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On Vatican II and the Music of the People
BY WEBSTER YOUNG
August 12-18, 2007 Issue |
Posted 8/7/07 at 12:08 PM
In the documents of the Second Vatican Council is a mandate
for an encouragement of the popular in music — the “music of the people” at
Mass.
This is an aspect of Vatican II that lovers of fine music
hope will not always be understood as it has been by many parishes — for
several reasons.
For one, it could not be foreseen at the time of the council
how “music of the people” outside the church would evolve — that is, American
pop music was just then beginning a conquest of the entire world. By the 1980s,
it would inundate it, in all forms of media.
Today in America, up to 90 million people have muzak forced
upon them daily — and it ranges from trivial pop music to the most debased
forms of rap music. Musical ignorance is on the rise among the populace, and
musical taste is in decline.
Where once musical amateurs used to play the piano and sing,
some amateurs today beat on tribal drums. Under these circumstances, would the
framers of the Vatican II documents want this kind of “music of the people” to
be brought into church?
I use the word debased mostly from a musical standpoint and
not a moral one, although the moral is also relevant. Popular music is debased
from a musical point of view. It is weak and unaccomplished when compared to
finer music. Moreover, there are many forms of folk music in the world that are
superior musically to pop and rock music.
In spite of this fact, every country in the world today has
come under the dominance of rock and pop music and is arranging its ancestral
folk music to the rock beat.
Today it is possible to hear a mild rock beat (such as might
have been found in the Everly Brothers, for example) in almost every kind of
music in the world — even in new church songs. Folk guitar players, too often,
don’t know what to do but strum their guitars in mild rock rhythm.
Many new songs have the typical three- and four-chord
harmonies of pop songs and melodies that do not reach the level of the mediocre
when compared to disciplined music, the great hymns, Gregorian chant or
classical melody.
From a technical-musical point of view, most pop music is
unaccomplished as music. However, there can be no question that this is now
“the music of the people.”
The participants of Vatican II could not know that “the
people’s music” would soon mirror, all over the world, the juggernaut of
American popular music — one of the weakest folk music forms in music history,
and yet a superpower in music.
It is unlikely that a classical composer can also be an
expert on the history, politics or theology of Vatican II — and I am not. But
as a practicing musician and Catholic, music lovers can observe the resulting
musical system and its musical fruits. There is a lack of thought, organization
and resourcefulness in Catholic church music and its publication.
One fact of my own experience serves as a telling sign of
the weakness of the volunteer system in church music. As a published composer
of symphonies, ballets and operas (and I am a pianist, violinist, and
guitarist) — I have never once been spontaneously asked for advice by anyone —
priests and lay musicians alike — in the whole of my life as a Catholic in
America. I am invariably asked, quite casually, to sing in choirs and play at
Mass — and to work under a volunteer little qualified for his or her position.
It is remarkable that no one has ever asked me to do
something — not even in a single question — worthy of my expertise in music. I
do not raise this point because of sour grapes — I am content in my work as a
classical composer; I raise it as a first-hand example of the lack of interest
in musical improvement in the volunteer system.
I am not an authority on Vatican II, but I do know — with
the professional musician’s authority — that today music in the Church is
mostly disordered. As a student in music school and conservatory, I found that
the music of the current Catholic Church was considered laughable by my
professors and fellow music students. And still today, most serious musicians consider
it so.
One may well suspect that today’s lack of planning reflects
a lack of foresight, planning and consultation of qualified musicians present
(or omitted) in our parishes. One wonders what, if musical scholars and
professional musicians were consulted, might result from the encouragement of
the “music of the people” at Mass.
If they were consulted, competent classical musicians would
have given caution on many subjects. For example, they would have warned that
Gregorian chant and old hymns are not ever likely to be translated well into
another language. Chants like the Pater Noster would never be as beautiful when
translated. Only with the utmost in expert care can a translation be
successfully done — and even then the result will always be inferior to the
original.
Webster Young is a
classical music composer.
websteryounglinks.com.
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