Music, it will be said, is a mere matter of taste, and the adage has it, De gustibus non est disputandum.
But there is bad taste as well as good taste. Moreover, church music is a matter of principle as well as of taste, and good taste in this case is closely allied to principle.
Taste is the instinct or habit, or rather the instinct following habit, and perfected by it, whereby we are enabled to discern and detect what is most proper and congruous in each province of art.
Now, the reason for employing music in the service of the church is religious or it is none. Unless the musical sounds, therefore, subserve the meaning of the text, they are better away. “Where the religious song is accompanied by musical instruments,” says Benedict XIV., “these must serve solely for adding to its force, so that the sense of the words penetrate deeper into the hearts of the faithful, and their spirit, being roused to the contemplation of spiritual things, be elevated towards God and the love of divine objects.” That style of music, then, will be the most religious which deals most reverently with its subject, and gives the least scope to the play of irreligious dispositions. Being the most suitable to its subject, it will also be in the truest taste.
Hence that music will be the most suitable and the best which in its construction will correspond most perfectly with the peculiar spirit of each festival and with the special character of each service; which will most naturally and reverently render the sense of the words without changing, inverting, or abridging them, or marring their sense by useless and tiresome repetitions,—which, in other words, will speak as distinctly and as religiously to the ear as the altar, the vestments of the priest, and the ceremonies speak to the eye. Music and ceremonies, and everything connected with them, should be in the most perfect harmony, reminding all that they are in the house of God, and assembled in his presence to pay him homage on earth like that rendered him by the members of the church triumphant in heaven.
Hence, 1, church music should not in any way recall the world, its temptations or its pleasures; and the prohibition made by popes and councils against the introduction into the church of compositions written originally for the theatre or the concert-room, but with other words, or of compositions written for the church, but in a style suggestive of the stage, is so evidently just and proper that any one who objects to it must be wanting in common sense.
“Humana nefas miscere divinis” finds its application here. To carry the minds of worshippers in the church back to the theatre by the music is a crime, for it is a desecration.[168]
Hence, 2, not even the feelings of the congregation should ever tempt the director of the music of the church to admit what is not in every respect most suitable to the place, the time, and the occasion. Fortunately, we have no difficulty here in the United States with our own people. The only trouble is when we go out of our way to satisfy the expectations of non-Catholics who occasionally are present at our services, or of a few musicians not otherwise interested in the services.
Hence, 3, undue prominence should never be given to individual singers. It is, to say the least, very distracting.
Hence, 4, the director of the music should never be willing to sacrifice the liturgy, even the least part of it, to the exigencies of the music, whatever they may happen to be; but, on the contrary, he should be ever ready, if need be, to sacrifice even the most admirable musical numbers to the exigencies of the ceremonial.