“Make the soul dance a jig to heaven,”
then, in the name of common sense, why shall Master Haydn be permitted to offer the church singers a musical jig? The truth of the matter is that such measured movements, added to the gymnastic feats of melody which characterize the phrasing of the greater number of modern “Masses,” are ignorantly supposed to faithfully express that Christian joy and triumph which plain chant is quite as ignorantly supposed to be unable to inspire.
Let any one examine the church's chant, and especially its movement, and he will not fail to be struck with its remarkable consonance with, and the sense of exact propriety of, its accompaniment to the movements and demeanor of the sacred ministers and of all who are appointed to assist them in carrying out the sacred functions of divine worship. How majestic and dignified, how modest and devout, are its measures! A sort of continuous procession of sound, resembling now the deep murmurings of the waves of the ocean, now the gentle breathings of the wind, now the prolonged echoes of distant thunder, now the soft whispering of the woods in summer! Always grave and decorous in its phrasing. Never indulging in trivial antics or in meretricious languishing and voluptuous undulations. Time and arithmetical measures do not straiten and confine its heavenly inspirations, for the thoughts of the soul, and chiefly the thoughts of prayer, do not move like clockwork. One does not adore five minutes, propitiate two minutes, supplicate half a minute, and give [pg 154] thanks ten seconds; and to do either in 2/4 3/4 or 6/8 time would be the height of the ridiculous. A friend tells us that the only time he ever had to do either at High Mass was during the performance of that part of the score called “point d'orgue.” Is it any wonder that music for the church is a failure, and that plain chant still holds its own?
Secondly. The melody of modern music is essentially mechanical. Formed as it has been upon improved instrumentation, it is neither more nor less than a musical performance. The melody is therefore the chief thing; the words and their expression are only secondary. From which, as a necessary result—if the music be worth listening to—the most accomplished vocalists that the pecuniary resources of the church can procure are called in to render the selections. Hence, also, the introduction of women into the choir, contrary to the laws and traditions of the church, the banishment of the chorus from the sanctuary, and the erection of the detestable Protestant singing-gallery over the doorway of the church. This latter flagrant innovation on the proper rubrical disposition of the choir has been lately specially condemned in the “Instructions” of the cardinal vicar at Rome. No one surely will have the hardihood to call modern music an “ecclesiastical song,” as it should be called or it has no place in the church. It is the song of professional singers, distinctly a mechanical performance, and open, without the possibility of reform, to the most shocking abuses. What organist cannot recall instances in which the male and female singers carried on and perfected their courtship in the choir, and where in the same holy (?) place eating and drinking were indulged in during the sermon, and the daily newspapers read? The drinking of water or the chewing of tobacco—well, we would like to see the priest who has been able to banish either from his singing-gallery. These and other numerous irregularities we think ourselves fully justified in adducing as argument in this connection, simply because they exist, are common, notorious, and are a tolerated incumbrance with the mechanism; and, if effectually banished, would leave the said mechanism subject to no little friction and the production of tones of complaint which, whether they proceed from unoiled hinges or choirs, are not agreeable, considered as music.
Compare, again, the character and movement of those upon whom the ceremonies devolve. They are not at all mechanical, but strictly personal. In the first place, the actors are of a restricted class. They must be either men or boys. Women and girls are not permitted to celebrate or serve in any capacity at the sacred functions. The services of a graceful and intelligent acolyte are exceedingly pleasant and edifying to behold, but the stupidest and most awkward, blundering and unkempt boy would be preferable, and must be preferred, before any number of the brightest, most beautiful and quick-witted girls, because he alone possesses the one personal qualification requisite for that office—he is of the male sex. Intelligence, beauty, and graceful manners are not employed by the church for their own sake.
Again, the celebrant must be a priest, the deacon must have received deacon's orders, and all others who, although laymen, may, [pg 155] as acolytes and choristers, aid the consecrated personages in their duties, are invested with a quasi-ecclesiastical character while in office. No one should ever dream of engaging the services of Jews, Protestants, or infidels, or even of Catholics whose lives were notoriously bad, or who scandalously neglected receiving the sacraments, as our “gallery-choirs” are constituted in many a church in this country.
In the event of the priest not been able to sing, through any infirmity, no layman of the congregation could take his place, although he were the finest singer in the world, the very prince of cæremoniarii, and a greater saint than S. Peter himself.
From which considerations it will readily be seen how unsuited music is for the use of such persons acting in such a capacity.
Practically, music is the song of women. We shall show further on that it is essentially effeminate. There is music which men and boys can perform, it is true, but it is not the genuine article. The want of the female voice for the soprano is always felt; and in some countries where women are not yet admitted as church singers, and “church music” is highly prized, this want is supplied by castrati. It is not the song of ecclesiastics. That the use of it is tolerated, we know; that the singing of women and castrati in church is also tolerated, we know; but the “Instructions” (we guarantee that nineteen out of twenty would agree with us in saying that “Restrictions” would be their better title) of the cardinal vicar on “church music,” referred to by the writer of the late articles on that subject in The Catholic World, remind us of the probable “instructions” that would be given if the abuse of female acolytes were to creep in to any great extent. We would find, without doubt, prohibitions against the wearing of the hair in curls, or frisée, or à la Pompadour, short sleeves, low necks, and crinoline. They would be instructed also, without doubt, to wear a plain black cassock and linen surplice, be shod like men, and let not their courtesies savor of the débût of actresses upon the stage of a theatre. If these instructions would be faithfully observed ex animo, and boys were not extinct as a sex in the congregation, we do not think they would very long have any practical application.
Contrast now the character of plain chant with music as a suitable song for the duly-qualified church singers, from the priest down to the humblest cantor. That it is the only song fit for the consecrated priest needs no argument. Thank God, there is no “toleration” of “priests' music,” “sacerdotal solos,” “Prefaces,” and “Pater Nosters,” à la Mozart, Haydn, Cherubini, or Peters! It is distinguished especially by that gravity of movement, that modestie ecclesiastique, in its intonation, which becomes the sacerdotal character. Any other melody from the mouth of a priest at the altar would scandalize not only the least ones of the brethren of Christ, but the greatest also; and however terrible the “woe” our Lord would pronounce upon those who might scandalize the latter, we are not left in ignorance of what is reserved for those who fall under his judgment for scandalizing the former. Any one who has had the good fortune of assisting at a Mass chanted by a properly vested chorus, in strict Gregorian melody, with organ accompaniment, [pg 156] if you will—that is, nothing more than an accompaniment, as the cardinal vicar desires—will assuredly bear testimony that it was not a musical performance—that is, a melodious concert performed for its own sake in any degree—but a religious performance, a chant of priests and the “likes of them,” suggesting nothing of this world's vanities or luxury, and as unlike modern music and its mechanism as the melodious whisperings of an æolian harp are unlike a hand-organ with monkey obbligato.