"Bread of Fatness and Royal Dainties"

I am yet always surprised at differences in traditional practices of piety, probably always shall be.

Was inspired, chanted Ecce Panis... aloud during Communion procession this morning, (often hum or sing so quietly that at most the man next to me is aware - although yesterday one of the celebrants noticed the Ave Verum...) was delighted that some joined in, and after Mass in thanksgiving chose a litany from a book someone had given me, to pray silently.

Had never come across this version of a Litany of the Most Blessed Sacrament -

Wheat of the elect,

     Kind of lovely...

Wine of which virgins are the fruit, 

    Hmmm, odd visual evoked there...

Bread of fatness and royal dainties,

     Okay, wait... WHAT?

Clean oblation,

    Oh, okay, "clean," that's different, not "pure"? or "spotless"? or... where was I?

'Stop Asking “Is the music religious?” Ask Rather, “Is the music liturgical?”

Terrific and surprisingly comprehensive column by Hilary Cesare on the musical tradition of which too many of us have been cheated.

Some of the most divisive conversations amongst Catholics today arise over music at Mass. Most arguments revolve around the style of music or the instrumentation. However, these arguments generally don’t focus much on the texts of the music. The majority of us have grown up in parishes that are unaware of or lacking an essential part of Church’s musical heritage: The Propers. We should stop asking “Is the music religious?” but rather, “Is the music (and its text) liturgical?” The Church assigns specific chants/texts to each day of the liturgical year, just as she assigns certain readings and psalms to each day of the year. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal says that these scriptural, liturgical texts (called “the Propers”) are the ideal and most desirable thing to be sung at Mass (see GIRM 48, 74, 86-87). 

It is remarkable to me, how many otherwise well-informed  and zealous Catholic are COMPLETELY UNAWARE OF THEIR EXISTENCE.

I had been leading music at Masses for about five years before anyone ever introduced me to singing the Propers. I had studied them in Music History in college, but thought they must not apply to Novus Ordo Masses because I had never heard them in any parish or been asked to sing them. I had tried to prepare choirs with “sacred” or “traditional” music and hymns, but I felt like I had been cheated out of a great musical tradition that had been present in past centuries of the Church.

Well, no polemics from Miss Cesare, just information, gentle persuasion and a lively discussion begun in her combox.

Step by step!

A Once Thought Endangered[?] Species, Rising Like the Phoenix

No, nothing to do with poor Cecil.... though it is Cecilian, after a fashion.

I am not a subscriber, but Church Times, (British and Anglican church, that is,) has a piece on the resurgence of plainchant, (the "oldest continuously sung repertoire in Western Europe." Was the qualifier of "Europe" necessary?)  that others may wish to, and have the means to, read.
It is in reference to Christopher Hodkinson reflecting on the publication by the RSCM of a guide to plainchant, and a revision of a work by Dr Mary Berry, .(all bow.. eh, Scott? :oD) whose current successor Mr Hodkinson is (not sure how many others in the years intervening...).
He also had this to say, about a Mass in Barking, (a place name I admit to having always loved) -

There are rare moments in life when we are privileged to see the world not merely as it is, but as it could be.
One such was a rainy Sunday morning a few months ago, when I was able to attend Mass in a parish I hadn’t visited before. By the time Mass began the church was packed full, with close to three hundred people present, including many families with children (fifty of the younger ones went out to the Sunday School during the Liturgy of the Word). A team of about eight boys processed with the priest to the altar, carrying candles and incense.
During the Introit, as at the Offertory and Communion, the small choir chanted the Proper texts of the day in English using Adam Bartlett’s Simple English Propers with light organ accompaniment. The music for the antiphon was provided to the congregation so that they could join in, but there was also time at each of these points to sing good, time-honoured hymns. As Mass continued, the priest sang his words to the tunes in the Roman Missal, and the congregation responded confidently. The Ordinary of the Mass was sung in Latin chant: Mass XI (Orbis factor) rather than the more widely-known Missa de Angelis. The strength of the congregational singing suggested deep familiarity with the Gregorian melodies, and this was demonstrated in stunning fashion at the Alleluia, where the whole congregation joined the choir in singing one of the authentic Gregorian Alleluia tones, complete with its melismatic jubilus.
Considered from an artistic point of view, the Mass demonstrated a pleasing aesthetic unity: a happy marriage of English and Latin chants and with some familiar hymns interspersed. In other words, the music served the liturgy, and was for the most part an integral part of it, so that the aesthetic experience was also a liturgical experience. The essential key to achieving this was the priest singing of his parts: the sung dialogue between priest and congregation impressing silently upon us that music was the medium by which the words of the liturgy became the praise of Almighty God.
Where, you might wonder, was this remarkable parish, this model of good liturgical praxis? This was a typical Sunday at St Mary and St Ethelburga, Barking.
At first sight Barking might seem like an unlikely venue for the scene I have described. The church is a modest brick building constructed in the 1970’s, with pews on three sides of the altar and a leaky roof. The congregation I saw was as diverse as any in the country; people who might be described as ‘White, British’ were certainly a minority, and the parish could hardly be described as wealthy. The choir consisted of a handful of faithful volunteers, led by an organist who helps out playing sacred music on Sunday mornings even though his real métier is jazz piano on Saturday nights. Perhaps the only indisputably excellent feature of the church is its small pipe organ, a chamber instrument with a lovely tone which was donated to the church some years ago.
If you are familiar with English parish life you will already realise—it could hardly be otherwise—that the liturgical achievements of the parish are largely due to the tireless work over many years of the parish priest, Fr William Young. Possessed of few resources and largely self-taught, he has nevertheless achieved a genuine realisation of the spirit of the liturgy in his parish; a celebration that is at once genuinely inclusive, culturally rooted and faithful to the practice of the Church.
If this can be achieved in Barking, it is hard to see why it cannot be achieved everywhere.

Also, word of a workshop

Adventures In Progressive Solemnity, Long Form

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to attend a Mass in the Extraordinary Form recently.

Generally, although one is offered in my diocese every weekend, the distance and timing, and my own Sunday obligations are such that I instead seek a musicless Mass.

My husband, a late in life convert to Catholicism, was raised by a Mother who, Methodist or not, understood the concept of the "Sunday Obligation;" and at the time he and I arrived at an understanding, we usually attended two services every Sunday morning, (a Mass and whatever protestant church in the area gave promise of the best music,) so he was a very experienced church-goer by the time he was received into the Church.

The first time we attended a Mass with no singing or instrumental music whatsoever, he was taken aback, he had never before encountered any kind of Christian worship which did not include singing.

He hated it!

How could you praise God without bursting into song?

We continued in our nomadic life to seek musical excellence where we could find it, but gradually his hunger for the Eucharist eclipsed his musical preferences, and as he grew to understand the level to which liturgical music has sunk in many places, (Protestant as well as Catholic, I might add,) he embraced the quiet Mass.

We settled for a time in a parish that had a not too bad music program.

When I became involved in a "liturgy committee", (mea culpa,) they were in the process of trying to introduce music into the single quiet Mass in the entire town of five Catholic churches, and the congregants were fighting them tooth and nail.

The PIPs, for the most part, refused to pick up hymnals, and kept their jaws clenched.

Someone on the committee bemoaned the fact, and I repeated the complaint I had heard regarding the choice of hymns, which were puerile, to put it mildly; TPTB had supposed that what was needed as an ice-breaker were "easy" songs, so with no change from week to week, they were asking people to sing the stuff programmed at school Masses.

Over and over.

They knew whom I was quoting, so obviously the PIPs were trying to, forgive the paradox, make their voices heard.

I suggested instead of inserting fairly arbitrary songs, they start with the dialogues and the Our Father, maybe the alleluia before the Gospel.

Blank looks.

You know, (I had probably just learned this phrase,) “progressive solemnity.”

More blank looks.

Like it suggests in Musicam Sacram? A document of Vatican Council?

Oh, well, maybe, they all agreed, even the priests, that that might be the way to go - until they realized that "dialogue" meant singing initiated by the celebrant or other minister.

Nope, they just wanted the people to sing more.

Mind you, all of our priests had fine voices and could either read music very well, (including square-note, I later learned,) or were very good natural musicians who could pick up anything by ear.

But having drunk deeply of the spirits of Vatican, Too, they, (with the agreement or even insistence of their lay colleagues,) were intent upon getting the people to "do" more, not altering their own approach to celebrating Mass.

Eventually I was offered a music/choir director position.

(I had had one years before, while I was still in school, but this was so long ago that it was in the period when the job was picking out 4 hymns that used some of the same words as the readings and posting the numbers. The less said about it, the better.)

In this new position I tried to steer things toward a less preference-centric choice of music, but the deeply-ingrained, three generation long, choir culture; competing ethnic and language needs; and the power structure of rectory/school/religious ed office required constant negotiations.

Returned for a visit after we moved, discovered that some practices I had pressed for for years unsuccessfully had finally been adopted, ( singing the verbum Domini dialogues,) others which I had instituted had been discarded, (the Exultet as written, sung Sequences when called for,) and others which only began under my short tenure, not without push-back, were acknowledged as "the way we've always done it,"(singing the Lectionary psalm.)

The parish where I now find myself has a well-meaning but slap-dash approach to liturgical music and liturgy in general.

I have found other ways to contribute, and enjoy the lowest and earliest of Sunday

Since I am no longer responsible, or even much effected by any musical planning, for over three years I have thought of myself as taking R & R from the front lines of the Liturgy Police Action, (it's not a war!)

.............................

When I've worked in a parish setting, TPTB were always slightly Latin-phobic, so obviously only Ordinary Form for Mass or LotH. Convincing them that what they wanted to sing, or were accustomed to sing weren't necessarily the most important things to sing, and that the Church actually gave us guidance on this, (apart from what our diocesan OoW put out,) was like pulling teeth.

Instead of Progressive Solemnity, we were fortunate to even be able to achieve a sort of Regressive Triviality.

I have taken part in Extraordinary Form Masses with great joy, at Colloquia and when I have found myself in the environs of St John Cantius, or had the opportunity to attend one for which Jenny Donelson's schola sang; and I have even been happy to have the chance to hear the traditional Mass when neither the priest nor the musicians, nor we faithful in the pews seemed very sure of who should do what when.

I even accidentally attended Mass at a schismatic chapel, before I knew there were such people and places, and I give thanks for, and "enjoyed" that.

I have never had any musical responsibilities at these, (other than singing as told at CMAA functions,) so never thought much about what is supposed to be done.

I generally position myself near someone who seem confident of his postures and gestures, whose hand missal looks well-loved, and copy him.

But I have realized that there is very little consistency from place to place.

(The first clue that I had was the PBC notation about "IF the confiteor is said again, turn to pg 25," or some such.)

Some places one priest reads the Lesson and Gospel in English while another reads them quietly in Latin, others the vernacular follows the "real" scripture. Some places the PIPs kneel for the entire time except the Gospel and homily. Some everyone recites the Gloria along with the celebrant. One priest stopped in mid-Pater noster to silence the people who were singing along with him, another practically conducted us to sing along.

I was given to understand that this is all because, in the day, there really were no rubrics for the people.

But the rubrics for the musicians are pretty clear, I had thought, especially the distinctions between solemn, sung and read Mass, a la Musica Sacra.

But even these seem to be a source of confusion.

The organist at one parish told me she and her choir "just do what Father wants," and there are four different "Fathers" who might show up on a moments notice.

The Mass I attended Sunday was lovely, and profoundly prayerful.

I found myself entering into it such that I was saved from playing Liturgy Scorekeeper, (a more passive role that Liturgy Police,) no ticking off boxes, wondering why so and so did such and such.

It was only after Mass that I thought, hmmm, 2 Latin motets and one English anthem, or that was nice, that little organ filler, sounds like Rossini, and then repeat the anthem, or, gee, only one voice to a part, none of them very strong but sweet polyphony, or wait a minute, they only sang some of the Gregorian Ordinary, and we all spoke the rest together, didn't we?

It all seemed, it felt appropriate.

Were they, perhaps, applying principles of progressive solemnity from Musicam Sacram to the EF, taken advantage of the provision for varying "degrees" of sung Mass?

And why shouldn't they?

That might sound flip, or combative, but it's really not.

IRL I have no access to anyone particularly knowledgeable about this, and I thank God every day for Those InterWebs.

But the internet is full of Facts that Everybody Knows - that aren't true.

And there often seem to be differences of opinion as to what pronouncements are descriptive and what prescriptive.

I thought I had learned that Musicam Sacram does not apply to the EF, (though of course there are some who try to insist it doesn't apply to the Novus Ordo... who, pray tell, would they be?)

I was startled to learn, (but I am ignorant - people who keep up on these things also seemed startled to learn,) in the comment box of this several month old thread at New Liturgical Movement, which addresses these very questions, that a book of rubrics for the old Mass is available online. The date of publication is 1960, but would it be in effect for the 1962 Missal?

A lot of the conversation there of course is simply opinion - leaned, informed opinion, but not really helpful for those who might be preparing sing half take baby steps in preparing music for liturgy.

It doesn't matter to me right now so much what the Church should have asked of us as what She does ask.

I want to know what's what, and what ought to be, and what ought not -- because I have a premonition, or at least a hope, that I might need to know.

What “legitimate diversity” is there in the Extraordinary Form?

Chant Camp - an idea whose time has come!

There are more and more examples popping up all the time.

In his youth Nicholas Lemme identified with the grating sounds and angst-filled lyrics of grunge music.
“I played guitar in rock bands,” the 36-year-old Rapid City native said. “I didn’t know much about church music. To me, it was … hum-drum hymns.”
Today the former garage band member spends his days steeped in church music. Lemme teaches Gregorian chant to would-be priests at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in Denton, Neb.
Gone are the contemporary, hard-charging rhythms he once pounded out on his electric guitar.
These days, ancient and more measured melodies move him — enough to bring him back to his hometown to share his passion with a new generation of musicians.
Lemme and his wife, Elizabeth, will spend five days showing local children how to sing Gregorian chants, the unaccompanied, centuries-old sacred music of the Roman Catholic Church.
Gregorian Chant Summer Camp begins Monday at Terra Sancta Retreat Center in Rapid City and culminates Friday in a noon mass led by campers. The St. Michael’s Latin Mass Community, which operates within the Diocese of Rapid City, sponsors the five-day program.
“There is no other camp like this in the Black Hills,” camp coordinator Jean Carlson said.

"Ecce Panis Angelorum!"

Behold, the Bread of Angels!

What a delightful surprise, a priest notable for taking the shortest option the rubrics allow, (and sometimes ones they actually don't....) had us do the optional sequence this morning.

Spoken, not sung, but even so.... and the entire poem, not the short version.

Two weeks ago we omitted Veni Sancte Spiritus, (required!) and I assumed as pastor that was his choice, but it seems it may have been the visiting celebrant.

And a wonderful homily.

(I think the chant for the verse that begins "Ecce..." is one of the most haunting of the entire Gregorian repertoire. Who know, maybe one day we'll chant it here?)

" What had been a great deal of work for many years, was now a path to God and a channel for His voice — no longer something dry but full of life!"

An absolutely luminous description of how chant works on the soul.

The blog, from an ecumenical Benedictine community is new to me, (and this post is a few weeks old,)  but I shall surely return to it.

I felt that I needed to be praying for my friend, but I found my words faltering. I had had a thought flash through my mind to take my 1934 Antiphonale Monasticum to the hospital with me....I chanted the office of Sext. Because I was in the hospital setting, I needed to do it quietly so as not to be a disturbance. What I discovered and experienced defies my descriptions. It was as though 26 years of chanting these psalms came calmly but hurriedly to my side. What had been a great deal of work for many years, was now a path to God and a channel for His voice — no longer something dry but full of life!It showed me again, quite personally, the real purpose of chant — the communication of God’s love.

"A channel for His voice"... lovely!

So much for "the Great"

At the parish where civic holidays always trump sacred ones, we naturally did not celebrate the feast of Pope St Gregory, much less hear any chant, other than the tunes that run in my head.(On the other hand, we were also not asked to join in God Bless America, despite the rather vocal entreaties of a woman seated near me, so all in all, it was a great Mass, musically speaking...

But in this year of all years, wouldn't it be nice to have prayed this:

Through the intercession of Pope Saint Gregory, endow, we pray, with a spirit of wisdom those to whom You have given authority to govern

as a community?

How About Zacheus as Patron of the CMAA? he also was "small but loud"

One peculiarity of being almost off grid is getting het up about things long after others have vented and moved on.
I read CNS "news" in someone esle's diocesan paper, a week late or so, you see.

So, a representative of one arm of the Liturgical-Industrial Complex characterizes the Church Music Association of America as "small but loud."

I'd like to think CNS misquoted the fellow, or by neglecting context, implied he meant something he did not.

After all, their selective quoting of the director of the US bishops CDW equivalent makes him sound ignorant as all get out

Chant has a legitimate place in Catholic worship, Father Hilgartner said, but "there's room for other legitimate cultural adaptations, which includes the form that music for liturgy takes."

Chant's place is only "legitimate"? really? Is that what "pride of place" means, legitimate, but no more or less privileged than anything else?

Fr Hilgartner is surely not so ill-informed.

I mean, he couldn't be, right?

And back to the company man,

"There's a camp that's becoming entrenched, (saying) that the proper antiphons that are found in the missal are as essential to the liturgy as the reading, and no one would ever replace the proper antiphons with something else."

Aside from the question of whether that is a fair characterization of anyone's position, --- for a representative of a faction that is "entrenched" in the liturgy as business, and "entrenched" in a position whereby they profit from the sale of those hymns, (take the term to mean text or tune,) that usurp the place of the propers, and has been so "entrenched" for nigh on four decades, to describe someone else as "entrenched" -- well, it's rich.

Gregorian Chant Preached a Sermon More Eloquent Than the Priest's

Jeffrey Tucker has a fascinating post on the reaction of that barbarian, Robert Louis Stevenson to the chanting at the Mission at Carmel.

I heard the old indians singing mass. That was a new experience, and one well worth hearing. There was the old man who led and the women who so worthily followed. It was like a voice out of the past. They sang by tradition, from the teaching of early missionaries long since turned to clay. And still in the roofless church you may hear the old music. Padre Casanove, will, I am sure, be the first to pardon and understand me when I say the old Gregorian singing preached a sermon more eloquent than his own. Peace on earth, good will to men so it seemed to me to say; and to me as a Barbarian, who hears on all sides evil speech and the roughest bywords about the Indian race, to hear Carmel Indians sing their latin words with so good a pronunciation and give out these ancient chants with familiarity and fervor suggested new and pleasant reflections.

Remarkable! (Not to mention, sacred, beautiful, universal....)

Chant and Becoming a Community

I heard a smidge of an NPR piece on a movie (new? old?), that I would very much like to see, Of Gods and Men.

The actor being interviewed was unfamiliar to me, (apparently famous as part of some big-budget, 'splosion franchise,) but he talked about how the actors "became" the seven (heroic,) French Trappists they were called upon to play.

Hmm... monks work, they read, they eat, but we all do that, what do they do that makes them different?

And what they came up with was, "Monks chant."

And so, they chanted.

And by singing the chant, by singing together, (which, whether the actors knew it or not, whether they intended it or not, as long as they did not deliberately intend not to do so, was praying together,) they became a community.

What a shame such a powerful tool is wasted in parishes across the country, no, around the world...

Anyone seen this?

"One Small Step for a Liturgical Musician, One Giant Step for Liturgical Music"

...or so one imagines Dom Neil Alden Armstrong saying, in his role as chantmaster.

Gary Penkala, (of CanticaNova, the first place you should check when you want to buy appropriate Catholic liturgical music,) offers not one, but TEN of those "small steps.":

1. Jubilate Deo — Start with Jubilate Deo before [anything else]...
2. Dialogues — Encourage (and help) your priests to sing the dialogues of the Mass, particularly when the new Mass translation is introduced. [emphasis supplied]
3. Children — Teach chant to children... they have many fewer hang-ups about singing Latin than adults do — in fact, they enjoy the challenge tremendously!
   
4. Teens — Teach teens chant. ...
5. Adult choirs — These groups should have an ample repertoire of chants, from the In paradisum sung by the Funeral Choir to the Te Deum sung by the Festival Choir at the church dedication. ...
6. Basic Mass — If your parish doesn't already know it, teach them the so-called Missa primitiva, introduced in this order over a period of several years:
   • Agnus Dei XVIII
   • Kyrie XVI
   • Sanctus XVIII
   • Pater noster
   • Gloria VIII
   • Credo III
     
7. Seasonal chants — Sing some chants that will last a whole season. Some easy ones: Veni Emmanuel for Advent, Parce Domine for Lent, Alleluia for Eastertide.
8. Repetition — Learn pieces that can be repeated often, not only within the liturgical season, but from year to year....
   
9. Organ music — Play organ music based on chant....
10. Patience & Praise — Perhaps the most inportant advice in this article is this: Be extremely patient with the choir, the congregation, the priest and deacon and Praise them abundantly....

With these small steps begin your journey toward the ideal of "principal place" of chant in the Mass. Once chant is comfortable and accepted, scholas can begin the work of actually singing the Mass, rather than singing at Mass. The Propers (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia/Tract, Offertory and Communion) can once again be recognized as the music that belongs to the Roman Rite and belongs in the Mass itself.

Go read the details and begin that ascent up the Holy Mountain.

And BUY something.

Terrific site, Canticanova, really a treasure.

Sacred Time

A rather remarkable thread on the increasingly, well, on PrayTell, the topic ranging from Tolkein to Dr Who to Jaroslav Vajda to Ennio Morricone... what caught my eye was Adam Woods comments on the aptness of the chant to fulfill its objectives in regard to occurring in our time but placing us squarely, [yeah, that's a pun...,] in sacred time.

This is music’s role in the Liturgy. All music, but especially unmetered chant, drastically changes our perception of time: seconds feel like they have lengthened into minutes, hours collapse into moments.

This mirrors and evokes the collapse of time that takes place in the consecration, as we create in the present time both the offering of the Last Supper and the Offering on the Cross, collapsing them both, along with the countless other Eucharists of the last 200o years into a present moment ...

The “minimalist” school of composing in the mid 20th cent. was attempting to accomplish artificially what Chant had already achieved naturally- a slowing down of our perception of time to allow a single moment to linger and expand before us, replacing one sense of time (chronos) with a deeper one ....This is also the purpose of the Divine Office: “to sanctify the whole course of day and night.”

Marvelous!

This just screams to be photo-shopped...

An indie chant group called "Smashing Punctums".



The stripes of the flag logo obviously translates to four line, huh?
(Would the cover model for Blind Melon be the "ti girl"?)

Why My House Will Never Be Sold

I will never get the clutter under control so that a realtor can show the dang thing.
I am constantly being way-laid in my packing efforts by books which I haven't seen in a while, and even sometimes of which I was completely unaware.

From its presence on a shelf with cookbooks (a recipe for a barley-based dessert still eludes me...) I think I know the used book emporium whence this came -- the Catholic Choirmasters Course, Third Quarter, (theory of chant, and chironomy how-to,) what seems to be a correspondence course published by GIA when they still knew what their first initial stood for.

The original owner of the book was doing his lessons in 1951.

The editor is one Clifford Bennett, and the Lessons are by Rev. Ethelbert Thibeault -- wonder if they left any other legacy I can find online. (O joy! another timesuck!)

Suddenly , in the middle of one lesson we read:

Gregorian Chant is a Prayer

Before proceeding with the technical theory of this lesson, the author feels that there is a certain value in repeating once again that Gregorian melodies were conceived to pour forth a common prayer, the prayer of the solemn liturgy of all the Christian people. Our liturgy is in fact the very center of Christianity.... Religious music has one purpose: the musical clothing of the words of the liturgy.

Can one imagine the leader of the Music Group saying something similar as he launches into teaching his ensemble "Awesome God"?

Addendum - Bennet was the founder, in '41. of the Gregorian Institute of America

Born to Chant!

Charles in CenCa nails it.
A confession -- I always admired, liked, appreciated, wanted the chant -- but I thought it was just one among other approppriate and equally (by me,) admired, liked, appreciated, wanted forms of music;some of which, (Oh the HOWWOW!) are contemporary, and some of which are popular, (though none of which are contemporary and popular.)

Not so, not so.

Great, it's my OWN fault I've never accomplished much...

Review of an interesting-sounding book.

I have long accepted that my own sloth is responsible for most of what goes wrong in my life. (Heard some interesting discourse on the Seven Deadlies yesterday on the radio.)

Anyway, secular society seems to be in agreement with what my Faith tells me.

David Shenk with “The Genius in All of Us,” ... argues that we have before us not a “talent scarcity” but a “latent talent abundance.” Our problem “isn’t our inadequate genetic assets,” but “our inability, so far, to tap into what we already have.” The truth is “that few of us know our true limits, that the vast majority of us have not even come close to tapping what scientists call our ‘un­actualized potential.’ ”

... We’ve traditionally regarded superior talent as a rare and mysterious gift bequeathed to a lucky few. In fact, Shenk writes, science is revealing it to be the product of highly concentrated effort. He describes the work of the psychologist Anders Ericsson, who wondered if he could train an ordinary person to perform extraordinary feats of memory. When Eric­sson began working with a young man identified as S.F., his subject could, like most of us, hold only seven numbers in his short-term memory. By the end of the study, S.F. could correctly recall an astonishing 80-plus digits. With the right kind of mental discipline, Ericsson and his co-­investigator concluded, “there is seemingly no limit to memory performance.” Shenk weaves accounts of such laboratory experiments, conducted on average people, with the tales of singularly accomplished individuals — Ted Williams and Michael Jordan, Mozart and Beethoven— who all worked relentlessly to hone their skills.

Bring these two domains together, and a new vision of achievement begins to come into focus. Shenk’s “ambitious goal,” he tells us, is to take this widely dispersed research and “distill it all into a new lingua franca, adopting helpful new phrases and metaphors” to replace old and misleading ones. Forget about genes as unchanging “blueprints” and talent as a “gift,” all tied up in a bow. “We cannot allow ourselves to think that way anymore,” he declares with some fervor. Instead, Shenk proposes, imagine the genome as a giant control board, with thousands of switches and knobs that turn genes off and on or tune them up and down. And think of talent not as a thing, but as a process; not as something we have, but as something we do....

Shenk doesn’t neglect the take-home point we’re all waiting for, even titling a chapter “How to Be a Genius (or Merely Great).” The answer has less in common with the bromides of motivational speakers than with the old saw about how to get to Carnegie Hall practice, practice, practice. Whatever you wish to do well, Shenk writes, you must do over and over again, in a manner involving, as Ericsson put it, “repeated attempts to reach beyond one’s current level,” which results in “frequent failures.” This is known as “deliberate practice,” and over time it can actually produce changes in the brain, making new heights of achievement possible. Behold our long rumored potential, unleashed at last! Shenk is vague about how, exactly, this happens, but to his credit he doesn’t make it sound easy. “You have to want it, want it so bad you will never give up, so bad that you are ready to sacrifice time, money, sleep, friendships, even your reputation,” he writes. “You will have to adopt a particular lifestyle of ambition, not just for a few weeks or months but for years and years and years. You have to want it so bad that you are not only ready to fail, but you actually want to experience failure: revel in it, learn from it.”

It’s in this self-help section that two weaknesses in Shenk’s argument become evident. The first is the matter of where the extreme drive and discipline that greatness requires are supposed to come from. Shenk tells us about Beethoven writing 60 to 70 drafts of a single phrase of music, and Ted Williams hitting practice pitches until his hands bled.

... He is careful to say that we are not born without limits — it’s just that none of us can know what those limits are “before we’ve applied enormous re­sources and invested vast amounts of time.” He ducks the implication that these limits will, eventually, reveal themselves, and that they will stop most of us well short of Mozart territory. There’s a tension here between Shenk’s extravagant talk of “greatness” and “genius” and the more modest message he delivers: practice can improve your performance, perhaps far more than you imagined.

I think all this ties in, somehow, with Me and Solfege, (a play in many, many acts,) -- I resist practice, but I know, and have it demonstrated regularly to me, that in this, as it so many areas of endeavor, it works.
Not only does it work, but it is the ONLY thing that works -- there is no substitute for practice, for just doing it.

"You Sing With Your Ears"

Susan Hallauer, of Anonymous 4 conducts chant workshops:

The music [the young women of "Angelus," a five-voice student ensemble at Mount Vernon High School,] sing is ancient, largely evolved from oral traditions, "And all of it is sacred," said Dana Taylor, their music director.

Known generically as "plainsong," the music is sung a cappella and in unison (no harmony).

People raised in the Roman Catholic tradition know the music well. [If only!] Plainsong or "Gregorian chant" is sung during the celebration of Mass; it is a ritual part of worship throughout the day in monastery life.

But the ethereal beauty of the highly formulaic sound taps into a "universal emotion" that has the capacity to lift up the spirits of all who listen, be it in a Cathedral setting or a concert hall, said Susan Hallauer, who, as a founding member of the internationally renowned vocal ensemble, Anonymous 4, has performed the Chant repertoire in both types of venues since 1986.

She also teaches others how to sing it.

And so it was, in a cathedrallike setting last Saturday, when Hallauer met with 14 Mount Vernon High School students, including members of Angelus, for a daylong Chant Camp at the Monastery of the Immaculate Conception in Ferdinand, Ind.

The event was sponsored by Mount Vernon High's music department, Taylor said, but participants included representatives from the Monastery at Ferdinand, the Arch Abbey at St. Meinrad and faculty from Indiana University's Ancient Music and Medieval Studies departments.

Solemn Vespers in Florida

I see nothing on their website but a friend who lives in Martin county called me excitedly to say that her parish bulletin had a blurb noting that (First?) Vespers for All Souls in the Extraordinary Form would be prayed, (and sung!) by the Schola Cantorum of the Palm Beaches in a place called Prosperity Farms.

If I can find anything more on line, I'll post it.
(And I should admit I'm jealous....)

CORRECTION: (10/28) First Vespers for All SAINTS

Miles Christi

Via the website of the Knights of Divine Mercy I learn about the Miles Christi who have this to say, on their website, about their understanding of liturgical celebration:

F
aithful to the Catholic spirit, in Miles Christi we cultivate the most precious elements of liturgical tradition. In the midst of so much mediocrity and banalization of the sacred, we seek to bring forth an incessant reminder of the divine transcendence through nobility and beauty of form. The solemnity of liturgical worship allows a glimpse into the splendor of the supernatural--a ray of Heaven coming to touch the earth.

In our Religious Order, in communion with the living liturgical tradition, we give a privileged place to the use of Latin, a sacred language which, besides "being for the Church an inexhaustible source of human-Christian culture, and a most precious treasure of piety, guards intact the dignity, beauty, and original vigor of prayer and chant." It is the language that "surpasses the boundaries of nations and possesses a marvelous spiritual power" (PAUL VI, Sacrificium laudis, Aug 15, 1966).

A liturgy "devoid of the modulation of Gregorian chant, which is born in the most intimate fibers of the heart and in which faith is enthroned and charity burns, would be like a blown-out candle which henceforth could neither shine nor attract the gaze and thoughts of men" (Ibid). In Miles Christi we cultivate Gregorian chant, this expression of genuine piety that the Church continues to recognize as "proper to the Roman liturgy. Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services" (Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116).

I see no link on their website to the newsletter from which the Knights of Divine Mercy quote, so I will just repeat that which I find on the latter's site

"The musical evolution that drifts away from Gregorian Chant leads to a decline in the sense of Church and of God. In a hand-written message, revealed on the occasion of the Centenary of the Motu Proprio of St. Pius X, 'Tra le sollecitudini,' on the renewal of sacred music, John Paul II called on the Church to begin a profound renewal of liturgical chant and of music in the Mass and in other ecclesiastical celebrations.

In his letter, dated November 22, 2003, the feast of St. Cecilia -- patroness of sacred music -- John Paul II pointed out that this centenary gave him 'the opportunity to recall the important role of sacred music, which St. Pius X presented both as a means of lifting up the spirit to God and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.'

The Holy Father then gave an account of the Church's age-old teaching on the nobility and importance of liturgical chant and pointed out that 'in this perspective, in the light of the Magisterium, of St. Pius X, and my other Predecessors, and taking into account in particular the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council, I would like to re-propose several fundamental principles regarding the composition and the use of music in liturgical celebrations.

First of all, it is necessary to emphasize that music destined for sacred rites must have sanctity as its reference point. The Holy Pontiff warned, 'Today, moreover, the sacred music genre has been broadened to include repertoires that cannot be part of the celebration without violating the spirit and norms of the Liturgy itself.' He also pointed out that 'consequently, not all forms of music can be considered suitable for litrugical celebrations."

Another principle 'is that of beauty of form. There can be no music composed for the celebration of sacred rites which is not first of all true art.

The sacred context of the liturgical celebration must never become a laboratory for experimentation. Pope John Paul II later said, 'Gregorian chant has a special place,' since it 'also continues today to be the element of unity' in the Liturgy.

The Holy Father recognized the value of popular liturgical music, but regarding it he pointed out that 'I make my own the fundamental law that St. Pius X formulated in these words, 'The more closely a church composition approaches the Gregorian melodic form in its rhythm, inspiration, and savor, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the father it is from that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the church.'

John Paul II continued, 'Recalling the Holy Father (St. Pius X), the special attention which sacred music rightly deserves stems from the fact that, 'being an integral part of the solemn Liturgy, sacred music participates in the general end of the Liturgy, which is the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful.' Since sacred music interprets and expresses the deep meaning of the sacred test to which it is intimately linked, it must be able to add greater efficacy to the text, in order that through sacred music the faithful may be better disposed for the reception of the fruits of grace belonging to the celebration of th emost holy mysteries.'

In this regard St. Pius X pointed out, using the term 'universality,' the other prerequisite of music destined for worship, 'while every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its inherent music, still these forms must be subordinate in such a manner to the general character of sacred music, that no one from any other nation would receive an impression other than good on hearing them.'

The fact is that Gregorian chant is, above all, a sacred chant - liturgical, reverential, and enriching. Gregorian chant is not content with putting music, like a veneer, over the liturgical text, nor with putting lyrics into some music. Gregorian chant makes the words sing the music they contain. Studies show that the musical evolution that drifts away from the Gregorian leads to a decline in the sense of the Church and of God.

Gregorian chant is a school that teaches how to serve God and be a true man. It helps us to be human and Christian. It imprints its mark on one's character and sensibility, it fine tunes the soul. It can be sung by one person alone: it places each individual before God. And, at the same time, it has a social role: it is never socialistic. Sensibility and spirituality are not two juxtaposed realities, but intertwined. Gregorian chant is not the work of virtuosos, but of great contemplatives who draw their inspiration from their life of intimacy with God.

Gregorian chant is above all, a prayer. In consoles, edifies, and sanctifies the faithful; and through it, the faithful are better prepared to receive divine grade: it is a 'sacramental.' It favors silence and meditation, creating a disposition that leads to the supernatural world: in it prayer becomes music. The relationship with God is deepened and leads one to listen to his unique vocation. With nothing that is artificial, it excludes all types of mediocrity, fulfilling the desire of St. Pius X, 'that the faithful pray with beauty.'

It is good to bear in mind these documents of St. Pius X and John Paul II. Moreover, we know already the deep concern of Pope Benedict XVI - a lover of good and classical music - to foster true sacred music and Gregorian Chant for the Roman liturgy. 'An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.' (Benedict XVI, June 24, 2006).

Thus, the French philosopher, Simone Weil said, 'A passionate lover of music can be a perverse man, but I would have great difficulty believing that of a man who thirsts for Gregorian chant."

"Gregorian chant is a school that teaches how to serve God and be a true man"... I love that.
I think the manliness of this music is something that is not often enough noted.