Dear COL Friends,
As you know, I'm subbing as cantor for our TLM because our one-man friar schola has been ordained to the priesthood thus now has his own Mass to celebrate. I agreed to cantoring temporarily only until a group of men - or one man - is able to do it permanently. TLM propers are traditionally chanted by male voices; only at nuns' convents and girls' schools did female voices do it for obvious reasons. But church documents say that females are all right for the Propers provided the chanters do not position themselves inside the sanctuary. No problem, I sing at my seat in the pew.
The Propers chants (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion) are a completely different beast from the Ordinary chants (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnis Dei) in that the former are more complicated and are sung only once a year. But the Propers, from what I've read, are older than the Ordinary in that when Pope Gregory (800 AD, not sure?) compiled the chants, music for the Mass meant just the Propers. It was only later that the Ordinary became known as "the Mass" perhaps during the advent of polyphonies and the classics that begged to be done much more than once-a-year. Thus a "Palestrina Mass" or a "Mozart Requiem Mass" means the Ordinary, not the Propers.
Anyway, back to our TLM. I agreed to sub at least during Christmastide, so starting with the Fourth Sunday in Advent, I wrestled with the complicated melismas, exercising my voice to unknown convulutions. You have to hit one group of notes just right because the next group of notes is entirely dependent on it, or you're lost for the duration of the chant. Did I tell you that Propers are properly chanted without accompaniment? At any rate we can't afford to hire an organist.
Day and night I tried to perfect the chants, sometimes close to tears. At most frustrating times I wished I had a professional trainer and not just books and the web to consult with. More than once I cried for my father, long dead, who was a cantor at his church, and who, in his hope that someday the Tridentine Mass will be revived, left his Liber Usualis with me before his death. I remembered him practicing chanting the Propers at home with a group (and sometimes alone) when I was little and it sounded like child play to him.
Except for my nightly Eucharistic adoration, I kept everything at a minimum: grabbing a bite of leftovers here and there, trying to sleep when I needed to sleep and to wake up when I needed to wake up; not receiving any visitors, no writing of Christmas cards, no washing the floors, no cooking, no cleaning of the fridge, no washie nor walkie the doggie. I'm glad I'm retired because it was just the Liber Usualis and me day and night and even in my sleep, I dreamt of square notes...er, nuemes.
Now that Christmastide is over, I thought my ordeal was through. But it turned out, not yet. The men have not quite organized; they're still waiting for their Liber Breviors in the mail, one was complaining of sinusitis, another of irregular working hours, another's wife is recovering from cancer and needs his constant attention. I don't blame them - unlike me, they're not yet retired and have family lives to live.
So would I continue chanting the Propers until they're ready? Gladly, I thought. With what I've just gone through, the After Epiphany period must be a walk in the park. But I spoke too soon. I'd soon discover that the After Epiphany Propers are even more difficult and more rococo than the Christmastide ones! Why is that so? I know, I know - Holy Mother Church has just opened her impressive centuries-old treasure trove of sacred music for me, but why are these sparkling jewels designed so over-the-the-top?
Why, for instance, is "Jubilate Deo universa terra" the Offertory for Second Sunday after Epiphany? Heaven's sake - it's the second AFTER Epiphany, meaning it's already Ordinary Time (or is it?) in the Novus Ordo and yet in the EF, it's till high celebration! I looked in Willi Apell's scholarly book on Gregorian Chant and it says there that the Jubilate Deo Universa's death-defying ascending 68-note (!) melisma is among the most popular and familiar pieces and most difficult to execute. It's done only once a year, so why is it "most popular and familiar?"
Here's the text with an English translation:
OFFERTORY ANTIPHON Psalm 65. 1, 2, 16Jubiláte Deo, univérsa terra: psalmum dícite
nómini ejus: veníte, et audíte, et narrábo vobis, omnes
qui timétis Deum, quanta fecit Dóminus ánimæ meæ,
allelúja.Shout with joy to God, all the earth: sing ye a psalm to His
name: come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will tell
you what great things the Lord hath done for my soul,
alleluia.
And here's a description of the music:
Quote:
Churches of the Ambrosian Rite in Milan sang a version of Jubilate Deo omnis terra that was positively encrusted with ornate melismas. The suggestion has been made that the Roman church borrowed this Milanese melody and pared away some of its floridity. Yet the Gregorian chant, derived from the Roman church, is still quite florid. The second iteration of the word Jubilate ends in a melisma of a full 68 notes on one syllable (the repetition of text within this chant is itself a gesture of musical extravagance and is confined to the Offertory genre). The chant melody throughout revolves around a number of rising third-based motives. It is not, however, a "tonal" melody; the prominent pitches are F-A-C-E, and it completely avoids the upper tonic. The opening phrases consistently use the "soft" B flat, but this inflection gradually gives way to an insistent B natural. The melody itself thus seems to embody an ecstatic quality in its melismas, a constant striving upwards in its characteristic third leaps and a gradual intensification of its harmonic character. ~ Timothy Dickey, Rovi
Read more:
JUBILATE DEO UNIVERSAThis morning, after another night of trying to own and pin down the breathtakingly beautiful Offertory for the coming Sunday, I calmed down and reflected on the meaning of it all. Epiphany is the gift of God's own presence, the all powerful, the mighty. His is the sea, it belongs to Him; the dry land, too, is the work of His hands. (Ps 91, paraphrased.) The mighty has come down to earth and revealed Himself to us...therefore, "universa terra" all the earth rejoice, for we are His people. In the EF liturgy of the Second Sunday after Epiphany, the Lord attended a wedding feast at Cana where He changed the water into wine - and the angels rejoiced (the Alleluia is all about the angels praising God):
Quote:
Allelúja, allelúja. . Psalm 148. 2 Laudáte
Dóminum, omnes Ángeli ejus: laudáte eum, omnes
virtútes ejus. Allelúja.
Alleluia, alleluia. . Psalm 148. 2 Praise ye the Lord,
all His Angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts. Alleluia.
To me, this means that even if men are slow to recognize the great event of God's appearance on earth, the angels do. Instead of being jealous of the earth, Heaven rejoices. What wonderful imagery such Propers conjure!
The following excerpts from a choir master/deacon's blog helps me realize why, difficult as it is, I continue the almost impossible business of chanting the Propers at Mass.
CHANT FOREVERQuote:
The coming of Jesus Christ into the world in an historical moment, which we celebrate in every Mass, hour of the Office, and sacrament, changed everything about the world and our understanding of it, and about worship. The unveiling, every unveiling in His life, was marked by suffering. Simeon (Lk 2:33-35) prophesied to Mary: “Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is contradicted (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” The perfect union of God and man is in Jesus Christ, and that union is perfected through suffering (Hb 2:10). The first Epiphany ended in the slaughter of the Holy Innocents. John, not long after baptizing Jesus, was thrown into prison and eventually murdered. The apostle John links the miracle at Cana with the scene at the cross by the appearance of Mary, proclaimed the Woman of Genesis 3 in both cases, and by the wine/blood parallel (Jn 19:26-35). We may not be crucified for our faith, but we ought at least to work at making our worship sign forth the saving presence and sacrificial action of Christ.
Liturgical unveiling is best seen these days in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. There are many moments of revelation/unveiling: the use of incense both symbolizes prayer ascending to God and the smoke covering the Holy of Holies; a veil covers the sacred vessels until the time of preparation. At solemn Mass during the Offertory rite, the subdeacon conceals the paten beneath his vestments. The priest’s body and vestments conceal the Divine elements until the unveiling just before communion. [/quote]
Quote:
To facilitate an understanding of how contemporary music defeats this dynamic, and chant/polyphony supports it, I like to tell a story I heard..of how a young woman greeted the (minister) after his Congregationalist service one Sunday. She was carrying one of the modern Bible translations. He asked how she liked it. She answered, “I like it fine, but one problem is that the language makes me think that I actually understand it.” In von Balthasar’s language, the modern English tricks the reader. In its attempt to reveal the meaning, it can settle for the superficial and conceal the deeper reality.
Quote:
I’ve just come from a contemporary music Mass (actually a four-hymn Mass with a contemporary setting of the new translation of the Ordinary). The four hymns were traditional Christmas hymns. Since it was Epiphany, the cantor led “As with gladness” instead of the Introit. Now “As with gladness men of old” is a fine hymn, but it’s two quanta below singing the Introit.
The primary loss, of course, is the loss of the Word of God, which in this one prayer quotes from the prophet Malachi, the Chronicler, and the psalmist (72). That’s one layer of this liturgical onion. We also miss the layer of the divine irony. The Introit says that the Lord comes as “dominator.” But in history He came as a little child, helpless and in peril of His life from the tyrant, Herod. The rule is in His hand, but the tiny hand holds, at best, His mother’s little finger, she, whose eternal word is “I am the servant of the Lord, thy will be done.” The psalm speaks of justice and judgement, but the Holy Innocents are about to be murdered unjustly. Then there is the wonderful music that is missed–the trumpet call in the beginning on “Ecce advenit,” the rising perfect fourths paralleled on “dominator” and “et regnum.”
The article does not go on to discuss the Second Sunday after Epiphany Propers, but you get the idea why those Propers are challenging. The author then goes on:
Quote:
When one unveils contemporary music used at Mass, there is really nothing underneath it. Often the rhythm of the music drives the words. Sometimes that effect is so drastic that the words are forced into sixteenth notes or worse. The WORD must be the master of the music, so that when the music is unveiled, the Word of God is revealed without its essence being obscured. Chant is a kind of veil of its own kind, and the more melismatic the melody, the more veiled is the Word. That means when, perhaps after years of repetition, the singer understands the marriage of word and melisma, the more profound will be the change in the singer’s heart.
Now I understand. I also find that once I've got one or two of the chant Propers memorized, they are really quite enjoyable to sing to oneself, even while washing the dishes. It's all right then if I don't get to sing them at Mass again until next year.
The Ave Maria Offertory on the Fourth Sunday of Advent is probably the earliest version of the Ave Maria in that it ends with the words "and blessed is the fruit of thy womb," because at the time of its use, there was where the prayer ended. It was only later in history, at the time of Saint Bernardine of Sienna, that the word, "Jesus." was added. Saint Bernadine was the biggest promoter of devotion to the Holy Name. Ave Maria Offertory is among the loveliest of Gregorian music and so nice to sing after you've learned it.
Maybe one of these days I'll find Jubilate Deo Universa Terra just as enjoyable and effects a "profound change in this singer's heart." Please pray for me.
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