Our argument, therefore, for the restoration of the church music, and the banishment of concert music, implies the restoration, as well, of the church singer, and the close of our engagement with the concert artists, or the more wretched substitute of concert amateurs. We are sure that in every congregation in this country it would be possible to find a sufficient number of men and boys, possessing all the necessary qualifications, intellectual, moral, and vocal, for the decent and edifying singing of the church offices, who might be prepared after a few weeks' instruction for the duties of the chorister. We may be permitted to add, that our opinion is not mere theory, but based upon the observation and experience of many years in the practical duties of the ministry, during which the direction of the music has generally fallen to our care. If we are not able to refer our readers to a practical illustration of what we assert, it is simply because we also, as we said before, have been straitened and hampered by this incubus of Protestant tradition. Until we can get rid of this, we can do nothing. Until the people, at present profoundly ignorant on this head, learn what constitutes a Catholic choir and where it ought to be located in the church, we shall never be able to get any thing but concert music. They must learn that the present order of things prevalent among us is abnormal, unrecognized by the ritual, and quite as foreign to the Catholic standard as would be the preaching of a priest from the pulpit in a citizen's dress. We may be obedient to the strict law of the Church which forbids female singers in choir, and find a sufficient number of men and boys to take their places, who will scramble into the organ-gallery, and, under cover of the curtains, talk, laugh, chew tobacco, eat candy, draw caricatures on the walls and on the covers of the singing-books, and sit with crossed legs and chairs tilted backward even during the elevation and benediction—all this we will get as of old; but, until the gallery comes down, until the singers are properly vested, and marched with proper ecclesiastical decorum into the sanctuary, or to such a place as near to it as the present inconvenient arrangement of our modern churches will permit, we shall never get a church choir.
This is our first point: let us have male singers who will understand from the dress and deportment they assume, for the time being, as well as from the position they occupy in the church, that their office as a church singer is a sacred one, of high character, and worthy of special respect as being associated officially with the priestly celebrations at the altar. No sooner shall we have succeeded in teaching the people this true Catholic tradition, than our youth will at once look upon the function of choir-singer as an enviable position, and the effort to make themselves worthy to be thus associated with the clergy in the divine offices will necessarily do much toward elevating their moral tone, and inspiring a devout Catholic spirit. We shall, very probably, not obtain all we desire at a first trial. Many of those whom we may select will likely disappoint us. This is in the nature of things. It is not every one who is selected as a student for the priesthood that proves to have a vocation. For ourselves, we apprehend little difficulty if our own purpose be well determined, and we give to the whole subject of church music a little serious study and reflection.
As to the source from which our churches are to obtain a regular supply of choristers, we frankly speak our mind, and say that the Catholic choir system would appear to involve necessarily the formation of what is known in France as the maitrise, or choir-school, in which are admitted boys of good moral character possessing sufficient vocal capability, and of a grade of intelligence to render it worth while to bestow upon them a more refined education than they might obtain in the ordinary school. This special education given in the choir-school tends not only to improve and elevate the character of the boys, but fits them as well to attain a better position in life than they could have hoped for without it. But this is a subject we can afford to defer to future consideration.
Supposing that we have come to the determination to conform our church music at once to the true standard, how shall we procure the necessary choristers? Let us see what we need. For large churches, or what are large churches to us, there should be at least four trained voices of men—two tenors and two baritones; and not less than twelve boys. These, equally divided on either side of the sanctuary, would make a better double chorus than might at first be supposed. The boys can be had for the asking; but the four men will not easily be obtained without a reasonable salary. The advertisement for them should, of course, conclude with the warning, "None but practical Catholics need apply." We do not propose to put the cassock and surplice upon persons whose very appearance in that garb would disedify the people.
For this choir we need a competent teacher. Advertise for him, and it is not unlikely we shall find such a one, or one who will quickly fit himself for that office, in one of the four hired singers. We do not hesitate to say that, even in this great city of New York, there are at present very few music teachers who are fully competent to teach the proper method of chanting the Vesper psalms alone, not to speak of those other important portions of the divine offices whose expression is more difficult to render. But there is no want that is not quickly met with the supply. If we want such a teacher, and are willing to pay him, then the subject of the church chant will at once engage the attention and study of professors of music whose business it is to teach. At this moment it is generally understood (and not without reason) by all organists and directors of choirs that our Catholic churches need performers and teachers who can come recommended as well versed in "the masses," as they are called.
As a consequence, these gentlemen devote all their energies to the study and practice of such compositions, and to the science of directing a mixed chorus. We do the musical profession the justice of believing its taste to be quite at variance with the taste of the public it serves; and, although we are prepared to see our choir-director shrug his shoulders and return us a wondering look when we propose our reformation to him, still, when we shall have given him to understand that we ourselves know what we want, and are prepared to count the cost, we feel assured that he will readily come into our views, and enter upon this new field of musical culture with more zest than he has hitherto shown in the conduct of music, for the most part, despicable even in his own eyes. We will engage him to produce church music in first-class church style. We will aid him by causing an organ of sufficient size to be erected near the choristers in the vicinity of the sanctuary. Should he crave for a larger chorus, we will seek out a number of young men, from eighteen to twenty-five years of age, whom we have in our eye, whose interest will not fail of being excited in this subject to which we give our pastoral solicitude, and whose social and moral character we feel assured will be benefited by being associated with our regular choir as volunteers. If we might be permitted the use of an expressive vulgarism, we would say that our young men, as a class, are "spoiling" for some church work. How many would not feel both honored and gratified by an invitation to labor with us in renovating and restoring the grand offices of the Church to their pristine order and sublime harmony! We manage to associate together a few of our young men in various confraternities and associations, and drive a few more into the ranks of the society of St. Vincent de Paul; but the greater number, upon whom depend the future esprit of our church in this country, and upon whose attachment to all that concerns the dignity and devout character of our religious services hang the fortunes of our faith, are left unnoticed and unemployed. We propose this subject of the reformation of church music to them as a labor of love and true Catholic devotion, worthy of their hearty coöperation, and tending to their own intellectual refinement and moral elevation. We are not wholly unacquainted with the souls of this class of our brethren in the faith, and will answer for the response that will be made to our sentiments by any Catholic young man whose eye may chance to fall on these lines.
Now as to the matter of proper church music-books. Speaking as one who has been made wise through suffering, we rejoice at the prospect of seeing all our "Catholic choir-books," "Morning and Evening services," and such trash, bundled up and sent to the paper-makers. We are at liberty to state that, while the present Œcumenical Council may allude only incidentally to the subject of church music, by confirming the ancient canons made in regard to it, the Congregation of Rites is already preparing an authorized version of the Roman Gradual and Vesperal, and that his Holiness will issue a brief in which he will strongly exhort all the bishops to adopt it. As soon as this desire of the head of the Church shall have been brought home to us in the proper way, those whose hands are waiting direction will lose no time in preparing an edition of this work in musical notation, and harmonized for the use of organists, an imperative need for the great majority of our players and singers, to whom the learning of the plain chant scale and clefs would be a labor equal to that of acquiring the knowledge of a foreign language. Our choir-boys, and the generation of choristers who shall succeed them, can be taught the plain chant notation from the first, and will find it much simpler, and more expressive in typography, than the modern musical scale, with its varied keys in flats and sharps.
A word as to the comparative cost of the authorized church music and the concert music which now replaces it. It will be seen that we have advised the engagement of four professional singers, and the services of a special teacher both for them and the chorus of boys. This teacher, in most cases, would be one of the four salaried choristers or the organist. It will be seen at once, by those interested, that even in the beginning we shall not be put to any greater expense than we are already at for our music. In the matter of music-books there will be an immense saving for those churches which possess a large chorus. We ourselves own a musical library which has cost us several thousands of dollars; and to tell the honest truth, not one half of it is of the least practical use even with the present liberty we enjoy (?) of singing what we please. A set of Graduals and Vesperals, with a suitably harmonized version for the use of the organist, will suffice under our new and better régime.
We cannot close this portion of our remarks without calling attention to the great boon which this wholesome musical reform will prove to country churches. In our large cities, we have been able to perform in our churches music which is a tolerable imitation of the same style of harmony as given at the opera and on the boards of the concert-hall to paying audiences. As a rule, we have not charged any price of admission to our ecclesiastical concert offices, and our second-rate performances have therefore been justly treated with great leniency by the critics. But as you leave the city and enter churches in our small towns and country villages, you hear an imitation of the city fashion which is no longer tolerable. One must have advanced far into the spiritual ways of devout contemplation to endure the horrible cacophony without suffering indescribable tortures of soul. Then again, there are numberless village churches where never a sound of music, profane or religious, is heard. Yet, if these muse-abandoned people were disabused of their ignorant belief that our popular florid music is the only music possible or fit for the Catholic Church, and learned that, even if too poor to purchase an organ, they could have with a little study and practice all the music for the divine offices executed in a devout and decent style, it would not be long until the invariable low Mass on all Sundays and festivals, and the recitation of the Rosary in lieu of Vespers, would be a rare exception, instead of being, as it is now, not far from the rule. As an example, we confess extraordinary, of the gross ignorance of our country people concerning church music, we remember being told by a Catholic woman who had never been out of her own little village, that one reason why she was certain of the falsehood of the Protestant religion was because they had music and singing in their churches!
We do not expect to see our suggestions or opinions accepted without question or criticism. We are fully aware that we have been arguing in the face of inexperience and deep-seated prejudice. We console ourselves, however, with the thought that what we have decried as abnormal, irregular, and inadequate for the music of the Church, is in itself so inconsistent, incomplete, and disordered, that it does not deserve even the name of a system. Based upon a false principle, the amusement of an audience, it will ever fail of recognition or encouragement at the hands of the holy Church, whose sole object proposed in all her divine functions is prayer. The faithful come to church to pray. A church ought by its very form and interior dispositions surround the worshippers with an atmosphere of prayer. It ought to feel like a holy place; and nothing about it should smack of the theatre, or the halls of assembly for secular purposes. All that is presented to the gaze of the faithful in these sanctuaries of God, whether it be the ceremonies associated with the Holy Sacrifice and other offices, or the statues, pictures, and decorations which meet the eye, ought to be of such a character as to excite the spirit of prayer. All this we understand full well. Why, then, are we so dull of hearing that we cannot also distinguish the accents of prayer from the sounds which speak of war, of love, of the dance, of jocularity, and, for those who have ears to hear, of the grossest sensuality? Let us disabuse ourselves of the notion that our people wish to hear what is popularly styled "fine music" in church. It is a very great mistake. They not only frequent the church services in the special intention to pass the time there in prayer, but also heartily desire to have their weary, world-tossed souls helped by decorously performed ceremonies, by good, earnest preaching, and by devout, prayerful music, in awakening in their hearts true religious emotion and thoughts of heavenly things.