– Aurelio Porfiri
One of the very important tasks for a choir director when doing a service for the Church is the selection of the appropriate repertoire for the Mass. This is one of the most important roles and often, the most misunderstood. You can see a real Church musician when he can show the appropriate liturgical taste. Here I want to talk about general principles that we should apply; later on I will take a look at more details about the Ordinary and the Proper of the Mass.
The first question is: who should select the music? Because in many parishes there is the contrast between the pastor, the choir director, the organist, the catechists and so on. The music has to be selected by the choir director under the informed supervision of the pastor. In earlier times, they had choir activity in the seminary, so they could sing Gregorian chant, polyphony, and had a taste for good practices in liturgical music. But this is no longer the case in many parts of the world and they may know less than the choir director. Here we need to be honest about choir directors: they also are seldom well prepared regarding the mechanism of the rite and the role of music in it. Some of them are just people who have studied music, and see the possibility of conducting the choir in church to perform the music they like. The problem of formation is of fundamental importance. One cannot have a formation not rooted in Tradition (and this does not mean to be a traditionalist, bu to be Catholic). But when the conductor has had some training, he or she should be the one who prepares the music for the Mass.
An important principle that we should always remember and observe is that we don’t sing during the Mass – we sing the Mass. It means that the liturgy should not be the place for inserting “some random music.” The ideal would be to sing the texts of the Mass, the proper antiphons for the liturgical year provided in the Missal. Some people think this is impossible in a parish, but indeed it is not so. The real problem is the lack of well trained people who can carry out this task. All the liturgical music should be “in tune” with that particular celebration. We don’t use a song just because “we like it.” I once observed in Rome how an Easter piece was sung during Christmas.
We need to observe several things when selecting music for the liturgy: the moment of the Mass when that piece should be sung, the liturgical season, the peculiarity of that celebration, the musical forces available, the quality of the piece. Let us look at the details.
A piece for the introit cannot have the same character of a piece for communion, even if both may have a processional character but are of a different nature. One case is the procession of the ministers with the people in their pews, and the other case is the procession of everyone to receive communion. The former is the piece that initiates the Mass, and the latter accompanies one of the most reverent moment of the Mass. And this principle has to be applied to all the liturgy. Sacred music is made of different musical genres: hymn, motet, antiphon, acclamation, litany and so on and so forth. Let me give an example. I have to compose music for a Mass in honor of Saint Peter and Paul. A recurring text was “Tu es Petrus” (You are Peter). Usually this text is set to music in a very solemn and triumphant way, to signify the triumph of the Roman papacy and of the Catholic Church. But when I have to compose an antiphon for communion using that text, I need to consider the moment this piece would be sung and act accordingly. Would it be wrong to sing a very loud and triumphant “Tu es Petrus” during communion? Yes.
The liturgical season is of course important. Music for Advent has this character of joyful preparation for Christmas and Lent has the character of repentance waiting for the glory of Easter. When selecting music one should avoid selecting pieces that are good for everything, because most often they are good for nothing. We should remember what are the peculiar requirements of the season, as for example in Lent the organ should not be played for solo pieces but only to support the singing of the choir or of the congregation. And there are many other things that a choir director should know when selecting music in respect to the liturgical season.
Then one needs to look at the peculiar celebration. There are Masses that require more solemnity (rather than a “lighter” kind of music) because of a special occasion. Of course the music should not be tailored to the number of attendants: the Mass is not a show and has an objective character. Even if the Mass is celebrated by the priest alone without any people participating, it is still a fully valid Mass. But if in my parish, one day different groups gather, the music may be a little more elaborated.
We should avoid categorizing Masses: Mass for the youth, Mass for the elders and so on. My experience is that this kind of subgroups in the parish divide the people and are not a way of uniting the congregation. Moreover, thinking that the young should have music specifically for them is not a good idea: young people have to be led to develop a good taste for the things of God, we should not just try to please them in a way that does not help.
Talking of this, we need to talk about musical forces. Here, one can see if the conductor is good or not, when he is able to select music that matches the kind of ability that the choir has achieved. Bad conductors force choirs to sing music way above their abilities, just because they want to feel that they have conducted this or that composer. Certainly you have to challenge your choir, this is a way to improve, but without shaming them in front of everyone. If your choir can give 2, you can ask 3. If they feel comfortable you try to stabilize 3 before going to 4. But there are conductors that from 2 go to 7 and this is not possible: natura non facit saltus, nature moves gradually.
How to judge the goodness of a piece? It takes good musical knowledge and ability to evaluate a piece by just looking at the way it is written. Unfortunately, people given the difficult task of selecting appropriate music for the liturgy are not always well equipped. Of course a big responsibility is on the shoulders of bishops, but this is a problem bigger than sacred music itself.
A very good starting point to evaluate sacred music is to read Saint Pius X’s Motu Proprio (1903) when is said: “Sacred music should consequently possess, in the highest degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, and in particular sanctity and goodness of form, which will spontaneously produce the final quality of universality. It must be holy, and must, therefore, exclude all profanity not only in itself, but in the manner in which it is presented by those who execute it. It must be true art, for otherwise it will be impossible for it to exercise on the minds of those who listen to it that efficacy which the Church aims at obtaining in admitting into her liturgy the art of musical sounds. But it must, at the same time, be universal in the sense that while every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesiastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its native music, still these forms must be subordinated in such a manner to the general characteristics of sacred music that nobody of any nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them.” Thus, we cannot talk of “Chinese liturgical music,” “Italian liturgical music,” etc. but liturgical music in Chinese, liturgical music in Italian and so on.
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