TREASURES OF SACRED MUSIC
Sancta Mater Theresia (Domenico Bartolucci)
Aurelio Porfiri
Catholic sacred music has given us great masterpieces, masterpieces that form the glory and pride of our tradition. For example, if we consider the whole Eucharistic repertoire, or that in honor of the Virgin Mary, or that of the rituals of the Holy Week we can truly admire the great variety and richness of the great music that we have inherited. Unfortunately, today a large part of this repertoire is ignored. This is one of the evils that we deplore so much in the recent decades. Yet I hope there will be a day in which it will be possible to return to our great liturgical and musical tradition after these recent times which have for the most part given us cheap repertoires, unsuccessful imitations of commercial music.
Among the larger repertoires, in addition to those I mentioned above, we must remember the music in honor of the saints. These too form a truly substantial part of the sacred music repertoire, an immense treasure that adds to the attention of the faithful a patrimony of prayers, antiphons, songs that testify to us the virtues of the great models in the faith. Among these we want to mention the motet Sancta Mater Theresia for 7 voices by Domenico Bartolucci (1917-2013).
Domenico Bartolucci was one of the great protagonists of sacred music of our time. He was a composer, choir director and former master of the papal music chapel called Sistine chapel choir for more than four decades. Pope Benedict XVI made him a Cardinal in honor of his great merits in the field of art and music. Maestro Domenico Bartolucci went through a very difficult time, bearing upon himself the suffering and isolation of those who continued to believe in the high mission of sacred music. Here, in his endless production, we want to speak precisely of this motet in honor of Saint Teresa of Avila, one of the greatest saints of the Catholic Church and glory of the Carmelite order. The text says: “Sancta Mater Theresia, respice in nos, et vide, et visita vineam istam et perfice eam, quam plantavit dextera tua.” This is a traditional antiphon in honor of the great saint, although in other versions we find some small changes in the text, such as “respice de coelo” instead of “respice in nos”. We find it also mentioned in Divote preghiere alla serafica madre S. Teresa di Gesù da recitarsi nelli nove giorni prima della di Lei festa nella Vener. Chiesa del suo Ordine, Santa Maria della Scala, printed in Rome in 1811. These antiphons were very popular among people, giving to the feast an immediate appeal, also a great number of composers use this appeal of these texts for their music. It was like a continuous exegesis of these texts, a continuous attempt to penetrate them better and with more understanding.
The composition of Maestro Bartolucci was collected in his sixth book of motets, published in 1994. In the preface of this sixth book, Maestro Bartolucci among other things stated: “I hope with all that this sixth book is also accepted and will find a kind welcome, like the others gradually published, by the Colleagues Choirmasters and by those who love and still cultivate Sacred Music.” The use of capital letters is interesting, to emphasize the dignity not only of sacred music but also of those who dedicate themselves to it. I must say that at that time, the maestro was already very embittered by the now out of control situation of the choirs and the role of liturgical music in divine worship. The motet in question was commissioned to the master for the fourth centenary of the Teresian reform and was sung in Avila during the commemorative celebration on 24 August, 1962 by the choir of the Sistine Chapel directed by the master himself. Saint Teresa of Avila felt a reform that would go back to the essence of the Carmelite message as urgent, as she tells us in her interior Castle: “All of us who wear this sacred habit of Carmel are called to prayer and contemplation, because this is our origin and we are the progeny of those holy Fathers of Mount Carmel who in great solitude and in total detachment from the world sought this precious pearl of contemplation.” This desire to return to a purity of the original message is certainly commendable, because time can certainly lead to incrustations that must be carefully removed. It is certainly not the same as what some have tried to do in recent decades, throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
On the motet I would like to make some considerations. The first concerns the commission of musical works for large celebrations and religious events. This practice gave the opportunity to enrich the repertoire of sacred music with new compositions, often compositions that later became an integral part of the repertoire itself. This practice of commissioning great musical works for liturgical and religious events has unfortunately been lost, and this is a real shame.
A second consideration concerns the number of voices chosen by the maestro. As mentioned, this motet has seven polyphonic voices, a very important ensemble because it means that there are seven real polyphonic parts. This care and attention to the richness of musical means is something that we have also lost. Of course, it must be said that such a piece is not within the reach of all choirs. It can only be considered by choirs that have reached a certain artistic and technical level. But this is also important, as it also pushes the other choirs to emulate this artistic excellence, bringing everyone’s level ever higher. The emulation must be towards artistic excellence, not towards by-products copied from pop music. Who should supervise the level of sacred music in dioceses? It should be the Bishops, but often they are too shy to say something because they are afraid to lose what remains of their flock and too often, they do not have the right training in sacred music to discern.
The third consideration is a little more technical. The motet, as mentioned, has seven real parts: sopranos I, sopranos II, altos, tenors I, tenors II, baritones and basses. In this piece the maestro uses a “sound block technique,” which is frequent in compositions with a large number of real parts. There is a continuous dialogue between the high voices which are the three upper and the four low voices, the voices of the most grave color, the male choir. This dialogue truly gives the idea of a continuous conversation between earth and sky, a continuous play of colors that greatly impresses the soul of the faithful.
The fourth consideration concerns the enhancement of the heritage of traditional prayer. We have already stated this earlier. There are thousands of prayers, antiphons, hymns, which are practically forgotten by now. Almost every saint has these prayers, antiphons, hymns in his honor and keeping his memory alive through new compositions using these texts, it could also be a very good thing to increase devotion to these great witnesses of the faith. If before one listened to Si quaeris miracula singing, one could already feel the presence of Saint Anthony of Padua, today all this has practically disappeared. It is truly sad to consider how a traditional heritage has practically been devastated without there being any discernment. Today there is a lot of talk about discernment, how many times have you heard this word used in recent decades. And moreover what was the discernment with regard to liturgical music? Everything was swept away, leaving almost nothing to escape. There has truly been a revolutionary fury at work, a fury that would truly have been worthy of other causes.
In short, if we look at what was done until a few decades ago in the field of liturgical music and then look at what we have today, we can truly understand the depth of the crisis in which we live.
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