Coming across this excellent interview this morning was very providential, Dr. Kwasniewski, as I just posted a reflection on my blog on the importance of authentic sacred music (and the primacy of Gregorian Chant) in the Church's sacred liturgy. Thank you for another thoughtful interview on a crucially important topic relating to liturgical restoration. God bless you.
Sure! It's not a very scholarly post though: it's more intended to encourage the Catholic faithful to be more open to the benefits of sacred chant and its objective superiority over what they hear in most mainstream parish liturgies today. My readers mainly come from the Novus Ordo, so my goal is to expose them to those elements of the sacred Tradition that they very rarely get to experience in their parish liturgies, sadly.
Thank you, dr. K. This rings true to me: I poisoned my soul for decades before turning the music that embodies the good, the true, and the beautiful. Every day I have to fight against the juke box in my head.
Me too! As I've related in other places, I listened to a crap ton of bad music in my youth, and I despise all of it today, but it's still lodged in the soul. And there's no earworm like a pop song...
I remember reading a long time ago someone writing about Gregorian chant, saying that it was developed specifically to be non-emotional, but simply present the words themselves. It was supposedly a reaction to the music of antiquity (now lost) which was written to be "sexy" and arouse the passions.
In a way this is true; but all music is emotional in one way or another (that's in its nature), so it's more a question of inducing the right kinds of emotion, in the right way (gently, calmly, with an emphasis on the divine words).
Yes, quite so I guess. Yet the thing about Gregorian chant is that it's not actually music -- hum a few bars of . . . Decades ago when I was still working in the city, I went to a wonderful church for Mass and for the music, and at a certain point they decided to start having the congregation sing a lot of the mass in chant. And sure enough we did learn to do so, and it was wonderful, despite the occasional missing of the next note, which normally should have been "up" but instead was "down."
Of course it's music! It has rhythm, melody, and an implied harmony. And the melodies are extremely memorable. In fact, for centuries it was transmitted only orally, because it's so catchy. And at this point, having sung it for 30 years, I've got a few hundred chants memorized.
I have always taken music very seriously since I began reading Plato when I was a teenager. My personal approach, which I do not recommend for any other person, is the same clinical view in which I approach everything. I want to know every nook and cranny of my soul. Every single dark recess. I was this way when I was twelve years old, and I am the same way today. My father gave me very few admonitions. One was do not go too far into psychology because many psychologists wind up committing suicide. I never forgot his stern warning. I have experienced the dangers of psychology. Music is a huge part of human psychology. And I am a researcher still breathing. What I understand I no longer fear. I'm not afraid of anything human. Peace brother.
Despite the fact that the 'popular music' my Catholic band has made for 50 years is somewhat in your crosshairs here, I lend you my enthusiastic support for the principles you espouse! especially in regard to use of chant for right worship. In fact I have been chanting at TLM for many years now. My prayer is that those other songs I have written and created might bring more benefit than woe to souls.
While the interview made many good points, I do have these two objections:
#1. Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven represent corruptions of music following the Protestant Revolution... and worse. Placing harmony before melody makes music more bestial and sensual, especially when it is syncopated. The Gregorian Chant has a free-flowing harmony made up of broken chords and repeated resonances that one can easily discern in chant that is sung well.
Furthermore, the methodology for singing chant in the liber usualis is a complete trainwreck, with too much emphasis on metre, and little emphasis on text. Chant has a free flowing rhythm, and the best analogy is to well sung chant is the contemplative Eagle Soaring with the winds of the Holy Ghost. The Gregorian Chants are to music what the Icons are to visual art- the summit of ethereal perfection.
#2. St Thomas Aquinas notwithstanding, the horror of Venial Sin- particularly those done with deliberation... ie... I know this is sinful, but it is only a venial sin, so I am going to do it... is that it is an infinite offense against God, pierces the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and withdraws the soul from the Heavenly Courts. It retards our prayers, making them not pleasing to God, In the Apocalypse Our Lord says that He will vomit the tepid from His mouth. Listening to Bad Music- which includes much "classical" music"- is an occasion of sin to be avoided. It is immersing ourselves in the sensual and the barbaric. Our Spiritual Progress should be ever higher and more rapid. We should develop the love of prayer and silence- and music should enhance the degrees of silence, not detract from them.
Thanks for link to your book on the topic. I need further ammunition in approaching our good pastor who nonetheless does not feel up to a battle with outrageous “choir teams.” And he celebrates the Latin Mass as well at another parish! We are also in diocese of Archbishop Sample, who wrote well about sacred music while in Marquette. The bishop there implemented a great program of sacred music based upon Sample’s legacy. But the forces of darkness are still sometimes too much to move. So locally we still get All Are Welcome. Even the USCCB denied that.
Dr K--I'm sure you've discussed this somewhere I haven't yet found, but the problem of polyphony, or rather how to approach it?
I don't (in my heart) want to cut off this important part of the tradition--and yet, it seems to me (in my head) that once you admit it you open the door to a too-wide variety of styles also. For instance, those Renaissance composers where the only major difference between their motets and madrigals is the nature of the text, rather than anything stylistic in the music...it seems to me that from a logical standpoint once you get beyond chant you get into murkier waters of, as the poet-philosopher Robert Seger once wrote, "what to leave in / what to leave out" :)
This is not quite true. Most of the Renaissance composers were careful to make their sacred works "smoother" and less jarring, or less dance-like, than their madrigals. One can see a conscious effort being made to fit the sacred polyphony into the larger context of the liturgy and alongside the chant.
Coming across this excellent interview this morning was very providential, Dr. Kwasniewski, as I just posted a reflection on my blog on the importance of authentic sacred music (and the primacy of Gregorian Chant) in the Church's sacred liturgy. Thank you for another thoughtful interview on a crucially important topic relating to liturgical restoration. God bless you.
Thank you, Father! Would you be willing to share the link to your blog post here?
Sure! It's not a very scholarly post though: it's more intended to encourage the Catholic faithful to be more open to the benefits of sacred chant and its objective superiority over what they hear in most mainstream parish liturgies today. My readers mainly come from the Novus Ordo, so my goal is to expose them to those elements of the sacred Tradition that they very rarely get to experience in their parish liturgies, sadly.
Here is a link to the post:
https://www.hostiamimmaculatam.net/post/how-sacred-music-leads-us-to-the-eucharistic-heart-of-jesus
Thank you. What you are doing is very important.
https://catholiccounsel.substack.com/p/pope-leos-latin-mass-loving-emissary
Good, I hope you are right!
Zuckerkandl calls repeated syncopation “rhythmic dissonance” which I think is an insightful formulation.
Oh, Dr. Kwasniewski, just your description of chant has elevated my body off the bed! Gorgeous. Simply gorgeous!
Thank you, dr. K. This rings true to me: I poisoned my soul for decades before turning the music that embodies the good, the true, and the beautiful. Every day I have to fight against the juke box in my head.
Me too! As I've related in other places, I listened to a crap ton of bad music in my youth, and I despise all of it today, but it's still lodged in the soul. And there's no earworm like a pop song...
I remember reading a long time ago someone writing about Gregorian chant, saying that it was developed specifically to be non-emotional, but simply present the words themselves. It was supposedly a reaction to the music of antiquity (now lost) which was written to be "sexy" and arouse the passions.
In a way this is true; but all music is emotional in one way or another (that's in its nature), so it's more a question of inducing the right kinds of emotion, in the right way (gently, calmly, with an emphasis on the divine words).
Yes, quite so I guess. Yet the thing about Gregorian chant is that it's not actually music -- hum a few bars of . . . Decades ago when I was still working in the city, I went to a wonderful church for Mass and for the music, and at a certain point they decided to start having the congregation sing a lot of the mass in chant. And sure enough we did learn to do so, and it was wonderful, despite the occasional missing of the next note, which normally should have been "up" but instead was "down."
Of course it's music! It has rhythm, melody, and an implied harmony. And the melodies are extremely memorable. In fact, for centuries it was transmitted only orally, because it's so catchy. And at this point, having sung it for 30 years, I've got a few hundred chants memorized.
I have always taken music very seriously since I began reading Plato when I was a teenager. My personal approach, which I do not recommend for any other person, is the same clinical view in which I approach everything. I want to know every nook and cranny of my soul. Every single dark recess. I was this way when I was twelve years old, and I am the same way today. My father gave me very few admonitions. One was do not go too far into psychology because many psychologists wind up committing suicide. I never forgot his stern warning. I have experienced the dangers of psychology. Music is a huge part of human psychology. And I am a researcher still breathing. What I understand I no longer fear. I'm not afraid of anything human. Peace brother.
Despite the fact that the 'popular music' my Catholic band has made for 50 years is somewhat in your crosshairs here, I lend you my enthusiastic support for the principles you espouse! especially in regard to use of chant for right worship. In fact I have been chanting at TLM for many years now. My prayer is that those other songs I have written and created might bring more benefit than woe to souls.
While the interview made many good points, I do have these two objections:
#1. Bach, Brahms, and Beethoven represent corruptions of music following the Protestant Revolution... and worse. Placing harmony before melody makes music more bestial and sensual, especially when it is syncopated. The Gregorian Chant has a free-flowing harmony made up of broken chords and repeated resonances that one can easily discern in chant that is sung well.
Furthermore, the methodology for singing chant in the liber usualis is a complete trainwreck, with too much emphasis on metre, and little emphasis on text. Chant has a free flowing rhythm, and the best analogy is to well sung chant is the contemplative Eagle Soaring with the winds of the Holy Ghost. The Gregorian Chants are to music what the Icons are to visual art- the summit of ethereal perfection.
#2. St Thomas Aquinas notwithstanding, the horror of Venial Sin- particularly those done with deliberation... ie... I know this is sinful, but it is only a venial sin, so I am going to do it... is that it is an infinite offense against God, pierces the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary, and withdraws the soul from the Heavenly Courts. It retards our prayers, making them not pleasing to God, In the Apocalypse Our Lord says that He will vomit the tepid from His mouth. Listening to Bad Music- which includes much "classical" music"- is an occasion of sin to be avoided. It is immersing ourselves in the sensual and the barbaric. Our Spiritual Progress should be ever higher and more rapid. We should develop the love of prayer and silence- and music should enhance the degrees of silence, not detract from them.
In the Holy Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
Thanks for link to your book on the topic. I need further ammunition in approaching our good pastor who nonetheless does not feel up to a battle with outrageous “choir teams.” And he celebrates the Latin Mass as well at another parish! We are also in diocese of Archbishop Sample, who wrote well about sacred music while in Marquette. The bishop there implemented a great program of sacred music based upon Sample’s legacy. But the forces of darkness are still sometimes too much to move. So locally we still get All Are Welcome. Even the USCCB denied that.
I guess if it does soothe us savage beasts it must be music, whether chant or Mozart.
Dr K--I'm sure you've discussed this somewhere I haven't yet found, but the problem of polyphony, or rather how to approach it?
I don't (in my heart) want to cut off this important part of the tradition--and yet, it seems to me (in my head) that once you admit it you open the door to a too-wide variety of styles also. For instance, those Renaissance composers where the only major difference between their motets and madrigals is the nature of the text, rather than anything stylistic in the music...it seems to me that from a logical standpoint once you get beyond chant you get into murkier waters of, as the poet-philosopher Robert Seger once wrote, "what to leave in / what to leave out" :)
This is not quite true. Most of the Renaissance composers were careful to make their sacred works "smoother" and less jarring, or less dance-like, than their madrigals. One can see a conscious effort being made to fit the sacred polyphony into the larger context of the liturgy and alongside the chant.