven to hear that ineffable Music which must be our eternal Joy".
Here we have a grouping of completely favorable dispositions which leads us to see Nicholas Gigault as a model liturgical organist. Of the 214 pages of his Organ Book, however, nothing has survived the wear of time. None of the pieces designed with such care could be used for a service. In spite of our good will, we are forced to admit that we rarely see such a contrast between the excellence of principles and the poverty of the result.
What could possibly be the cause of such misfortune? What is the basic error which would explain all the others? This basic lack seems to us to have been certainly not theoretical, but a practical understanding of the primacy and excellence of Gregorian chant, "rule and supreme model of all sacred music".
[6] Instead of listening obediently to the liturgical melody and let it create in him the sounds and rhythms which result naturally from its sonorous progression, he tried on the contrary, to impose on it from without a harmonic and rhythmic treatment which is foreign to its very structure. The mode is immediately converted through the alteration of the leading tones, to the modern major or its relative minor. The melody, deprived of its proper life, is cut up in pieces and presented in long note-values. These fragments are to serve in turn as themes of works of which the developments have no inner relationship with the mode and rhythm of the melody which has been so disfigured. When the organist is a mastery of polyphonic composition and has, moreover, a deeply religious soul, he can avoid the worst consequences, and can even write pieces which, in spite of certain concessions to the tastes of the day, remain true models of liturgical music. But when the organist, filled with theories learned in school, turns to dressing the chant in the present-day musical fashions, ornamenting it with "prunings and graftings" and setting it to "new movements", nothing remains of that perfection glimpsed in the heavens of high principle. Between liturgical chant and the organ-playing a chasm opens up, a contrast is established which is all the more to be deplored because it comes in the Liturgy, where all the elements which enter into the composition of a service should blend in a single goal and unite in a common adoration.
We could stop here and say that these criticisms hold true only for classical organists who knew Gregorian chant only in its decadent form, whereas we, better situated than our ancestors, now possess plain-chant restored to its proper melody and rhythm. It is indeed true that the restoration of Gregorian chant has caused a favorable reaction among organists, and that for the last fifty years attempts have been more and more numerous toward achievement of an organ music more and more respectful of the character and grace of the ancient modes. Nevertheless, without taking away anything from the generosity of motives and the quality of the efforts, we are obliged to recognize the fact that we have not yet succeeded in creating a truly "liturgical" [7] style of music which would adapt itself effortlessly to the letter and spirit of Gregorian chant.
We should add, too, that at the point of development to which we are led by the present evolution of harmony, the problem is becoming more and more difficult to solve, as the organists are finding themselves torn between their musical training, which has legitimately advanced with their times, and the demands of the liturgical service, in which Gregorian chant remains the determining element.
Must we, then, declare that the problem is insoluble? Must we admit that we have been passed by in the inevitable progress of musical development? We do not think so, and we are even naive enough to believe that at the cost of some sacrifice . . . no doubt difficult to make . . . a harmonious solution can be arrived at.
One of the greatest musicians of our own day will help us to discover the essential points.
In 1929 the magazine Musique made a survey among composers on the evolution of music and its most recent tendencies. Manuel de Falla gave a remarkable answer, some aspects of which seem very fitting to note at this time.
To the question: "What are your present tendencies?" Falla answered: "Toward an art as strong as it is simple, and in which egotism and vanity would be absent. But what a difficult goal to reach!" If such a directive seems fitting for the demands of the art considered in itself, how much more strongly should it be proposed for the musicians who have the honor and the responsibility to write works which are beautiful, not only from the purely musical point of view, but to a degree which would make them suitable to be introduced in the body of a liturgical service! This answer, in fact, seems to us to go to the root of the question. First of all light and order have to be established in ones [sic] [8] inner being. Before going into the purely technical problems, it is necessary to resolve a basic difficult of spiritual nature. All is pointless if the soul is not first freed of itself and ready to let itself be drawn and influenced by "the pure musical substance" of Gregorian melody, separated from any arbitrary circumstance or outer superposition.
To devote oneself in this way to the discipline of plain-chant in no way implies a servile imitation, but rather a reasonable exploitation of its inexhaustible resources, creating "a music in which the eternal laws of rhythm and tonality, — intimately linked, — may be conscientiously observed."
Such a style thus presupposes:
1) Deliberate exclusion of "capricious dogmas which often become in art the worst enemies of the true and intangible dogmas" (merely think of the tyranny of C major, the down-beat, the square measure, the forbidden intervals, etc.).
2) A decided preference for free and supple rhythms, for innumerable combinations, based nevertheless on a basic value, maintained as a principle of order and unity.
3) And for a polyphony which will be both strict and bold, in which the various parts pursue their courses with a logic rigorous to the degree of its leading to a firmly established close . . . for a polyphony conceived as the blossoming of a harmony based on the natural resonance of the Gregorian modes.
What should be avoided above all are these attempted compromises between ancient modality and modern harmonic systems. Neither chromaticism nor atonality can blend with it. It is, therefore, salutory that organists are learning more and more to give up these impossible matings in preference for the reasonable and conscientious exploration of the "sonorous spaces" created by the simple flow of a plainsong melody. No doubt the Gregorian modes are diatonic in their [9] essence, but freed from the constraints of classical tonality, they imply in their resonance a whole train of harmonic groupings, bold and new. It is for each composer, according to the quality of his "antennas", to grasp their many vibrations.
We can see now in what sense we must talk of a return to the ancient melody of the Church. There can be no question of a regression, — impossible, in fact, — to a dull and soulless pastiche "of a form of art perfect of its type" (Dom Mocquereau). Not so many exercises on the chant; let there be instead a ceasely [sic] renewed "invention", more sure and certain in its discoveries to the extent that it never ceases to seek the elements of its inspiration in the same basic source. The [sic] presupposes, in fact, that Gregorian chant is the very basis of any musical training. It is, moreover, no longer a question of devoting only a few pages to the study of the ancient modes for those students who have a penchant for "archaicism" or "mysticism", [sic] On the contrary, it is time to give them first rank in the studies of counterpoint and harmony, which would then become complete treatises of modal polyphony.
Obviously we must add another condition, also very essential: talent, or even genius. God has not, however, ever refused this "gift" in the course of the long history of sacred music. Our epoque [sic] does not lack in fine talents, artists avid in serving and enriching divine worship. May they in this pathway discover, for the glory of God and our joy, ancient and new splendors.
Perhaps it is not amiss to state that these few reflections contain no hidden implications. They are intended simply as considerations in itself and for itself of a problem which is commanding more and more attention from all those who have at heart the dignity and perfection of the divine service.
---
Source: Dom Antoine Bonnet, "Organ Music and Gregorian Chant," The Gregorian Review 3, no. 2 (March-April 1956): 3–9.
All musicians whose duties place them at an organ console have felt to a greater or lesser degree the grandeur and nobility of the role given to them in the course of the liturgical Offices, and they have made some very fine declarations of principle in this regard. In spite of the diversity of their temperaments, their musical educations and their esthetic tendencies, they all agree in declaring that the church organist should not play "during the Office, but play the Office itself" (Maurice Emmanuel), and that he should "become as closely united with the Office as possible by drawing for inspiration on pieces of plain-chant" (Marcel Dupres [sic]).
Regarding these principles, then, there are neither difficulties nor disagreements; we have a fine and unanimous viewpoint. When it comes to the practical working-out, however, it is quite another matter. Problems have a way of multiplying, and what a wide diversity there is in the manner of solving them! In itself this diversity is not wrong, but we must maintain that the whim and caprice of an individual cannot be suitable to the norm of a religious Office, the prime quality of which must be unity. No doubt these are complicated matters, and are very difficult to describe with exactitude. Yet they are all too real. Perhaps an analogy will help us to see this more clearly.
[4] Go to Chartres and stand before the western facade. The "new" tower will not shock you next to the "irreproachable spire" of the "old" tower. You will, moreover, appreciate its beauty without difficulty, because it will seem to you to be the logical development of the romanesque tower on which it is erected.
Then go into the Cathedral up to the vault of the choir and look about you. Immediately something is upset within you. The "embellishments" of the canons of the eighteenth century, and in particular the group of the Assumption of Bridan seem to be out-of-place in such a place. They do not match the style, proportions or grace of the incomparable sanctuary.
The organist is faced with problems similar to these. He must blend into this unified ensemble in such a way that his listeners, far from being caused to resent him, will, on the contrary, silently be grateful for his having been able to enhance the prayers and chants of the whole congregation.
To get a complete picture of the problem, we would be obliged to go back to the very origins of organ music. Then, following the passing of time, we should study the different solutions which Church organists have applied to the problem at hand. We would be obliged, in short, to undertake a history of organ music in its liturgical roles. This would be a wonderful and very useful work, but of vast proportions which would easily fill a huge volume. In these few pages we shall content ourselves with taking a characteristic example which will permit us to show the essential error to avoid, and in the same process to uncover the essential elements of a proper and satisfying solution.
In 1685 at Paris, Nicholas Gigault, organist at Holy Spirit and of the churches of Saint-Nicholas and Saint-Martin-des-Champs, published a Livre de Musique pour l'orgue which contained about 180 pieces, all intended for [5] service playing, grouped according to the eight church tones and written to a great extent on plain-chant melodies.
In the opening remarks to his readers, Gigault shows a constant care to conform to the needs and demands of divine worship. Not only does he write somewhat short pieces in order not to cause delays in the service, but he even takes care to plan for cuts, if they should be necessary. He goes into certain details of the intonations of the different tones and remarks that he has tried to conform to plain-chant, and particularly to the finals in order to give the intonations to the choir more clearly. Finally, the book is dedicated "to the Blessed Virgin". In this noble dedication is said, among other things, that the Magnificat "is the most beautiful of all the canticles . . . on which our art will be applied eternally without even the most beautiful sounds, or all the harmony of music being able to equal the least of its divine expressions". In closing, our organist asks the Blessed Virgin "to grant that his chants may please the heart even more than the ear, to raise the soul of those who hear them to You and to Your Son, and to give them an ardent desire to rise to Heaven to hear that ineffable Music which must be our eternal Joy".
Here we have a grouping of completely favorable dispositions which leads us to see Nicholas Gigault as a model liturgical organist. Of the 214 pages of his Organ Book, however, nothing has survived the wear of time. None of the pieces designed with such care could be used for a service. In spite of our good will, we are forced to admit that we rarely see such a contrast between the excellence of principles and the poverty of the result.
What could possibly be the cause of such misfortune? What is the basic error which would explain all the others? This basic lack seems to us to have been certainly not theoretical, but a practical understanding of the primacy and excellence of Gregorian chant, "rule and supreme model of all sacred music".
[6] Instead of listening obediently to the liturgical melody and let it create in him the sounds and rhythms which result naturally from its sonorous progression, he tried on the contrary, to impose on it from without a harmonic and rhythmic treatment which is foreign to its very structure. The mode is immediately converted through the alteration of the leading tones, to the modern major or its relative minor. The melody, deprived of its proper life, is cut up in pieces and presented in long note-values. These fragments are to serve in turn as themes of works of which the developments have no inner relationship with the mode and rhythm of the melody which has been so disfigured. When the organist is a mastery of polyphonic composition and has, moreover, a deeply religious soul, he can avoid the worst consequences, and can even write pieces which, in spite of certain concessions to the tastes of the day, remain true models of liturgical music. But when the organist, filled with theories learned in school, turns to dressing the chant in the present-day musical fashions, ornamenting it with "prunings and graftings" and setting it to "new movements", nothing remains of that perfection glimpsed in the heavens of high principle. Between liturgical chant and the organ-playing a chasm opens up, a contrast is established which is all the more to be deplored because it comes in the Liturgy, where all the elements which enter into the composition of a service should blend in a single goal and unite in a common adoration.
We could stop here and say that these criticisms hold true only for classical organists who knew Gregorian chant only in its decadent form, whereas we, better situated than our ancestors, now possess plain-chant restored to its proper melody and rhythm. It is indeed true that the restoration of Gregorian chant has caused a favorable reaction among organists, and that for the last fifty years attempts have been more and more numerous toward achievement of an organ music more and more respectful of the character and grace of the ancient modes. Nevertheless, without taking away anything from the generosity of motives and the quality of the efforts, we are obliged to recognize the fact that we have not yet succeeded in creating a truly "liturgical" [7] style of music which would adapt itself effortlessly to the letter and spirit of Gregorian chant.
We should add, too, that at the point of development to which we are led by the present evolution of harmony, the problem is becoming more and more difficult to solve, as the organists are finding themselves torn between their musical training, which has legitimately advanced with their times, and the demands of the liturgical service, in which Gregorian chant remains the determining element.
Must we, then, declare that the problem is insoluble? Must we admit that we have been passed by in the inevitable progress of musical development? We do not think so, and we are even naive enough to believe that at the cost of some sacrifice . . . no doubt difficult to make . . . a harmonious solution can be arrived at.
One of the greatest musicians of our own day will help us to discover the essential points.
In 1929 the magazine Musique made a survey among composers on the evolution of music and its most recent tendencies. Manuel de Falla gave a remarkable answer, some aspects of which seem very fitting to note at this time.
To the question: "What are your present tendencies?" Falla answered: "Toward an art as strong as it is simple, and in which egotism and vanity would be absent. But what a difficult goal to reach!" If such a directive seems fitting for the demands of the art considered in itself, how much more strongly should it be proposed for the musicians who have the honor and the responsibility to write works which are beautiful, not only from the purely musical point of view, but to a degree which would make them suitable to be introduced in the body of a liturgical service! This answer, in fact, seems to us to go to the root of the question. First of all light and order have to be established in ones [sic] [8] inner being. Before going into the purely technical problems, it is necessary to resolve a basic difficult of spiritual nature. All is pointless if the soul is not first freed of itself and ready to let itself be drawn and influenced by "the pure musical substance" of Gregorian melody, separated from any arbitrary circumstance or outer superposition.
To devote oneself in this way to the discipline of plain-chant in no way implies a servile imitation, but rather a reasonable exploitation of its inexhaustible resources, creating "a music in which the eternal laws of rhythm and tonality, — intimately linked, — may be conscientiously observed."
Such a style thus presupposes:
1) Deliberate exclusion of "capricious dogmas which often become in art the worst enemies of the true and intangible dogmas" (merely think of the tyranny of C major, the down-beat, the square measure, the forbidden intervals, etc.).
2) A decided preference for free and supple rhythms, for innumerable combinations, based nevertheless on a basic value, maintained as a principle of order and unity.
3) And for a polyphony which will be both strict and bold, in which the various parts pursue their courses with a logic rigorous to the degree of its leading to a firmly established close . . . for a polyphony conceived as the blossoming of a harmony based on the natural resonance of the Gregorian modes.
What should be avoided above all are these attempted compromises between ancient modality and modern harmonic systems. Neither chromaticism nor atonality can blend with it. It is, therefore, salutory that organists are learning more and more to give up these impossible matings in preference for the reasonable and conscientious exploration of the "sonorous spaces" created by the simple flow of a plainsong melody. No doubt the Gregorian modes are diatonic in their [9] essence, but freed from the constraints of classical tonality, they imply in their resonance a whole train of harmonic groupings, bold and new. It is for each composer, according to the quality of his "antennas", to grasp their many vibrations.
We can see now in what sense we must talk of a return to the ancient melody of the Church. There can be no question of a regression, — impossible, in fact, — to a dull and soulless pastiche "of a form of art perfect of its type" (Dom Mocquereau). Not so many exercises on the chant; let there be instead a ceasely [sic] renewed "invention", more sure and certain in its discoveries to the extent that it never ceases to seek the elements of its inspiration in the same basic source. The [sic] presupposes, in fact, that Gregorian chant is the very basis of any musical training. It is, moreover, no longer a question of devoting only a few pages to the study of the ancient modes for those students who have a penchant for "archaicism" or "mysticism", [sic] On the contrary, it is time to give them first rank in the studies of counterpoint and harmony, which would then become complete treatises of modal polyphony.
Obviously we must add another condition, also very essential: talent, or even genius. God has not, however, ever refused this "gift" in the course of the long history of sacred music. Our epoque [sic] does not lack in fine talents, artists avid in serving and enriching divine worship. May they in this pathway discover, for the glory of God and our joy, ancient and new splendors.
Perhaps it is not amiss to state that these few reflections contain no hidden implications. They are intended simply as considerations in itself and for itself of a problem which is commanding more and more attention from all those who have at heart the dignity and perfection of the divine service.
---
Source: Dom Antoine Bonnet, "Organ Music and Gregorian Chant," The Gregorian Review 3, no. 2 (March-April 1956): 3–9.
Dom Antoine Bonnet, The Motu Proprio and Organ Music (1954)
The French Revue of the Association des Amis de l'Orgue has recently published a very instructive inquiry on the liturgical role of the organist (cf. L'Orgue, quarterly review, No. 61 and following). One of our better organists, having been questioned by M. Pierre Denis on the conception he held regarding the organ in the Church, answered with his usual frankness and did not hesitate to take, when faced with the problem of the church organ and its relationship with the Liturgy, a very firm position. (cf. L'Orgue, No. 58-59, p. 5-7) "The organ," says he, "will always have a tendency to encumber the liturgy, and when a high mass is sung, it should do nothing more than extend the plainchant with improvisations." Or again, "Let us not forget that the mass is before all else a participation of the congregation in prayer. The organ can do nothing more than distract them to a certain extent in making its own voice heard." (This in regard to eleven o'clock masses).
That an organist as well armed, technically speaking, as Gaston Litaize should speak with this clearness is very significant to start with. What is not less revealing, however, is the number of reactions which this declaration of principles has provoked. Let us admit that certain practical solutions proposed by the organist of St. Francois Xavier church can be open to discussion, such as that, for example, of the concert placed on Sunday between two masses "when the organist could dispense his virtuosity at leisure . . . " Finally, "to clearly forbid the principle itself of eleven o'clock [32] masses" is to affirm a truth which is basically incontestable, but at the same time to disrupt without discretion established habits and provoke inevitable backwaters. Thus it is that in the various answers given to date to the questions raised by the Bulletin des Amis de l'Orgue there is a sort of astonishment manifested, and sometimes even emotion. In any case, no other organist has dared to compromise himself on this point and renounce with such cheerfulness the romantic conceptions of the organ in church. Under diverse forms and proposing accommodations more or less varied in nature, all of them expect to keep the positions gained and to defend the rights of the king of instruments which are supposedly threatened. There is a touching attachment here, to a great extent explicable, considering how full of temptations and dangers the role demanded of the church organist is.
Just think, in fact, of the more or less conscious reactions which take hold of the organist when he seats himself at the console of his organ. From the height of the organ-loft he dominates the assembly of the faithful, and he knows that not only will he be heard by this multitude, but that he alone will have the duty of discoursing with it. Now for that he has in his power an instrument unique in its type which is in itself a universe of sound, endowed with numerous voices, various levels, and countless combinations, running from the most tenuous softness to sovereign power. Why should we be surprised if sometimes the organist loses his sense of the proper limits and is tempted to obey the demon inside him which whispers, "If you bow before me, all this is yours"? We cannot, however, escape the trend of events. It is a fact that in the course of history the organ has owed its development to the decadence of the Liturgy and the steady loss of its primitive traditions. For good logic on authentic restoration of the liturgical Regulations entails a more and more effective participation of all the faithful present in the acts of the Cult, and by way of consequence, a re-casting of the role the organ is called on to fill in the course of the ceremonies.
Is all this really so new, though? To appease our uneasiness and dissipate our doubts, is it not sufficient to read [33] over with attention the Motu Proprio of Blessed Pope Pius X? This document has existed for fifty years, and yet, far from having aged, it appears more up-to-date and fitting than ever in its decisions. The principles which the Holy Father formulates in it are precepts in edict "the fullness of Apostolic Power" and which as such have the force of law. Moreover, however, based on the reality of affairs itself and a profound experience in the exigencies of the Divine Cult, they answer our questions fully and show us with directness the road to follow.
The organ, it can be objected, occupies very little space in this "Code of Law of Sacred Music." This is true, but from this laconicism itself there arises for us an eloquent teaching on the exact place which the Church feels it should give the organ in the course of the Offices. In the Motu Proprio, in fact, the hierarchy among the diverse types of Sacred Music is admirably outlined: 1. Primacy and excellence of Gregorian Chant which is the chant proper to the Roman Church, and in which, as in a supreme model, are found the essential qualities of Sacred Music. — 2. Praise is given to Classic Polyphony and to more recent vocal works, provided that, through their qualities, they are brought closer in style to Gregorian Chant. — 3. Finally, but only in the sixth chapter, the organ is mentioned while emphasizing that the proper music of the Church being purely vocal, it is only in the manner of a permission that music with organ accompaniment can be performed, without, however, covering up the singing, preceding it with preludes or interrupting it with disproportionate interludes.
No doubt these are rather severe conditions, but are they not, when we really think about them, sound wisdom and judgment? The organist who accepts them with an open heart cannot but recognize their sound basis and accept, without sterile regrets, the place which is assigned to him in the whole scheme according to just proportions. And let it be said in passing, how can we explain after such clear directives the habits which are still spread throughout too many parishes, as, for example, the custom of putting in a piece of [34] bravura at the offertory which has no relationship at all with the act which is being accomplished at the altar, and which, under the pretext of "enhancing the ceremony" often obliges the celebrant to wait; or what is more, that of introducing during the Magnificat verses of a quality and brilliance which could still excite the spirit of a Huysmans? (Look over the description of Vespers at St. Sulpice in En Route.)
While the Motu Proprio gives us first of all a lesson in modesty, it does not mean, for all that, to paralyse [sic] the organist in the practice of his art, but, rather, encourage himself to surpass himself, to give up his personal views and renounce facile effects in order to make his playing conform to all the qualities which true sacred music should possess, and find in the difficulties of the service he is asked to give the principle of continually new progress. Erik Satie, speaking one day of "the spirit of music," asserted that "the practice of an art leads us to live in the most absolute renouncement." (P. D. Templier, Erik Satie, 1932, p. 61). Every "servant of music" has this experience, and it is certain that the "abnegation, the sacrifice of oneself, courage and patience" are indispensable virtues to the organist who is conscious of the role which the Church has confided to him in the course of the liturgical Offices. The goal to be attained is so noble that it justifies such requirements, and the organist can believe himself to be lessened in the importance if at the cost of this loyally observed discipline he lifts himself little by little up to that sanctity, that goodness of forms and that universality which, uniting him to the qualities of the liturgy itself, will leave their imprint on his art and render him capable of realizing in his way the very purpose of the whole Cult, the glory of God alone and the spiritual profit of the faithful.
One of the most disputed points of the inquiry to which we alluded at the beginning was that of improvisation. For a Gaston Litaize or an Andre Fleury the question does not seem to raise any difficulties: "Nothing can equal," declared the latter, "a plainchant mass in which the faithful perform the Gregorian melodies, the organ paraphrasing these latter [35] in a sort of direct resonance." (cf. L'Orgue, October-December 1948). This is the point of view of the organists who possess all the elements necessary to make a complete musician, but such a convergence remains exceptional, and even for the most gifted, this spontaneous musical commentary on all the pieces of an Office is a formidable test because of its frequence and its continuity. This is not to mention the immense distances which separate our musical sense from the esthetic proper to the remote composers of the Gregorian melodies. It is not without a long apprenticeship and ceaselessly renewed efforts that a musician of the twentieth century will be able to make his improvisations conform "to the rhythm and the internal structure" of Gregorian melody.
Very few organists are thus capable of improvising in a worthy manner during the liturgical offices. For all the others, the Motu Proprio furnishes the elements of a solution, if not perfect, at least satisfactory. In chapter II, in fact, the exposition of the types of Sacred Music leads us to think that there also exists for the organ a vast repertoire of "classic polyphony" which possesses, keeping all the proportions, the qualities which the Pope recognized in vocal polyphony. No doubt most of these pieces cannot be played at the moments in the Office for which they were written: Verses for the Kyrie eleison, for the Gloria in excelsis, for the Hymns and the Magnificat, etc., but the perfection, the seriousness and the gravity of their style makes them worthy to be inserted in the structure of the liturgical offices.
All of which presupposes long research and a choice which is not without difficulties. There again we find light and guidance in a capital phrase of the Motu Proprio: "A composition destined for the Church is that much more sacred and (to the extent) liturgical as by its movement, inspiration and savor, it more closely approaches Gregorian melodies; and, on the contrary, it is that much less worthy of the Temple to the extent that it diverges from this supreme model." This rule has often been remembered, but has often received a litteral [sic] and sterile interpretation. It is not sufficient that a piece be written on a plainchant theme or in one [36] of the "tones" of Gregorian chant for it to automatically take on a religious and liturgical value. It is with special design that the terms of our text have been chosen to make us understand that a servile imitation of Gregorian melody could not possibly be recommended, and that it could only be a question of coming to a more or less happy approximation of the supreme model through an ensemble of delicate and subtle qualities which alone permit us to decide the degree of relationship and correspondence between the piece being studied and liturgical chant.
The Motu Proprio gives us yet one further piece of advice on which we should insist, so well does it seem to us to answer the difficulties which press on us. In chapter VI, in fact, the Pope states clearly that not only must the organ playing contain all the qualities of true Sacred Music, but that it must be proportioned according to the proper nature of the instrument.
For twenty-five years, at least, an admirable effort has been brought to the manufacture to effect a more and more faithful restoration of the organ according to the glorious tradition which has little by little endowed this great instrument with an ensemble of qualities which confer on it a very special right to take a place in the House of God and to discourse with the choir of voices. Brought to the height of its development and enriched with recent technical perfections (adjustable combinations, etc.) such an instrument offers the organist innumerable possibilities, and this, then, is why it is more than ever opportune to call to his attention that they could in no way be exploited without a profound knowledge of the "proper nature" of the instrument and the elements of which it is composed, without an exact discernment of their extent and limit. The organ does not sound like an orchestra. The relative slowness of the opening of its pipes forbids it too rapid a movement, and certain harmonic audacities which easily get by when they are given to different instruments become unbearable on the organ when all the notes speak with the same force and are enriched by the sparkling brightness of the mixtures.
[37] We must, however, come to the end of these few reflections. They come far from exhausting the admirable concentration of the Pontifical Document. Let us hope at least that they have let us sense its permanent timeliness. What the Church expects of the organist is as though summarized in the celebrated and so often quoted proposition: I desire that my people should pray on Beauty. Servant of Music, and in that way so much more necessary for himself that his work should contribute to the beauty and dignity of the divine office, the organist should at the same time be a man of prayer,—for in order to lead others to prayer, one must first pray oneself—. Let him know how to give his art and his prayer to the texts and chants which fill the liturgical Offices, and he will discover the true means of touching souls and aiding them to raise their prayers to God, Principle and End of all Harmony and of all Perfection.
---
Source: Dom Antoine Bonnet, "The Motu Proprio and Organ Music," The Gregorian Review 1, no. 3 (May-June 1954): 31–37.
That an organist as well armed, technically speaking, as Gaston Litaize should speak with this clearness is very significant to start with. What is not less revealing, however, is the number of reactions which this declaration of principles has provoked. Let us admit that certain practical solutions proposed by the organist of St. Francois Xavier church can be open to discussion, such as that, for example, of the concert placed on Sunday between two masses "when the organist could dispense his virtuosity at leisure . . . " Finally, "to clearly forbid the principle itself of eleven o'clock [32] masses" is to affirm a truth which is basically incontestable, but at the same time to disrupt without discretion established habits and provoke inevitable backwaters. Thus it is that in the various answers given to date to the questions raised by the Bulletin des Amis de l'Orgue there is a sort of astonishment manifested, and sometimes even emotion. In any case, no other organist has dared to compromise himself on this point and renounce with such cheerfulness the romantic conceptions of the organ in church. Under diverse forms and proposing accommodations more or less varied in nature, all of them expect to keep the positions gained and to defend the rights of the king of instruments which are supposedly threatened. There is a touching attachment here, to a great extent explicable, considering how full of temptations and dangers the role demanded of the church organist is.
Just think, in fact, of the more or less conscious reactions which take hold of the organist when he seats himself at the console of his organ. From the height of the organ-loft he dominates the assembly of the faithful, and he knows that not only will he be heard by this multitude, but that he alone will have the duty of discoursing with it. Now for that he has in his power an instrument unique in its type which is in itself a universe of sound, endowed with numerous voices, various levels, and countless combinations, running from the most tenuous softness to sovereign power. Why should we be surprised if sometimes the organist loses his sense of the proper limits and is tempted to obey the demon inside him which whispers, "If you bow before me, all this is yours"? We cannot, however, escape the trend of events. It is a fact that in the course of history the organ has owed its development to the decadence of the Liturgy and the steady loss of its primitive traditions. For good logic on authentic restoration of the liturgical Regulations entails a more and more effective participation of all the faithful present in the acts of the Cult, and by way of consequence, a re-casting of the role the organ is called on to fill in the course of the ceremonies.
Is all this really so new, though? To appease our uneasiness and dissipate our doubts, is it not sufficient to read [33] over with attention the Motu Proprio of Blessed Pope Pius X? This document has existed for fifty years, and yet, far from having aged, it appears more up-to-date and fitting than ever in its decisions. The principles which the Holy Father formulates in it are precepts in edict "the fullness of Apostolic Power" and which as such have the force of law. Moreover, however, based on the reality of affairs itself and a profound experience in the exigencies of the Divine Cult, they answer our questions fully and show us with directness the road to follow.
The organ, it can be objected, occupies very little space in this "Code of Law of Sacred Music." This is true, but from this laconicism itself there arises for us an eloquent teaching on the exact place which the Church feels it should give the organ in the course of the Offices. In the Motu Proprio, in fact, the hierarchy among the diverse types of Sacred Music is admirably outlined: 1. Primacy and excellence of Gregorian Chant which is the chant proper to the Roman Church, and in which, as in a supreme model, are found the essential qualities of Sacred Music. — 2. Praise is given to Classic Polyphony and to more recent vocal works, provided that, through their qualities, they are brought closer in style to Gregorian Chant. — 3. Finally, but only in the sixth chapter, the organ is mentioned while emphasizing that the proper music of the Church being purely vocal, it is only in the manner of a permission that music with organ accompaniment can be performed, without, however, covering up the singing, preceding it with preludes or interrupting it with disproportionate interludes.
No doubt these are rather severe conditions, but are they not, when we really think about them, sound wisdom and judgment? The organist who accepts them with an open heart cannot but recognize their sound basis and accept, without sterile regrets, the place which is assigned to him in the whole scheme according to just proportions. And let it be said in passing, how can we explain after such clear directives the habits which are still spread throughout too many parishes, as, for example, the custom of putting in a piece of [34] bravura at the offertory which has no relationship at all with the act which is being accomplished at the altar, and which, under the pretext of "enhancing the ceremony" often obliges the celebrant to wait; or what is more, that of introducing during the Magnificat verses of a quality and brilliance which could still excite the spirit of a Huysmans? (Look over the description of Vespers at St. Sulpice in En Route.)
While the Motu Proprio gives us first of all a lesson in modesty, it does not mean, for all that, to paralyse [sic] the organist in the practice of his art, but, rather, encourage himself to surpass himself, to give up his personal views and renounce facile effects in order to make his playing conform to all the qualities which true sacred music should possess, and find in the difficulties of the service he is asked to give the principle of continually new progress. Erik Satie, speaking one day of "the spirit of music," asserted that "the practice of an art leads us to live in the most absolute renouncement." (P. D. Templier, Erik Satie, 1932, p. 61). Every "servant of music" has this experience, and it is certain that the "abnegation, the sacrifice of oneself, courage and patience" are indispensable virtues to the organist who is conscious of the role which the Church has confided to him in the course of the liturgical Offices. The goal to be attained is so noble that it justifies such requirements, and the organist can believe himself to be lessened in the importance if at the cost of this loyally observed discipline he lifts himself little by little up to that sanctity, that goodness of forms and that universality which, uniting him to the qualities of the liturgy itself, will leave their imprint on his art and render him capable of realizing in his way the very purpose of the whole Cult, the glory of God alone and the spiritual profit of the faithful.
One of the most disputed points of the inquiry to which we alluded at the beginning was that of improvisation. For a Gaston Litaize or an Andre Fleury the question does not seem to raise any difficulties: "Nothing can equal," declared the latter, "a plainchant mass in which the faithful perform the Gregorian melodies, the organ paraphrasing these latter [35] in a sort of direct resonance." (cf. L'Orgue, October-December 1948). This is the point of view of the organists who possess all the elements necessary to make a complete musician, but such a convergence remains exceptional, and even for the most gifted, this spontaneous musical commentary on all the pieces of an Office is a formidable test because of its frequence and its continuity. This is not to mention the immense distances which separate our musical sense from the esthetic proper to the remote composers of the Gregorian melodies. It is not without a long apprenticeship and ceaselessly renewed efforts that a musician of the twentieth century will be able to make his improvisations conform "to the rhythm and the internal structure" of Gregorian melody.
Very few organists are thus capable of improvising in a worthy manner during the liturgical offices. For all the others, the Motu Proprio furnishes the elements of a solution, if not perfect, at least satisfactory. In chapter II, in fact, the exposition of the types of Sacred Music leads us to think that there also exists for the organ a vast repertoire of "classic polyphony" which possesses, keeping all the proportions, the qualities which the Pope recognized in vocal polyphony. No doubt most of these pieces cannot be played at the moments in the Office for which they were written: Verses for the Kyrie eleison, for the Gloria in excelsis, for the Hymns and the Magnificat, etc., but the perfection, the seriousness and the gravity of their style makes them worthy to be inserted in the structure of the liturgical offices.
All of which presupposes long research and a choice which is not without difficulties. There again we find light and guidance in a capital phrase of the Motu Proprio: "A composition destined for the Church is that much more sacred and (to the extent) liturgical as by its movement, inspiration and savor, it more closely approaches Gregorian melodies; and, on the contrary, it is that much less worthy of the Temple to the extent that it diverges from this supreme model." This rule has often been remembered, but has often received a litteral [sic] and sterile interpretation. It is not sufficient that a piece be written on a plainchant theme or in one [36] of the "tones" of Gregorian chant for it to automatically take on a religious and liturgical value. It is with special design that the terms of our text have been chosen to make us understand that a servile imitation of Gregorian melody could not possibly be recommended, and that it could only be a question of coming to a more or less happy approximation of the supreme model through an ensemble of delicate and subtle qualities which alone permit us to decide the degree of relationship and correspondence between the piece being studied and liturgical chant.
The Motu Proprio gives us yet one further piece of advice on which we should insist, so well does it seem to us to answer the difficulties which press on us. In chapter VI, in fact, the Pope states clearly that not only must the organ playing contain all the qualities of true Sacred Music, but that it must be proportioned according to the proper nature of the instrument.
For twenty-five years, at least, an admirable effort has been brought to the manufacture to effect a more and more faithful restoration of the organ according to the glorious tradition which has little by little endowed this great instrument with an ensemble of qualities which confer on it a very special right to take a place in the House of God and to discourse with the choir of voices. Brought to the height of its development and enriched with recent technical perfections (adjustable combinations, etc.) such an instrument offers the organist innumerable possibilities, and this, then, is why it is more than ever opportune to call to his attention that they could in no way be exploited without a profound knowledge of the "proper nature" of the instrument and the elements of which it is composed, without an exact discernment of their extent and limit. The organ does not sound like an orchestra. The relative slowness of the opening of its pipes forbids it too rapid a movement, and certain harmonic audacities which easily get by when they are given to different instruments become unbearable on the organ when all the notes speak with the same force and are enriched by the sparkling brightness of the mixtures.
[37] We must, however, come to the end of these few reflections. They come far from exhausting the admirable concentration of the Pontifical Document. Let us hope at least that they have let us sense its permanent timeliness. What the Church expects of the organist is as though summarized in the celebrated and so often quoted proposition: I desire that my people should pray on Beauty. Servant of Music, and in that way so much more necessary for himself that his work should contribute to the beauty and dignity of the divine office, the organist should at the same time be a man of prayer,—for in order to lead others to prayer, one must first pray oneself—. Let him know how to give his art and his prayer to the texts and chants which fill the liturgical Offices, and he will discover the true means of touching souls and aiding them to raise their prayers to God, Principle and End of all Harmony and of all Perfection.
---
Source: Dom Antoine Bonnet, "The Motu Proprio and Organ Music," The Gregorian Review 1, no. 3 (May-June 1954): 31–37.
Henri Potiron, The Motu Proprio and Sacred Polyphony (1954)
[38] The Motu Proprio of Pius X points out very opportunely that the only official music of the Church is Gregorian chant. It admits, however, on a secondary level, vocal polyphony, on condition that it be inspired of the same aesthetic, and it gives minute details in this regard which we shall take up later.
It proposes to us at the same time as example and model the polyphony of the Renaissance, precisely because by its style and its interpretations of the sacred texts it is very similar to Gregorian chant. This is not to state that in this immense repertoire everything is of the same perfection, even from the liturgical viewpoint. Enough masterpieces remain, however, to make the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries one of the greatest epochs as well as one of the most fecond [sic] in all musical history.
The decadence (liturgical) begins with the seventeenth century. The causes are multiple; [sic] the Gregorian traditions become more and more a lost art; the birth of dramatic art, the development of the orchestra and of symphonic forms, the spiritual concerts, the oratorio, psalms transformed into cantatas — everything contributes to a confusion of styles. I mean to say, considering the masses above all, that the music incorporated into the liturgical function overflows the framework of it, by its character, its dimensions, and often even by a certain fracas incompatible with the serenity, the peace of the official prayer of the Church.
That is so true that the style remains quite pure in the a capella compositions. In the others, the passages where the voices sing alone or with simple accompaniment still retain the nobility which is called for. Too often, however, the solos or the orchestra betray the outside influence. The music enters into the Temple; it was not born there.
[39] Always it is that this evolution brings about the mass of the spiritual concert type or cantata divided into numbers. Beyond any doubt the Mass in B minor of Bach is one of the summits of all music. It is of dazzling craftsmanship, an incomparable richness of inspiration, an ardent piety, tender and mystic, a nobility, a grandeur which no other master has surpassed; all these qualities never cease to move us at each hearing, and even in simply reading it. The proportions of the work are, however, incompatible with the celebration of the Mass itself. The division of each part into separate pieces is equally anti-liturgical. We must say the same for the Mass in D of Beethoven, another monument, where the more human sentiment is not always such as is suitable for true church music, in spite of the purity of the intentions which animate it. Besides, the orchestra plays too important a role in this instance. Although shorter, the Mass in C is not easily reconciled with the exigencies of the liturgy. As for the masses of Mozart, however admirable they may be and pious in manner, they, too, give too much importance to the orchestra and do not have the form which the texts impose on them. With lesser genius, the masses of circumstance or of contrivance of Lesueur and of Cherubini call for the same reservations . . . and some others. The Messe de Gran or the Messe hongroise du couronnement of Liszt, in spite of their strictly musical value, are in no sense church music, either.
The case of the Messe de Sainte Cecile of Gounod (1855) is much more serious. This time it is no longer a work of circumstance or concert type (at least in the thoughts of the composer). It is a work of repertoire, to the point that its success still persists. I have no need to reiterate on the genius of Gounod nor on the quality of his very sincere faith. His mass, however, is the representative type of the mass written for the Church while being at the same time anti-liturgical. The importance of the solos, the repeat of Gloria and Credo after the Celebrant, the inverted texts or added texts (the Domine non sum dignus is sung with two repeats in the course of the Agnus Dei), its general form, the somewhat sensual character of the melodic lines so particular to [40] the author, etc.—all this ought to ban this mass from our repertoires. I understand perfectly that it is religious . . . in Gounod's manner, but not in the manner of the Church. Saint-Saens says somewhere that it appeared to the musicians of the time like a brilliant stroke of lightning in the musical heavens, and this sort of admiring stupor was directed as much to the piety as to the music of the work. This opinion permits us to guess what church music must have been in 1855, in France at least.
Gounod seems to have recognized his error. He was, so to speak, converted. The evolution, already apparent in the Messe de Jeanne d'Art, was achieved in the Messe Chorale, composed for the beatification of St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle and having for theme the intonation of Credo I. Gloria and Credo begin at the right place; the interpolations and word-shifts have disappeared; the style is more severe and often adopts the fugal form, which Gounod manages with elegance and clarity. There are, however, some lengthenings and excessive repetitions and even some platitudes in the passages of vertical writing. Shorter and yet more severe, but perhaps more dry, is the Messe de Saint Jean l'Evangeliste, published after his death (1893), which for the rest is equally very well written for the voices (the organ interludes seem useless to me; the beginning of the Gloria (Et in terra) could be sung by a single group of voices without interruption instead of being repeated in sections).
In spite of everything, this redressing is significant. A movement toward more liturgical forms was launched. I shall say nothing of the Mass for Three Voices [Messe a trois voix, in which we find Franck's famous Panis Angelicus] of Franck (1860) in which the form of the Kyrie is certainly not liturgical (two expositions for the first period, or rather ten or so Kyries strung together), in which the Gloria is indefensible by admission of Vincent d'Indy himself, and even the Sanctus with its chopping syllables at in excelsis. This was no doubt a utilitarian work written for the school of Sainte-Clotilde, but so far from the Symphony in D minor or the Beatitudes! Utilitarian, also, no doubt, are the masses of Th. [Théodore] Dubois, written with care and often quite well, but which [41] are not over-loaded with music, and in which the liturgy is not always well-respected, either.
Would the liturgical renewal have come then with the movement called "Cecilian," born in Germany about 1868? The aim was to form a modern repertoire in the ancient spirit for the use of the choral societies and adapted to all cases. An excellent commercial operation for the Ratisbon publishers, but the result was musically very mediocre. There was no dramaticism in these measures, no theatrical effect, certainly, but a dullness persisted and, except for some very rare exceptions (to the very extent that the composers rise above this beaten track), an absence of real music . . . formulas exist, nothing more. Perhaps at the epoch of Canon Witt it was excusable to supplant somewhat Gregorian chant as it was presented by the mutilated canonical editions of Pustet, and inasmuch as it was sung woodenly and without rhythm. Since the restoration of the liturgical melodies, however, the choice of this repertoire testifies to a serious indifference in regard to the official chant of the Church. If a polyphonic Kyrie must come after the Gregorian introit, the least that can be demanded of it is that it be of a quality, if not equal to that of the introit (which seems rather difficult to me), at least appreciable in the new elements it presents. In the wake of the Cecilian movement the mania for harmonization was extended to the Proper itself—the introits, the graduals . . . have been "faux-bourdonned" and collections published to this effect. Has this practice disappeared? . . . The Cecilian school wished to renew a tradition; its intentions were perhaps excellent, but it was a case of union in mediocrity. In return, at the same period, the masses of Anton Bruckner, in particular the third in E minor composed in 1869, for eight voices and woodwinds, are of an admirable composition and of a very fine religious sentiment (and even liturgical).
Interesting in quite another way were the efforts of Charles Bordes, who, at the helm of his Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais, traversed France toward the end of the last century, revealing to more than one musician the magnificent masterpieces of the Renaissance. These performances, and those [42] he gave at Paris itself had a considerable influence on the public taste. I note, too, that at each concert he directed the singing of a Gregorian piece. At a time when the Vatican edition had not yet appeared, and when we still had the editions of Rheims, Rennes or Paris . . . , interpreted God knows how, Bordes made his choice from the books of Solesmes and adopted the method of Dom Pothier. This was an excellent lesson.
To return to the compositions in the more usual sense, we must call attention to the Mass of Widor (Op. 36), anterior, I believe, to the Messe chorale of Gounod. It is, perhaps, the mass as understood from the full organ, but it is church music. It does arise from outside influences. If in the Sanctus Widor has taken some liberties with the text (easy to correct for all that) he at least does not double the intonation of the Gloria. There lies the touchstone. Certain passages attain a veritable grandeur. Much posterior (1900), the Mass of Vierne undoubtedly gives too great an importance to the full organ, but it is not a concert mass, and although certain spots seem a bit labored, (in the Benedictus mostly) the ensemble is submissive enough to liturgical exigencies. Good Theodore Dubois was converted, too. His Messe de Saint Remi (1900) respects the liturgical form; Gloria and Cerdo do not double the intonations of the celebrant. Doubtless the solo parts (of little importance, incidentally) gain by being sung by a group of voices, but in the lack of nobility, the general tone is very suitable.
In sum, since the Messe de Sainte Cecile or the Messe a trois voix of Franck, something has changed. The evolution is far from being concluded, but it has begun. It is traceable at the beginning of the 20th century.
Now it was just at that moment that the Motu Proprio appeared. It was not to determine, therefore, a sudden change in habits (so much the more as the old defections were not to completely disappear). On the other hand, the diffusion of the Solesmes editions,—and the method—, had already returned to honor the healthy Gregorian traditions. The 22nd of November, 1903, however, we have a law. Such is the profound meaning of the pontifical document.
[43] The declaration was heard, if not understood. Publishers of religious music printed in their catalogs: "Works in conformity with the Motu Proprio." Dubois wrote a Messe en si mineur for three voices, "conforming with the Motu Proprio.[1] This effort honors the man, who was always of a perfect probity. But other composers of the profession of indisputable talent seem to be ignorant of what true liturgical music should be. The Mass of Poulenc, a capella, in G major (?) is neither liturgical in form nor tone. The Gloria is repeated, there are syllables chopped into "pizzicato," sudden shadings without relationship to the text, etc., etc. It is true that there is no danger of its encumbering our repertoires, because of its extreme difficulty of performance (a great number of performers is necessary; the intonations are very ticklish; the keeping of the whole thing in ensemble makes conducting it perilous). More recently (1950), that of Bozza (Mass of His Holiness Pius XII, written in hommage [sic] to the Holy Year is the exact title), perhaps less difficult to execute, calls for the same reservations: repeats of the Gloria and Credo, superposition of the words (Kyrie and Christe), sometimes without any sense in Latin syntax, inversion of the texts, nearly four Agnus, followed by seven Amens not called for by the text! etc. Were it not for the reprise of the Gloria by the choir, the Messe des Petits a Saint-Eustache-la-Foret of Andre Caplet (the error is due simply to ignorance of the law) would pass as a model of truly religious expression. Caplet, enthusiastic for Gregorian Chant and a true musician, who died prematurely in 1925, might perhaps have given us, once informed in liturgical requirements, a perfect type of polyphonic church music. [Henri] Busser is in more than one way, a church musician. He knows the texts too well to commit the same mistakes as Bozza. Even he, however, has sometimes given in to certain habits (reprise of the Gloria in his Messe de Noel); the sound of bells "in the fields" toward the end of the Sanctus of the Mass of St. Stephen, however discreet it may be, is, do we not agree, an element forbidden by the Motu Proprio? The [44] Messe de Domremy (1949), however, presents a Kyrie of irreproachable cut. There are exactly nine invocations, three Kyrie's, three Christe's and three Kyrie's, and the Gloria is not doubled by the choir. This mass, conceived for singing out-of-doors with the accompaniment of four trumpets, is for this reason of a very individual character, but however, though somewhat brilliant, it is religious.[2]
Other composers or choirmasters, less famous, write masses for repertoire which are easier and better adapted to the average choir, for in sum, the field is left almost free to them by the great musicians. There are first of all the amateurs, in the extreme sense of the word, who know how neither to write nor to compose and have no imagination. Let's not talk about them. There are also the modern "Cecilians," writing correctly (nothing more), composing not as well, but contenting themselves with hackneyed formulas. They will tell you that the music of the Church should be impersonal. What an error! All true music is personal. Josquin is not Palestrina, and Palestrina is not Vittoria. Each has his own touch and his own expression. How was it possible to attribute to Palestrina the responses (magnificent for all that) of Ingegneri, whose style is so different from that of the Roman master? The liturgy alone has its esthetics [sic] and its framework. It is thus important that the composer interpret the texts as the Church wishes and that he not go beyond the limits of the framework. Once disciplined, however, the imagination of the musician lives its own life and is not annihilated by the role which is assigned to it. (Even a theatrical scene rests on a text and a situation. The polyphonic Mass also rests on a text, and the situation is that of the liturgical function.)
Certain choirmasters like following the ruts, that is to say, the ready-made ideas, contenting themselves with a sort of rejuvenation (if we may say so) of Cecilian music when they choose their repertoires. It doesn't disturb their habits. [45] It permits them even to add shadings of all sorts—which passes for interpretation—precisely because it is spineless and in a way invites collaboration. On the contrary, truly original music (I am not saying bizarre) is over their heads and disturbs them. They will perhaps recognized [sic] its composition, but they will refuse it any intimate expression.
There remain then, the compositions which, for sundry reasons (above all musical or primarily liturgical), are really music. Certainly there are some in France, but discretion of the most elementary type forbids me to give names and titles. There are also some in other lands: Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, etc. The desire to respect the Motu Proprio is manifest. The evolution which began toward the end of the nineteenth century and even earlier has thus expanded, encouraged and stimulated by the pontifical document.
All these efforts are, however, dispersed. We do not have a real tradition in the more noble sense of the term, or a school, as had the Renaissance and as the Cecilian movement tried to create. It cannot be a question of picking up the thread which has been cut since the seventeenth century and imitating the sixteenth. Although we may be inspired by the same general esthetics, [sic] we can no longer speak the same language. If, then, we group ourselves under the banner of the Motu Proprio, we define the type in a precise manner and we are laying the foundations for a tradition and a school.
No doubt we want our music to be pious and of catholic character, that is to say, universal. We take nothing away from the sacred texts and we add nothing to them. We respect the order of the words. We give the voice its essential role, and we do not practice excessive repetitions. But have we thought this over well: "Each part of the Mass and the Office should preserve, even from the musical point of view, the aspect and the form which ecclesiastical tradition has given them and which are found to be best expressed in Gregorian chant"?
[46] Thus, a Kyrie has nine invocations, grouped, if desired, three by three, that is, three Kyries, three Christes, three Kyries, from which we get a ternary form, with three separate invocations in each period, or three little expositions. This general plan lends itself to a magnitude of writing combinations (much as the fugue or allegro with two themes).
Gloria: sixteen invocations which the Vatican edition punctuates with sixteen periods. It is impossible to develop them separately, as this would open the affair up to intolerable length and even to the total absence of unity. In a binary framework, or ternary or four-divisioned one, they can easily be put into groups (according to the meaning and certain obvious parallelisms) as periods, in which intelligent punctuation distinguishes one from another. As for the general unity, it can only be made to jell through inspiration (and some technical processes, obviously), but the spirit moves where it will!
In the same way, three Sanctus exactly (or three little expositions), followed by Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Then two other periods: Pleni sunt and Hosanna. The Benedictus, of which the text is very short, will stand some discreet repetitions. As for the Agnus, the three periods are imposed of themselves.
These details have not always been observed in some excellent masses, and not always during the Renaissance, either. Now that we have a law, however, can we not see the advantage which composition itself should gain, not to mention the general unity of composers?
I have only discussed masses. What is more, I have only given some examples, those which were necessary for tracing this historical sketch, without exhausting the list, naturally. In regard to extra-liturgical motets, they should be well inspired by the same principles. The Tantum Ergo is, however, the liturgical part of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. this should be two verses of a hymn as the Motu Proprio states, and not an adagio or a cavatina, followed by an allegro! Certain Genitoris resemble the final chorus of [47] an oratorio or cantata. This disparity is inadmissable [sic].
In sum, the musical form should always adapt itself to the form of the text. From this fundamental and fecond [sic] rule is born the definition of church polyphony. It should groups us, too, in obedience to pontifical authority. As for the rest, modal or tonal style, thematic unity or variety, subjects borrowed from the Gregorian repertoire or drawn from the imagination, contrapuntal style or a harmonic one, etc., etc., I admit to having my personal preferences, but it is the form, the construction, that is to say, the composition in the etymological sense, which is the most important element, perhaps, too, the most difficult to handle.
If the reader has judged by severity regarding certain works to be excessive, I have not figured to cast doubts on their musical value, sometimes very great, nor above all exclude them from our repertoires because of certain of their errors. I have wished only to confront them with the Motu Proprio (posterior to certain ones of them) in order to better clarify our present duty concerning this document which henceforth has the force of law, and, moreover, to facilitate our task and thus clarify the future.
---
Footnotes:
1. It is true that later on, immediately after the war of 1914, he was to return to his first love with the Messe de la Delivrance! A mass of circumstance and even contrivance.
2. In another domain, the Quinque cantus ad benedictionem Sanctissimi Sacramenti of Florent Schmitt (1953) are not only of remarkable musicality, but also of a profoundly religious character. Unfortunately, they are not within the grasp of all choirs.
---
Source: Henri Potiron, "The Motu Proprio and Sacred Polyphony," The Gregorian Review 1, no. 2 (March-April 1954): 38–47.
It proposes to us at the same time as example and model the polyphony of the Renaissance, precisely because by its style and its interpretations of the sacred texts it is very similar to Gregorian chant. This is not to state that in this immense repertoire everything is of the same perfection, even from the liturgical viewpoint. Enough masterpieces remain, however, to make the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries one of the greatest epochs as well as one of the most fecond [sic] in all musical history.
The decadence (liturgical) begins with the seventeenth century. The causes are multiple; [sic] the Gregorian traditions become more and more a lost art; the birth of dramatic art, the development of the orchestra and of symphonic forms, the spiritual concerts, the oratorio, psalms transformed into cantatas — everything contributes to a confusion of styles. I mean to say, considering the masses above all, that the music incorporated into the liturgical function overflows the framework of it, by its character, its dimensions, and often even by a certain fracas incompatible with the serenity, the peace of the official prayer of the Church.
That is so true that the style remains quite pure in the a capella compositions. In the others, the passages where the voices sing alone or with simple accompaniment still retain the nobility which is called for. Too often, however, the solos or the orchestra betray the outside influence. The music enters into the Temple; it was not born there.
[39] Always it is that this evolution brings about the mass of the spiritual concert type or cantata divided into numbers. Beyond any doubt the Mass in B minor of Bach is one of the summits of all music. It is of dazzling craftsmanship, an incomparable richness of inspiration, an ardent piety, tender and mystic, a nobility, a grandeur which no other master has surpassed; all these qualities never cease to move us at each hearing, and even in simply reading it. The proportions of the work are, however, incompatible with the celebration of the Mass itself. The division of each part into separate pieces is equally anti-liturgical. We must say the same for the Mass in D of Beethoven, another monument, where the more human sentiment is not always such as is suitable for true church music, in spite of the purity of the intentions which animate it. Besides, the orchestra plays too important a role in this instance. Although shorter, the Mass in C is not easily reconciled with the exigencies of the liturgy. As for the masses of Mozart, however admirable they may be and pious in manner, they, too, give too much importance to the orchestra and do not have the form which the texts impose on them. With lesser genius, the masses of circumstance or of contrivance of Lesueur and of Cherubini call for the same reservations . . . and some others. The Messe de Gran or the Messe hongroise du couronnement of Liszt, in spite of their strictly musical value, are in no sense church music, either.
The case of the Messe de Sainte Cecile of Gounod (1855) is much more serious. This time it is no longer a work of circumstance or concert type (at least in the thoughts of the composer). It is a work of repertoire, to the point that its success still persists. I have no need to reiterate on the genius of Gounod nor on the quality of his very sincere faith. His mass, however, is the representative type of the mass written for the Church while being at the same time anti-liturgical. The importance of the solos, the repeat of Gloria and Credo after the Celebrant, the inverted texts or added texts (the Domine non sum dignus is sung with two repeats in the course of the Agnus Dei), its general form, the somewhat sensual character of the melodic lines so particular to [40] the author, etc.—all this ought to ban this mass from our repertoires. I understand perfectly that it is religious . . . in Gounod's manner, but not in the manner of the Church. Saint-Saens says somewhere that it appeared to the musicians of the time like a brilliant stroke of lightning in the musical heavens, and this sort of admiring stupor was directed as much to the piety as to the music of the work. This opinion permits us to guess what church music must have been in 1855, in France at least.
Gounod seems to have recognized his error. He was, so to speak, converted. The evolution, already apparent in the Messe de Jeanne d'Art, was achieved in the Messe Chorale, composed for the beatification of St. Jean-Baptiste de la Salle and having for theme the intonation of Credo I. Gloria and Credo begin at the right place; the interpolations and word-shifts have disappeared; the style is more severe and often adopts the fugal form, which Gounod manages with elegance and clarity. There are, however, some lengthenings and excessive repetitions and even some platitudes in the passages of vertical writing. Shorter and yet more severe, but perhaps more dry, is the Messe de Saint Jean l'Evangeliste, published after his death (1893), which for the rest is equally very well written for the voices (the organ interludes seem useless to me; the beginning of the Gloria (Et in terra) could be sung by a single group of voices without interruption instead of being repeated in sections).
In spite of everything, this redressing is significant. A movement toward more liturgical forms was launched. I shall say nothing of the Mass for Three Voices [Messe a trois voix, in which we find Franck's famous Panis Angelicus] of Franck (1860) in which the form of the Kyrie is certainly not liturgical (two expositions for the first period, or rather ten or so Kyries strung together), in which the Gloria is indefensible by admission of Vincent d'Indy himself, and even the Sanctus with its chopping syllables at in excelsis. This was no doubt a utilitarian work written for the school of Sainte-Clotilde, but so far from the Symphony in D minor or the Beatitudes! Utilitarian, also, no doubt, are the masses of Th. [Théodore] Dubois, written with care and often quite well, but which [41] are not over-loaded with music, and in which the liturgy is not always well-respected, either.
Would the liturgical renewal have come then with the movement called "Cecilian," born in Germany about 1868? The aim was to form a modern repertoire in the ancient spirit for the use of the choral societies and adapted to all cases. An excellent commercial operation for the Ratisbon publishers, but the result was musically very mediocre. There was no dramaticism in these measures, no theatrical effect, certainly, but a dullness persisted and, except for some very rare exceptions (to the very extent that the composers rise above this beaten track), an absence of real music . . . formulas exist, nothing more. Perhaps at the epoch of Canon Witt it was excusable to supplant somewhat Gregorian chant as it was presented by the mutilated canonical editions of Pustet, and inasmuch as it was sung woodenly and without rhythm. Since the restoration of the liturgical melodies, however, the choice of this repertoire testifies to a serious indifference in regard to the official chant of the Church. If a polyphonic Kyrie must come after the Gregorian introit, the least that can be demanded of it is that it be of a quality, if not equal to that of the introit (which seems rather difficult to me), at least appreciable in the new elements it presents. In the wake of the Cecilian movement the mania for harmonization was extended to the Proper itself—the introits, the graduals . . . have been "faux-bourdonned" and collections published to this effect. Has this practice disappeared? . . . The Cecilian school wished to renew a tradition; its intentions were perhaps excellent, but it was a case of union in mediocrity. In return, at the same period, the masses of Anton Bruckner, in particular the third in E minor composed in 1869, for eight voices and woodwinds, are of an admirable composition and of a very fine religious sentiment (and even liturgical).
Interesting in quite another way were the efforts of Charles Bordes, who, at the helm of his Chanteurs de Saint-Gervais, traversed France toward the end of the last century, revealing to more than one musician the magnificent masterpieces of the Renaissance. These performances, and those [42] he gave at Paris itself had a considerable influence on the public taste. I note, too, that at each concert he directed the singing of a Gregorian piece. At a time when the Vatican edition had not yet appeared, and when we still had the editions of Rheims, Rennes or Paris . . . , interpreted God knows how, Bordes made his choice from the books of Solesmes and adopted the method of Dom Pothier. This was an excellent lesson.
To return to the compositions in the more usual sense, we must call attention to the Mass of Widor (Op. 36), anterior, I believe, to the Messe chorale of Gounod. It is, perhaps, the mass as understood from the full organ, but it is church music. It does arise from outside influences. If in the Sanctus Widor has taken some liberties with the text (easy to correct for all that) he at least does not double the intonation of the Gloria. There lies the touchstone. Certain passages attain a veritable grandeur. Much posterior (1900), the Mass of Vierne undoubtedly gives too great an importance to the full organ, but it is not a concert mass, and although certain spots seem a bit labored, (in the Benedictus mostly) the ensemble is submissive enough to liturgical exigencies. Good Theodore Dubois was converted, too. His Messe de Saint Remi (1900) respects the liturgical form; Gloria and Cerdo do not double the intonations of the celebrant. Doubtless the solo parts (of little importance, incidentally) gain by being sung by a group of voices, but in the lack of nobility, the general tone is very suitable.
In sum, since the Messe de Sainte Cecile or the Messe a trois voix of Franck, something has changed. The evolution is far from being concluded, but it has begun. It is traceable at the beginning of the 20th century.
Now it was just at that moment that the Motu Proprio appeared. It was not to determine, therefore, a sudden change in habits (so much the more as the old defections were not to completely disappear). On the other hand, the diffusion of the Solesmes editions,—and the method—, had already returned to honor the healthy Gregorian traditions. The 22nd of November, 1903, however, we have a law. Such is the profound meaning of the pontifical document.
[43] The declaration was heard, if not understood. Publishers of religious music printed in their catalogs: "Works in conformity with the Motu Proprio." Dubois wrote a Messe en si mineur for three voices, "conforming with the Motu Proprio.[1] This effort honors the man, who was always of a perfect probity. But other composers of the profession of indisputable talent seem to be ignorant of what true liturgical music should be. The Mass of Poulenc, a capella, in G major (?) is neither liturgical in form nor tone. The Gloria is repeated, there are syllables chopped into "pizzicato," sudden shadings without relationship to the text, etc., etc. It is true that there is no danger of its encumbering our repertoires, because of its extreme difficulty of performance (a great number of performers is necessary; the intonations are very ticklish; the keeping of the whole thing in ensemble makes conducting it perilous). More recently (1950), that of Bozza (Mass of His Holiness Pius XII, written in hommage [sic] to the Holy Year is the exact title), perhaps less difficult to execute, calls for the same reservations: repeats of the Gloria and Credo, superposition of the words (Kyrie and Christe), sometimes without any sense in Latin syntax, inversion of the texts, nearly four Agnus, followed by seven Amens not called for by the text! etc. Were it not for the reprise of the Gloria by the choir, the Messe des Petits a Saint-Eustache-la-Foret of Andre Caplet (the error is due simply to ignorance of the law) would pass as a model of truly religious expression. Caplet, enthusiastic for Gregorian Chant and a true musician, who died prematurely in 1925, might perhaps have given us, once informed in liturgical requirements, a perfect type of polyphonic church music. [Henri] Busser is in more than one way, a church musician. He knows the texts too well to commit the same mistakes as Bozza. Even he, however, has sometimes given in to certain habits (reprise of the Gloria in his Messe de Noel); the sound of bells "in the fields" toward the end of the Sanctus of the Mass of St. Stephen, however discreet it may be, is, do we not agree, an element forbidden by the Motu Proprio? The [44] Messe de Domremy (1949), however, presents a Kyrie of irreproachable cut. There are exactly nine invocations, three Kyrie's, three Christe's and three Kyrie's, and the Gloria is not doubled by the choir. This mass, conceived for singing out-of-doors with the accompaniment of four trumpets, is for this reason of a very individual character, but however, though somewhat brilliant, it is religious.[2]
Other composers or choirmasters, less famous, write masses for repertoire which are easier and better adapted to the average choir, for in sum, the field is left almost free to them by the great musicians. There are first of all the amateurs, in the extreme sense of the word, who know how neither to write nor to compose and have no imagination. Let's not talk about them. There are also the modern "Cecilians," writing correctly (nothing more), composing not as well, but contenting themselves with hackneyed formulas. They will tell you that the music of the Church should be impersonal. What an error! All true music is personal. Josquin is not Palestrina, and Palestrina is not Vittoria. Each has his own touch and his own expression. How was it possible to attribute to Palestrina the responses (magnificent for all that) of Ingegneri, whose style is so different from that of the Roman master? The liturgy alone has its esthetics [sic] and its framework. It is thus important that the composer interpret the texts as the Church wishes and that he not go beyond the limits of the framework. Once disciplined, however, the imagination of the musician lives its own life and is not annihilated by the role which is assigned to it. (Even a theatrical scene rests on a text and a situation. The polyphonic Mass also rests on a text, and the situation is that of the liturgical function.)
Certain choirmasters like following the ruts, that is to say, the ready-made ideas, contenting themselves with a sort of rejuvenation (if we may say so) of Cecilian music when they choose their repertoires. It doesn't disturb their habits. [45] It permits them even to add shadings of all sorts—which passes for interpretation—precisely because it is spineless and in a way invites collaboration. On the contrary, truly original music (I am not saying bizarre) is over their heads and disturbs them. They will perhaps recognized [sic] its composition, but they will refuse it any intimate expression.
There remain then, the compositions which, for sundry reasons (above all musical or primarily liturgical), are really music. Certainly there are some in France, but discretion of the most elementary type forbids me to give names and titles. There are also some in other lands: Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, etc. The desire to respect the Motu Proprio is manifest. The evolution which began toward the end of the nineteenth century and even earlier has thus expanded, encouraged and stimulated by the pontifical document.
All these efforts are, however, dispersed. We do not have a real tradition in the more noble sense of the term, or a school, as had the Renaissance and as the Cecilian movement tried to create. It cannot be a question of picking up the thread which has been cut since the seventeenth century and imitating the sixteenth. Although we may be inspired by the same general esthetics, [sic] we can no longer speak the same language. If, then, we group ourselves under the banner of the Motu Proprio, we define the type in a precise manner and we are laying the foundations for a tradition and a school.
No doubt we want our music to be pious and of catholic character, that is to say, universal. We take nothing away from the sacred texts and we add nothing to them. We respect the order of the words. We give the voice its essential role, and we do not practice excessive repetitions. But have we thought this over well: "Each part of the Mass and the Office should preserve, even from the musical point of view, the aspect and the form which ecclesiastical tradition has given them and which are found to be best expressed in Gregorian chant"?
[46] Thus, a Kyrie has nine invocations, grouped, if desired, three by three, that is, three Kyries, three Christes, three Kyries, from which we get a ternary form, with three separate invocations in each period, or three little expositions. This general plan lends itself to a magnitude of writing combinations (much as the fugue or allegro with two themes).
Gloria: sixteen invocations which the Vatican edition punctuates with sixteen periods. It is impossible to develop them separately, as this would open the affair up to intolerable length and even to the total absence of unity. In a binary framework, or ternary or four-divisioned one, they can easily be put into groups (according to the meaning and certain obvious parallelisms) as periods, in which intelligent punctuation distinguishes one from another. As for the general unity, it can only be made to jell through inspiration (and some technical processes, obviously), but the spirit moves where it will!
In the same way, three Sanctus exactly (or three little expositions), followed by Dominus Deus Sabaoth. Then two other periods: Pleni sunt and Hosanna. The Benedictus, of which the text is very short, will stand some discreet repetitions. As for the Agnus, the three periods are imposed of themselves.
These details have not always been observed in some excellent masses, and not always during the Renaissance, either. Now that we have a law, however, can we not see the advantage which composition itself should gain, not to mention the general unity of composers?
I have only discussed masses. What is more, I have only given some examples, those which were necessary for tracing this historical sketch, without exhausting the list, naturally. In regard to extra-liturgical motets, they should be well inspired by the same principles. The Tantum Ergo is, however, the liturgical part of Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. this should be two verses of a hymn as the Motu Proprio states, and not an adagio or a cavatina, followed by an allegro! Certain Genitoris resemble the final chorus of [47] an oratorio or cantata. This disparity is inadmissable [sic].
In sum, the musical form should always adapt itself to the form of the text. From this fundamental and fecond [sic] rule is born the definition of church polyphony. It should groups us, too, in obedience to pontifical authority. As for the rest, modal or tonal style, thematic unity or variety, subjects borrowed from the Gregorian repertoire or drawn from the imagination, contrapuntal style or a harmonic one, etc., etc., I admit to having my personal preferences, but it is the form, the construction, that is to say, the composition in the etymological sense, which is the most important element, perhaps, too, the most difficult to handle.
If the reader has judged by severity regarding certain works to be excessive, I have not figured to cast doubts on their musical value, sometimes very great, nor above all exclude them from our repertoires because of certain of their errors. I have wished only to confront them with the Motu Proprio (posterior to certain ones of them) in order to better clarify our present duty concerning this document which henceforth has the force of law, and, moreover, to facilitate our task and thus clarify the future.
---
Footnotes:
1. It is true that later on, immediately after the war of 1914, he was to return to his first love with the Messe de la Delivrance! A mass of circumstance and even contrivance.
2. In another domain, the Quinque cantus ad benedictionem Sanctissimi Sacramenti of Florent Schmitt (1953) are not only of remarkable musicality, but also of a profoundly religious character. Unfortunately, they are not within the grasp of all choirs.
---
Source: Henri Potiron, "The Motu Proprio and Sacred Polyphony," The Gregorian Review 1, no. 2 (March-April 1954): 38–47.
Wednesday, October 30, 2019
The Duty to Understand Proper Liturgical Music
[44] But I hear some one say, "Modern Church music (Gounod's, for instance) stirs me, while Plain Chant and Palestrina do not. I understand and like the one, but [45] cannot make head or tail of the other." Surely this is a strange attitude for a Catholic to adopt. We are, forsooth, to import only such forms of art as we personally fancy, rather than make use of those which the Church has provided. If we do not "understand" Church art, so much the worse for us. The duty of endeavouring [sic] to do so is none the less ours. When the works of a Tchaikovsky or a Strauss come to Queen's Hall, we may not "understand" them at first, but we very quickly make the attempt to do so, if for no other reason than to bring ourselves into line with our musical friends. We do not like to admit ignorance, or lack of comprehension, concerning new or unfamiliar secular music, but we are not ashamed to admit both when the music of the Church is in question. It is true, certainly, that the Church's music sounds both new and unfamiliar to ears accustomed only to the music of the world. But is it not this very aloofness, resulting from the use of conventional forms, that gives to ecclesiastical music the atmosphere of the Church rather than that of the world? Even operatic composers recognise [sic] this. Everyone is familiar with Gounod's Faust. How does the composer get the proper atmosphere in the Church scene? By imitating, say, the lilting Kyrie of "Haydn No. II"? Is it not by music almost modal in its severity? (This remark must not be taken to mean that the severity is the result of the modality. In the same opera, the "King of Thule" song, although "modal," is anything but severe.)
But, again, some "conscientious objector" may say: "May not the conventions of to-day have been the novelties of yesterday? Was not Palestrina in his day as 'advanced' as Wagner in this?" Quite true, but with this important qualification: Wagner was a frankly secular composer, free to follow his art where he listed, and to present it in whatever form he chose. Palestrina was a church musician, trained in the bosom [46] of the Church, filled with the spirit of the Church, and devoted to the expression of the mind of the Church, in the Church's own forms. The basis on which the old composers built their music was the Church's own Plain Chant. With that as a groundwork they could bring to their art all the resources with which the musical science of their day could provide them, without danger of straying into individualistic or secular modes of expression. And in support of this statement let me quote from a most remarkable article—coming as it does from a non-Catholic source—which appeared in the Morning Post some months ago:
"One fact only has saved the musical part of the Roman service from becoming a mere affair of the circus. In most of the churches and in all the monasteries, abbeys, and convents, the old Plain Chant has survived. It links the present to the past as with bonds of steel; it is the full and perfect expression of the words to which it is set, and with which indeed it grew up; it prepares us for the change which is now coming over the services with the re-introduction of truly devotional music. Its melodies are lovely beyond description in words, often they are sublime, and in them the sincere spirit of an earlier day is incarnate. We are aware that many of us Anglicans, especially if we have been accustomed to what are called 'bright and cheerful' services, find these tunes dull and meaningless; and so much the worse for us. 'Brightness and cheerfulness' have their place in religion, but there are solemn moments when they are not wanted, and suggest only buffoonery. Much of the Plain Song is cheerful enough, but its cheerfulness is that of a stained-glass window, not of a cut in a comic paper; its subject is religious. It is the music on which Catholicism must depend more and more as it brings back its services into some sort of relation with its innermost spirit."
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Source: Richard R. Terry, Catholic Church Music (London: Greening & Co., 1907), 44–46.
But, again, some "conscientious objector" may say: "May not the conventions of to-day have been the novelties of yesterday? Was not Palestrina in his day as 'advanced' as Wagner in this?" Quite true, but with this important qualification: Wagner was a frankly secular composer, free to follow his art where he listed, and to present it in whatever form he chose. Palestrina was a church musician, trained in the bosom [46] of the Church, filled with the spirit of the Church, and devoted to the expression of the mind of the Church, in the Church's own forms. The basis on which the old composers built their music was the Church's own Plain Chant. With that as a groundwork they could bring to their art all the resources with which the musical science of their day could provide them, without danger of straying into individualistic or secular modes of expression. And in support of this statement let me quote from a most remarkable article—coming as it does from a non-Catholic source—which appeared in the Morning Post some months ago:
"One fact only has saved the musical part of the Roman service from becoming a mere affair of the circus. In most of the churches and in all the monasteries, abbeys, and convents, the old Plain Chant has survived. It links the present to the past as with bonds of steel; it is the full and perfect expression of the words to which it is set, and with which indeed it grew up; it prepares us for the change which is now coming over the services with the re-introduction of truly devotional music. Its melodies are lovely beyond description in words, often they are sublime, and in them the sincere spirit of an earlier day is incarnate. We are aware that many of us Anglicans, especially if we have been accustomed to what are called 'bright and cheerful' services, find these tunes dull and meaningless; and so much the worse for us. 'Brightness and cheerfulness' have their place in religion, but there are solemn moments when they are not wanted, and suggest only buffoonery. Much of the Plain Song is cheerful enough, but its cheerfulness is that of a stained-glass window, not of a cut in a comic paper; its subject is religious. It is the music on which Catholicism must depend more and more as it brings back its services into some sort of relation with its innermost spirit."
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Source: Richard R. Terry, Catholic Church Music (London: Greening & Co., 1907), 44–46.
Proper Church Art Follows Established Conventions
[43] Having seen, then, how largely convention enters into ordinary life, what more natural than that the Church in her wisdom should present her art in conventional forms. In her architecture, her paintings, her sculpture, her stained glass, her vestments, we see it. We also know what dismal failure has attended attempts on the part of outsiders to introduce more realistic forms of art. Take, for instance, the sprawling cherubs and voluptuous figures of the Renaissance painters and sculptors. They were realistic enough, but when did they ever stir devotion? I am reminded of a ludicrous intrusion of realism into ecclesiastical art. In a certain village the squire's family has built a church in the best ecclesiastical style. They have further adorned its windows with stained glass presentments of the Hebrew prophets. The faces of the prophets are all likenesses of different members of the [44] squire's family. Happening on my first visit to remark on the odd appearance of a Hebrew prophet in "mutton-chop" whiskers, my guide replied, "Yes, that is 'uncle Henry.' He was a good lawyer, but he is not a success as Ezekiel."
Not to labour [sic] this point, I think we may assume it to be generally conceded that in architecture, painting, sculpture, and the like, there is such a thing as Church Art; that it has a distinctive style of its own, inherently self-sufficing, and requiring no adventitious aid from secular sources. We do not, for instance, make vestments of "Liberty" fabrics, however beautiful; we do not clothe our stained glass saints in secular costumes, however handsome; we do not model our sculpture on Apollo Belvederes, however stately; we do not adorn church walls with paintings of secular subjects, however ravishing. Good sense, good taste, and reverence cry out against the bare idea.
And this brings me to my real point:
If we concede to the Church the right to develop all these arts in her own way, in other words, in "the Church style"; if we believe it bad taste to make our churches a dumping ground for secular artistic efforts merely because they are beautiful; why, in the name of reverence, why in the name of good taste, why in the name of common sense, are they to be made a dumping ground for every imaginable kind of music merely because it is pretty, or beautiful, or even grand; without a thought as to whether or not it is in harmony with the mind of the Church? I would ask our good critics who deprecate the action of the Holy Father, why in music alone of all the arts is the Church not to be allowed to develop on her own lines, rather than on those of the secular world?
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Source: Richard R. Terry, Catholic Church Music (London: Greening & Co., 1907), 43–44.
Not to labour [sic] this point, I think we may assume it to be generally conceded that in architecture, painting, sculpture, and the like, there is such a thing as Church Art; that it has a distinctive style of its own, inherently self-sufficing, and requiring no adventitious aid from secular sources. We do not, for instance, make vestments of "Liberty" fabrics, however beautiful; we do not clothe our stained glass saints in secular costumes, however handsome; we do not model our sculpture on Apollo Belvederes, however stately; we do not adorn church walls with paintings of secular subjects, however ravishing. Good sense, good taste, and reverence cry out against the bare idea.
And this brings me to my real point:
If we concede to the Church the right to develop all these arts in her own way, in other words, in "the Church style"; if we believe it bad taste to make our churches a dumping ground for secular artistic efforts merely because they are beautiful; why, in the name of reverence, why in the name of good taste, why in the name of common sense, are they to be made a dumping ground for every imaginable kind of music merely because it is pretty, or beautiful, or even grand; without a thought as to whether or not it is in harmony with the mind of the Church? I would ask our good critics who deprecate the action of the Holy Father, why in music alone of all the arts is the Church not to be allowed to develop on her own lines, rather than on those of the secular world?
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Source: Richard R. Terry, Catholic Church Music (London: Greening & Co., 1907), 43–44.
Friday, September 27, 2019
Repost: Jacques Maritain on Sacred Art
Allow me to put before you today some very brief and very simple reflections. You will, no doubt, consider them too simple, but still I hope that they are inspired by good sense.
What I should like to examine with you very rapidly is the present state of relations between Catholic artists and the Catholic public. We must observe right off that in general they are not very satisfied with one another. And as in family quarrels, we must no doubt say here too that there are "faults on both sides," and that each side has some good reasons for complaining.
Just about everything has been said about what is called the art of Saint-Sulpice -- an ill-chosen phrase, it must be said, and one that is very insulting to an estimable Parisian parish, the more so because the scourge in question is world-wide in scope; about the diabolical ugliness, offensive to God and much more harmful than is generally believed to the spread of religion, of the majority of the objects turned out by modern manufacture for the decoration of churches; about the kind of bitter contempt that still reigns in some "respectable" circles with regard to artists and poets; lastly about the absence of taste and artistic formation that makes so greatly to be desired the establishment in seminaries of courses in aesthetics or the history of art such as Pius XI, before his elevation to the Pontificate, organized at Milan.
Yes, indeed; but on the other hand there are a great many parish priests who ardently desire to fulfill the wish of Pius X, "to have their people pray before beauty," and who are trying to rid their churches of the products belched forth from the cellars of religious mercantilism. Yet many of these, we must candidly confess, are not satisfied with what is proposed to them in the name of modern Art. I am clearly not referring to a few superior works, but to the average run of works produced these last few years. Our affection for our friends must not prevent us -- rather the contrary -- from stating what may still be lacking in an effort that in other respects commands our heartiest admiration. And I say that often these parish priests are right, for their office, let's make no mistake about it, is not to encourage the fine arts, but to give the faithful that which answers their spiritual needs, that which can truly serve the religious life of a Christian community. One sometimes sees them driven to fall back in despair upon the art of Saint-Sulpice. Why? Because these products of commercial manufacture, when they are not too disgusting, have at least the advantage of being perfectly indeterminate, so neutral, so empty that we can look at them without seeing them, and thus project onto them our own sentiments; whereas certain modern works, and the most agitated and impassioned among them, seek to impose on us by violence the individual emotions, exactly as they are -- in the brute state, and with all that they have of the most subjective -- of the artist himself. And in praying, instead of finding oneself before a representation of Our Lord or some Saint it is an unbearable torture to receive full in the chest, like a blow of the fist, the religious sensibility of Mr. So-and-So.
The present difficulties, to tell the truth, stem from deep-seated causes, and in the end from the crisis of our whole civilization. Religious art is not a thing that can be isolated from art itself, from the general movement of the art of an age: isolate it, and it grows corrupt, becomes dead letter. But on the other hand the art of a period carries with it all the intellectual and spiritual stuff that constitutes the life of this period; and notwithstanding all the rare and superior qualities contemporary art may possess in the order of sensibility, quality and invention, the spirituality it conveys is often quite mediocre and sometimes quite corrupt.
This is why Christian artists find themselves faced with very grave difficulties. On the one hand, they have to reaccustom to beauty the faithful, whose taste has been spoiled for more than a century past -- and we must not forget that, given the purpose for which it is intended, religious art, as prescribed by Urban VIII on March 15, 1642, and by the Council of Trent, must not have an "unfamiliar" character -- and so it is a question of destroying bad aesthetic habits while restoring a good one: no easy task. On the other hand, in order to recover a truly living religious art, they must lift up, spiritualize, and bring to the feet of God all of modern art: no easy task either. It is true that by this very fact the Christian artist, if he has the genius, is in a privileged position to profit from the whole modern effort.
What follows from all of this? It is only too evident that the Catholic public would fail in an essential and particularly urgent duty if it failed to understand the capital importance of the task undertaken with admirable generosity by so many artists who are working to reintroduce sensible beauty into the house of God, if it did not effectively support them, and if, even when it does not approve of this or that work in particular, it did not surround them with a fraternal sympathy. But it is also clear that Catholic artists for their part must make every effort to understand the legitimate needs of the faithful, for whose common good they are working, and to ascertain, courageously, the proper conditions and exigencies of the task to which they are devoting themselves.
But, it may be asked, cannot certain of these conditions be stated? I think, in any case, that a few elementary truths which force themselves upon us concerning religious art can be disengaged, which, if they were universally recognized, would doubtless facilitate concord between the public and artists. Allow me to attempt to formulate some of them, ones on which, I believe, all of us here are agreed, and which correspond to the common sentiment of all our friends.
First Observation. There is no style reserved to religious art, there is no religious technique. Anyone who believes in the existence of a religious technique is on the high road to Benton. If it is true that not every style is equally suited to sacred art, it is still more true that sacred art, as I said a moment ago, cannot be isolated, that it must, in each period, following the example of God Himself who speaks the language of men, assume, while superelevating them from within, all the means and all the technical vitality, so to speak, that the contemporary generation puts at its disposal. (From this point of view, let us observe parenthetically, it does not seem at all necessary that Christian artists, particularly those who have not come into full possession of their craft, should work exclusively in sacred art. Let them begin with still-lifes, let them accustom themselves to discovering a religious sense in the inevitable apples, fruit-dish, pipe and guitar.)
There are, however, it seems to me, in the technical order, two requisite conditions for religious art as such, granted its special object and the purpose for which it is intended.
1. It must be legible. For it is there above all for the instruction of the people, it is a theology in figures. An illegible, obscure and Mallarméan religious art is as absurd as a house without a staircase or a cathedral without a portal.
2. The work must be finished. I do not mean finished in the academic sense, but in the most material and humble meaning of this word. It is supremely fitting that nothing enter the house of God but work that is well made, complete, proper, durable, honest. This must clearly be understood according to the mode peculiar to the style and the means adopted, but the facility with which in our day one is satisfied with oneself makes it necessary to insist on this point.
Second Observation. Sacred art is in absolute dependence upon theological wisdom. In the signs it presents to our eyes something infinitely superior to all our human art is manifested, divine Truth itself, the treasure of light that was purchased for us by the blood of Christ. It is above all for this reason, because the sovereign interests of the Faith are at stake in the matter, that the Church exercises her authority and magisterium over sacred art. I recalled a moment ago the decree of Urban VIII of March 15, 1642, and the prescript of the 25th session of the Council of Trent. There are other instances. On June 11, 1623, the Congregation of Rites proscribed crucifixes representing Christ with arms updrawn. On September 11, 1670, a decree of the Holy Office forbade the making of crucifixes "in a form so coarse and artless, in an attitude so indecent, with features so distorted by grief that they provoke disgust rather than pious attention." And you know that in March, 1921, the Holy Office forbade the exhibition in churches of certain works of the Flemish painter Servaes.
Here is a point that merits all our attention. Servaes is a painter of great talent, a Christian full of faith, and one can only speak of his person with respect and affection; I am happy to bear testimony to him here. The Stations of the Cross which raised such violent commotion in Belgium gave birth to deep religious emotions in certain souls, nay more, brought about conversions. Nevertheless the Church condemned it, and it is never difficult, even when the appearances and the human procedures disconcert us, to understand the wisdom and justice of the Church's decisions. In spite of himself, assuredly, and not in his soul but in his work, the painter, fascinated by the Ego sum vermis et non homo of Isaias and conceiving his Stations as a pure vertigo of grief, happened to be false to certain theological truths of capital importance -- above all the truth that the sufferings as well as the death of Our Lord were essentially voluntary, and that it was a divine Person who suffered the most appalling human suffering: the pain and agony of His Humanity were handled by the Word as the tool with which He performed His great work. At the same time, for those who cannot harmonize the poor figurations that art places before their eyes and the pure image living in our hearts of the most beautiful of the children of men (in Him, as in His Mother, as Cajetan reminds us in his treatise De Spasmo beatae Virginis, the supreme torments of Calvary, though piercing the mind still more cruelly than the body, left reason intact under the Cross, in full exercise of its dominion over the sensitive part) -- for these, I say, certain plastic deformations, a certain degenerate aspect of the contour, take on the value of an offense against the Humanity of the Savior, and, as it were, of a doctrinal misapprehension of the sovereign dignity of His soul and body.
At a time when the truth of the Faith is threatened on all sides, why be surprised that the Church is more concerned than ever about the doctrinal distortions that can be implied in certain works of art intended for the faithful, whatever may be in other respects their aesthetic value and the salutary emotions they may here or there excite, and whatever may be the piety, faith, depth of spiritual life, and uprightness of intention of the artist who produced them?
May I be permitted however to add that from this same point of view of dogma the base sentimentality of so many commercial products must equally vex sound theology, and is doubtless tolerated only as one of those abuses to which we resign ourselves for a time, considering human weakness and what may be called, adapting a phrase of Holy Writ, "the infinite number of Christians with bad taste."
This ultimate control by theology that I just mentioned, and which presupposes in the artist a true theological culture, clearly does not impose on sacred art any aesthetic genre, any style, any particular technique. We must, however, realize that it communicates to it, as it were spontaneously, certain general directions. Thus the intrinsic characteristics of the object represented have assuredly for sacred art a very special importance: not, certainly, from the point of view of the naturalist imitation of material detail and picturesque appearance, which is more out of place and execrable here than elsewhere, but from the point of view of the laws of intellectual signification. If one reflects on the essential deficiency of the means of expression of human art in relation to the divine mysteries to which these means are applied, on the terrible difficulty of expressing in a sensible matter truths that bridge heaven and earth and unite the most opposite realities, one is even led to think that sacred art, however rich it ought to be in sensibility and humanity, in order to attain to a certain spiritual fullness will doubtless always have to retain something of the hieratic and, so to speak, ideographic symbolism, and, in any event, of the sturdy intellectuality of its primitive traditions.
Third Observation. A last point -- a very simple one -- is that a work of religious art must be religious. Otherwise it is not beautiful, since beauty presupposes essentially the entirety of all the requisite conditions. As Paul Cazin remarked, tell an artist dealing with a religious subject "that he has produced a masterpiece, but that his masterpiece is not religious, and you will pain him greatly. . . ." And Cazin continues: "God alone can touch men's hearts with a feeling of piety before the most miserable chromolithograph or the most distressing daub, as well as before the most sublime masterpiece." That is true, but it does not prevent the fact that normally certain works have of themselves a value, a radiance of religious emotion, of interior illumination, and, properly speaking, of sanctification. Nevertheless, repeating once more what Maurice Denis has said, this does not depend on the subject itself. Nor does it depend, I am convinced, on the recipe of a school and a particular technique. It would be a great delusion to think that clumsy angles and a humble subject matter are the necessary means of expression of a Franciscan emotion, or that a geometric stiffness and dull, austere tones are required in order to give to a work the seal of Benedictine dignity.
There are no rules for giving an art object a value of religious emotion. This depends, on the contrary, on a certain interior freedom with regard to rules. One achieves it only by not seeking it directly, and only by participating, in one manner or another, in the spiritual life of the Saints: something which the common Christian atmosphere of an era of faith made easy for artists, even when, from many points of view, they remained far from the examples of the Saints, but which, of itself and in the absence of exterior aids, requires in the soul the habitual radiance of the theological virtues and supernatural wisdom. And it is necessary, besides, that the virtue of art not remain separate, isolated from this wisdom, because of an insufficient mastery or of false academic principles, but that between the two contact be made, and that this wisdom freely use the virtue of art as a supple and infallible instrument.
---
Source: Shawn Tribe, "Jacques Maritan on Sacred Art," Liturgical Arts Journal, September 27, 2019, https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2019/09/jacques-maritain-on-sacred-art.html.
What I should like to examine with you very rapidly is the present state of relations between Catholic artists and the Catholic public. We must observe right off that in general they are not very satisfied with one another. And as in family quarrels, we must no doubt say here too that there are "faults on both sides," and that each side has some good reasons for complaining.
Just about everything has been said about what is called the art of Saint-Sulpice -- an ill-chosen phrase, it must be said, and one that is very insulting to an estimable Parisian parish, the more so because the scourge in question is world-wide in scope; about the diabolical ugliness, offensive to God and much more harmful than is generally believed to the spread of religion, of the majority of the objects turned out by modern manufacture for the decoration of churches; about the kind of bitter contempt that still reigns in some "respectable" circles with regard to artists and poets; lastly about the absence of taste and artistic formation that makes so greatly to be desired the establishment in seminaries of courses in aesthetics or the history of art such as Pius XI, before his elevation to the Pontificate, organized at Milan.
Yes, indeed; but on the other hand there are a great many parish priests who ardently desire to fulfill the wish of Pius X, "to have their people pray before beauty," and who are trying to rid their churches of the products belched forth from the cellars of religious mercantilism. Yet many of these, we must candidly confess, are not satisfied with what is proposed to them in the name of modern Art. I am clearly not referring to a few superior works, but to the average run of works produced these last few years. Our affection for our friends must not prevent us -- rather the contrary -- from stating what may still be lacking in an effort that in other respects commands our heartiest admiration. And I say that often these parish priests are right, for their office, let's make no mistake about it, is not to encourage the fine arts, but to give the faithful that which answers their spiritual needs, that which can truly serve the religious life of a Christian community. One sometimes sees them driven to fall back in despair upon the art of Saint-Sulpice. Why? Because these products of commercial manufacture, when they are not too disgusting, have at least the advantage of being perfectly indeterminate, so neutral, so empty that we can look at them without seeing them, and thus project onto them our own sentiments; whereas certain modern works, and the most agitated and impassioned among them, seek to impose on us by violence the individual emotions, exactly as they are -- in the brute state, and with all that they have of the most subjective -- of the artist himself. And in praying, instead of finding oneself before a representation of Our Lord or some Saint it is an unbearable torture to receive full in the chest, like a blow of the fist, the religious sensibility of Mr. So-and-So.
The present difficulties, to tell the truth, stem from deep-seated causes, and in the end from the crisis of our whole civilization. Religious art is not a thing that can be isolated from art itself, from the general movement of the art of an age: isolate it, and it grows corrupt, becomes dead letter. But on the other hand the art of a period carries with it all the intellectual and spiritual stuff that constitutes the life of this period; and notwithstanding all the rare and superior qualities contemporary art may possess in the order of sensibility, quality and invention, the spirituality it conveys is often quite mediocre and sometimes quite corrupt.
This is why Christian artists find themselves faced with very grave difficulties. On the one hand, they have to reaccustom to beauty the faithful, whose taste has been spoiled for more than a century past -- and we must not forget that, given the purpose for which it is intended, religious art, as prescribed by Urban VIII on March 15, 1642, and by the Council of Trent, must not have an "unfamiliar" character -- and so it is a question of destroying bad aesthetic habits while restoring a good one: no easy task. On the other hand, in order to recover a truly living religious art, they must lift up, spiritualize, and bring to the feet of God all of modern art: no easy task either. It is true that by this very fact the Christian artist, if he has the genius, is in a privileged position to profit from the whole modern effort.
What follows from all of this? It is only too evident that the Catholic public would fail in an essential and particularly urgent duty if it failed to understand the capital importance of the task undertaken with admirable generosity by so many artists who are working to reintroduce sensible beauty into the house of God, if it did not effectively support them, and if, even when it does not approve of this or that work in particular, it did not surround them with a fraternal sympathy. But it is also clear that Catholic artists for their part must make every effort to understand the legitimate needs of the faithful, for whose common good they are working, and to ascertain, courageously, the proper conditions and exigencies of the task to which they are devoting themselves.
But, it may be asked, cannot certain of these conditions be stated? I think, in any case, that a few elementary truths which force themselves upon us concerning religious art can be disengaged, which, if they were universally recognized, would doubtless facilitate concord between the public and artists. Allow me to attempt to formulate some of them, ones on which, I believe, all of us here are agreed, and which correspond to the common sentiment of all our friends.
First Observation. There is no style reserved to religious art, there is no religious technique. Anyone who believes in the existence of a religious technique is on the high road to Benton. If it is true that not every style is equally suited to sacred art, it is still more true that sacred art, as I said a moment ago, cannot be isolated, that it must, in each period, following the example of God Himself who speaks the language of men, assume, while superelevating them from within, all the means and all the technical vitality, so to speak, that the contemporary generation puts at its disposal. (From this point of view, let us observe parenthetically, it does not seem at all necessary that Christian artists, particularly those who have not come into full possession of their craft, should work exclusively in sacred art. Let them begin with still-lifes, let them accustom themselves to discovering a religious sense in the inevitable apples, fruit-dish, pipe and guitar.)
There are, however, it seems to me, in the technical order, two requisite conditions for religious art as such, granted its special object and the purpose for which it is intended.
1. It must be legible. For it is there above all for the instruction of the people, it is a theology in figures. An illegible, obscure and Mallarméan religious art is as absurd as a house without a staircase or a cathedral without a portal.
2. The work must be finished. I do not mean finished in the academic sense, but in the most material and humble meaning of this word. It is supremely fitting that nothing enter the house of God but work that is well made, complete, proper, durable, honest. This must clearly be understood according to the mode peculiar to the style and the means adopted, but the facility with which in our day one is satisfied with oneself makes it necessary to insist on this point.
Second Observation. Sacred art is in absolute dependence upon theological wisdom. In the signs it presents to our eyes something infinitely superior to all our human art is manifested, divine Truth itself, the treasure of light that was purchased for us by the blood of Christ. It is above all for this reason, because the sovereign interests of the Faith are at stake in the matter, that the Church exercises her authority and magisterium over sacred art. I recalled a moment ago the decree of Urban VIII of March 15, 1642, and the prescript of the 25th session of the Council of Trent. There are other instances. On June 11, 1623, the Congregation of Rites proscribed crucifixes representing Christ with arms updrawn. On September 11, 1670, a decree of the Holy Office forbade the making of crucifixes "in a form so coarse and artless, in an attitude so indecent, with features so distorted by grief that they provoke disgust rather than pious attention." And you know that in March, 1921, the Holy Office forbade the exhibition in churches of certain works of the Flemish painter Servaes.
Here is a point that merits all our attention. Servaes is a painter of great talent, a Christian full of faith, and one can only speak of his person with respect and affection; I am happy to bear testimony to him here. The Stations of the Cross which raised such violent commotion in Belgium gave birth to deep religious emotions in certain souls, nay more, brought about conversions. Nevertheless the Church condemned it, and it is never difficult, even when the appearances and the human procedures disconcert us, to understand the wisdom and justice of the Church's decisions. In spite of himself, assuredly, and not in his soul but in his work, the painter, fascinated by the Ego sum vermis et non homo of Isaias and conceiving his Stations as a pure vertigo of grief, happened to be false to certain theological truths of capital importance -- above all the truth that the sufferings as well as the death of Our Lord were essentially voluntary, and that it was a divine Person who suffered the most appalling human suffering: the pain and agony of His Humanity were handled by the Word as the tool with which He performed His great work. At the same time, for those who cannot harmonize the poor figurations that art places before their eyes and the pure image living in our hearts of the most beautiful of the children of men (in Him, as in His Mother, as Cajetan reminds us in his treatise De Spasmo beatae Virginis, the supreme torments of Calvary, though piercing the mind still more cruelly than the body, left reason intact under the Cross, in full exercise of its dominion over the sensitive part) -- for these, I say, certain plastic deformations, a certain degenerate aspect of the contour, take on the value of an offense against the Humanity of the Savior, and, as it were, of a doctrinal misapprehension of the sovereign dignity of His soul and body.
At a time when the truth of the Faith is threatened on all sides, why be surprised that the Church is more concerned than ever about the doctrinal distortions that can be implied in certain works of art intended for the faithful, whatever may be in other respects their aesthetic value and the salutary emotions they may here or there excite, and whatever may be the piety, faith, depth of spiritual life, and uprightness of intention of the artist who produced them?
May I be permitted however to add that from this same point of view of dogma the base sentimentality of so many commercial products must equally vex sound theology, and is doubtless tolerated only as one of those abuses to which we resign ourselves for a time, considering human weakness and what may be called, adapting a phrase of Holy Writ, "the infinite number of Christians with bad taste."
This ultimate control by theology that I just mentioned, and which presupposes in the artist a true theological culture, clearly does not impose on sacred art any aesthetic genre, any style, any particular technique. We must, however, realize that it communicates to it, as it were spontaneously, certain general directions. Thus the intrinsic characteristics of the object represented have assuredly for sacred art a very special importance: not, certainly, from the point of view of the naturalist imitation of material detail and picturesque appearance, which is more out of place and execrable here than elsewhere, but from the point of view of the laws of intellectual signification. If one reflects on the essential deficiency of the means of expression of human art in relation to the divine mysteries to which these means are applied, on the terrible difficulty of expressing in a sensible matter truths that bridge heaven and earth and unite the most opposite realities, one is even led to think that sacred art, however rich it ought to be in sensibility and humanity, in order to attain to a certain spiritual fullness will doubtless always have to retain something of the hieratic and, so to speak, ideographic symbolism, and, in any event, of the sturdy intellectuality of its primitive traditions.
Third Observation. A last point -- a very simple one -- is that a work of religious art must be religious. Otherwise it is not beautiful, since beauty presupposes essentially the entirety of all the requisite conditions. As Paul Cazin remarked, tell an artist dealing with a religious subject "that he has produced a masterpiece, but that his masterpiece is not religious, and you will pain him greatly. . . ." And Cazin continues: "God alone can touch men's hearts with a feeling of piety before the most miserable chromolithograph or the most distressing daub, as well as before the most sublime masterpiece." That is true, but it does not prevent the fact that normally certain works have of themselves a value, a radiance of religious emotion, of interior illumination, and, properly speaking, of sanctification. Nevertheless, repeating once more what Maurice Denis has said, this does not depend on the subject itself. Nor does it depend, I am convinced, on the recipe of a school and a particular technique. It would be a great delusion to think that clumsy angles and a humble subject matter are the necessary means of expression of a Franciscan emotion, or that a geometric stiffness and dull, austere tones are required in order to give to a work the seal of Benedictine dignity.
There are no rules for giving an art object a value of religious emotion. This depends, on the contrary, on a certain interior freedom with regard to rules. One achieves it only by not seeking it directly, and only by participating, in one manner or another, in the spiritual life of the Saints: something which the common Christian atmosphere of an era of faith made easy for artists, even when, from many points of view, they remained far from the examples of the Saints, but which, of itself and in the absence of exterior aids, requires in the soul the habitual radiance of the theological virtues and supernatural wisdom. And it is necessary, besides, that the virtue of art not remain separate, isolated from this wisdom, because of an insufficient mastery or of false academic principles, but that between the two contact be made, and that this wisdom freely use the virtue of art as a supple and infallible instrument.
---
Source: Shawn Tribe, "Jacques Maritan on Sacred Art," Liturgical Arts Journal, September 27, 2019, https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2019/09/jacques-maritain-on-sacred-art.html.
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