How refreshing. I can hear Sir Anthony Hopkins' (as CSL) Welsh cadences throughout the brief passages.
Francis, I think it generally applies to RC liturgy as does the corpus on the crucifix, a reminder of humility and sacrifice to the adherent.
In specific matters otherwise, I wouldn't want to debate who has the greater responsibility towards efficating truly humble worship- the dedicated priest/organist or the woefully under-catechized layman in the pew.

CSL could have mentioned a further example of charity: the musician or pastor of seemingly humble personal tastes, who makes the Mass more beautiful and solemn for the spiritual good of the faithful, even though doing so does not appeal to him personally.

Another interesting quote from C. S. Lewis (which I believe came from a letter to someone, but I can't remember exactly.)

Concerning hymn and organ playing: if they have been helpful and edified anyone, then the fact that they set my teeth on edge is infinitely unimportant.

Thank you:

CharlesW
Charles in CenCA
Michael O'Connor
chonak
david andrew
Gavin

(so far)

Here is my initial take on this thing. It could change as you all present your points, but so far, all of you have only reconfirmed my own stance which is simply derived from reading and knowing the liturgical/musical documents of our own church. Simply put, CSL's piece on "church music" and the RC church's official stance appear to be diametrically opposed!

CSL's philosophy becomes 'adjustable' (relative) to ones own perception of what is 'low brow' and what is 'high brow', course or fine, or do I dare go so far as to say good or bad(?) Yes... I dare! This is because nothing is defined as what is low or high, coarse or fine to begin with.

CSL seems misleading at best as it undermines a basic Catholic understanding of what sacred music is, and how one categorizes what is sacred and what is profane. It attempts to redefine the "rule of beauty" as something personal and subjective. It simply is not. (You will find my thinking on 'subjective beauty' somewhere else on this forum, I believe it was in reference to BNA.) This smacks of relativism and is one of the underlying reasons the sacred and the profane are many times confused and why there is presently such a rife in our liturgical music programs in the RC tradition.

Analysis

[This entire philosophy is built on dualism, with the consequence that only two platforms of music exist that can be from God.]

There are two musical situations on which I think we can be confident that a blessing rests.

[This automatically eliminates any other way of thinking that a blessing can rest on music, specifically, liturgical music. That is preposterous.]

One is where a priest or organist, himself a man of trained and delicate taste, humbly and charitably sacrifices his own (aesthetically right) desires and gives people humbler and coarser fare than he would wish, in a belief (even, as it may be, the erroneous belief) that he can thus bring them to God.

[The priest and the organist are automatically consigned to the first platform, the 'high brow' position, and then are immediately set against the second platform, the 'low brow'. The very subject that is being addressed, 'church music', is conveniently cancelled outright and entirely right from the outset. This is accomplished by purporting that there is a "greater" virtue to sacrifice "his own desire" when in fact, what the priest and the organist represent are the desire and wisdom of the church in its music sacred. They are simply the agent that carries it forward to fruition. And how does one define what is 'humble and coarser fare'?! Music that is profane? Irreligious? Popular? Orgiastic? It would seem that the reader alone decides!!? And, by the way, we (priest and organist) don't particularly think we should do this (wisdom, perhaps?), but remember, this "sacrifice is a higher virtue" and we should do it anyway. ...and this next part really tells all. Yea, we should absolutely give them the courser fare believing that it will bring them closer to God... even if we KNOW it is an erroneous belief to think so!]

The other is where the stupid and unmusical layman humbly and patiently, and above all silently, listens to music which he cannot, or cannot fully, appreciate, in the belief that it somehow glorifies God, and that if it does not edify him this must be his own defect.

[OK... now the dualism really kicks in. The layman in the pew is 'stupid'?! which means he can NEVER rise to anything higher, even if he wanted to. He is "unmusical" and is destined to never be musical at all. But it is FACT that music is especially crucial to the liturgy and part of its very fabric! But CSL seems to say that only HE (the layman) is the humble and the patient one. (And because this is a dualistic tenet insinuates it is not possible that the priest or the organist could at the same time be humble in their approach.) In fact, it is finally proclaimed that it is the listener who is the "silent and sacrificial one", who "bears up" under the 'finer' things that he simply cannot and will never be able to understand. We (the organist and priest) are made to feel terrible for having made this poor soul suffer this painful experience of higher music. It is the priest and the organist who make the humble one feel that the layman cannot glorify God, because the layman can not (by choice or by his own stupidity) appreciate the music of the church.]

Neither such a High Brow nor such a Low Brow can be far out of the way. To both, Church Music will have been a means of grace; not the music they have like, but the music they have disliked. They have both offered, sacrificed, their taste in the fullest sense.

[It has now been clearly defined. The "High Brow" is the priest or the organist and the "Low Brow" is the man in the pew. It is then solidified. The higher value in the experience of liturgical music, its content, its form, is not the music itself. It is the SACRIFICE BOTH UNDERGOE IN EXPERIENCING what either does not like. Somehow the sacrificial attitude completely displaces the music itself! What malarkey is this!]

But where the opposite situation arises, where the musician is filled with the pride of skill or the virus of emulation and looks with contempt on the unappreciative congregation, or where the unmusical, complacently entrenched in their own ignorance and conservatism, look with the restless and resentful hostility of an inferiority complex on all who would try to improve their taste —

[Now we are to reason that "skill" is inseparably linked to the sin of pride. And "emulating" something 'fine' or 'higher brow' become a "virus" bound up in contempt toward the layman? Of course, the unmusical one is the layman, once again, who is forced to be resentful, because he cannot possibly appreciate the finer things.]

there, we may be sure, all that both offer is unblessed and the spirit that moves them is not the Holy Ghost.

[The final condemnation is levied in a very subtle and highly erroneous conclusion. Those who provide the "high brow" music are guilty of foul play if this is occurring in YOUR church, because the spirit that is moving you is not the Holy Ghost! (And here a devilish insinuation is put forward.) There is only one other 'spirit' who is responsible for the actions of priest or organist who creates this feeling in the layman-the spirit of darkness. Blasphemy!]

Francis, thanks is due rather to you for bringing this to discussion.

It struck me that Lewis is mixing up the concert and worship. I apologize to our Anglican friends here, but this seems to be a common pitfall in that tradition. If you replace "worship" with "concert" and "Holy Ghost" with "uplifting of the spirit" or "enlightenment", I'd heartily agree. At the risk of starting CharlesW up, I think there has to be some balance with recital programing between the "heady" (Messiaen, complete Clavierubung, Praetorius, etc.) and the "light" (transcriptions, Rutter, Toccata and Fugue in Dm, etc.) Certainly we saw too much of the "light" in the early 20th century where people were going to recitals of organs that didn't sound like organs to hear music that wasn't originally written for organ! And in the past 30 years, no one without a graduate degree in organ would be interested to go to a concert to hear a bellows-pumped organ in Meantone tuning play a very slow candle-lit concert from the Buxheimer Orgelbuch.

Then we have church. CS Lewis is, as always, too vague. I agree with him if by "base" or "low brow" music you have pieces like Gloria VIII, "Jesus my Lord, my God, my all" or "Immaculate Mary". Or, for protestants, "What a friend we have in Jesus" or "Amazing Grace". I am indeed of the "throw them a bone" school in this case. "O Sanctissima" played at about half note = 30 with tremolo and celestes makes me want to vomit, but it makes the blue hairs swoon and increases devotion in the church - this is a good thing.

BUT I do not count "On Eagle's Wings" as "low brow", I count it inappropriate for Roman Rite liturgy. I don't question that it makes people into better Catholics, but if they need something that drastic, let them pursue it on their own time in private or non-liturgical devotion. Perhaps that wasn't a problem in CS Lewis's day, but I think today we need to make the primary judgment whether a piece is at all worthy of the liturgy. After that we can try to balance "high brow" or "low brow" and even as Francis says, have the brows raised a bit.

dvalerio

Problem is, dvalerio, that this document is being presented to me as THE reason to have the "low brow" in the RC liturgy. I am left no choice but to logically dismantle the thinking reframed from an RC perspective. To reframe your thinking, I would say Roman Catholic Church Music is exempt from his philosophy and only applies to that time frame and denomination about which he wrote the piece. The other problem is that his title does not say, Episcopalian Church Music, but just "Church Music" which can be applied to any denomination if one so chooses, and that has occurred.

[REVISED TEXT]

Also, you have made my point about putting words into his mouth. If things aren't made clear (what is high brow, low brow, course fare, fine fare) then generalizations like this can be very harmful as we begin to apply our own interpretation. Wasn't that the very fault of Vatican II that got us into the very predicament we are in now... left to interpretation?

chonak:

Are you saying that the pew goer is simply reduced to a passive observer, or worse yet, outside observer to something in which s/he is not allowed to participate?

chonak:

This is all very telling. Thanks for the insight.

For all the worth (or lack thereof) it may have, here's what I'd say if someone would direct me to this text of Lewis as a «reason to have the "low brow" in the RC liturgy»:

1) I very much admire C. S. Lewis, and take much profit from his writings. But he was not infallible, neither did he ever claim to be; also his works, in general excellent, are not all of equal valour.

2) All texts must be read within the proper context. This one in particular should be considered having in mind the situation of the Church of England when the author was writing.

3) All human reasoning makes use of generalisations; if not so, we would be unable to think at all. Bust we must bear in mind that even valid and useful generalisations leave (by their very nature) some things behind. Long books may consider many details, offer careful definitions, address many points of view and refute eventual objections; short texts like this one are likely to have less of all that. An example: the text speaks of only two different, opposed, sensibilities to music, but of course there is a continuum of musical education, tastes, etc. It's just that in three paragraphs we cannot ask for more.

4) Drawing from the above: I see in this text important ideas, but there are other factors to consider:
* in the Church of England the author belonged to, there was no sacred music intrinsic to the liturgy as there is in the Roman Rite;
* that Church does not have the guidance we Catholics have from the Magisterium and the Tradition concerning sacred music;
* indeed the existence of sacred music intrinsic to the liturgy and mandated by the Magisterium and the Tradition is the «normal» one: the Church of England is different because unfortunately the protestant reform chopped off several good and necessary things in the Church.

5) It is true that «trained and delicate taste», a good thing in itself, can lead to pride and contempt. God forbid we should fall into that trap. Lewis also warned us that the better a thing is, the lower it can fall: he noticed it was not a mouse, but an archangel who became Satan... The solution is not to throw away «trained and delicate taste», because it can be debased: all good things would then likely have to be thrown away, because they can be spoiled. We just have to be careful to keep it in its proper place.

6) It is also true that the musical tastes and the spiritual needs of all people in a congregation must be, as far as possible, met. Three important comments:
* this includes meeting both «trained and delicate» tastes and «stupid and unmusical» ones (to keep the artificial dichotomy);
* in this context to «meet» signifies (I think!) also to enhance, to improve, to change for the better;
* this meeting takes place during liturgy, yes, but also during devotions and other moments of Church life.

7) Indeed, not all christian music is liturgical music. This does not mean the rest is useless. The Vatican II council and the documents that followed are clear about this when they speak of «sacred popular music, be it liturgical or simply religious». Liturgical music is of course the most important and noble, but simply religious sacred popular music also has a role of its own. We should however not mix things up, and that's (in my opinion) one of the major problems today: we often reason that, if a music is beatiful and has inspiring lyrics, hey, when during Mass can we sing this? It's nonsense, of course, as it is nonsense to say: this is not liturgical, hence it's trash. There's plenty of trash to be found in current christian music, to be sure, but some good stuff is there too, and can do much good to many people. A comparison: I need good comfortable slippers, but won't put them in my feet to attend a wedding. Conversely, I'm not using well-polished expensive shoes 24h in 24.

8) Using this text of Lewis to justify the use of non-liturgical christian music during liturgy as though it were liturgical is stretching its meaning.

9) As was already noticed in this discussion, there is plenty of acceptable liturgical music to fit many tastes, many choirs with different capabilities, many sensibilities, many different spiritual needs, many levels of education, many different age groups, many situations in spiritual progress, and so on.

10) And finally, it's perhaps true that some Vatican II documents might have been written more clearly, but I feel that the main reason they are so divergently read is that there are many people willing to read into them what they already think. And with some exegetical capabilities we can squeeze most texts to mean what we want. (There's been some discussion on this issue, concernign the Bible, which is still more important, during the Bishops' Synod.) So probably, even if the Council had approved the clearest texts conceivable in the world, they would have met a not too different fate. In face of this, that three short paragraphs of a very good protestant author should be misinterpreted does not, unfortunately, surprise me.

Yes, I whole-heartedly agree that there is bad liturgical music. It has the right words, the music cannot be outright dismissed as profane or disrespectful of liturgy but...

I guess it was with that type of liturgical stuff in mind that the authorisation for «other suitable song» replacements was conceived. Music like that can be so bad that even a good non-liturgical sacred music piece will fare better. Unfortunately authorising replacements can also lead to bad liturgical music being replaced with incredibly worse non-liturgical music, as we all know.

PS 1 - In my humble opinion mass VIII can only be overdone if badly done...
PS 2 - Just the same way, there is good music to be found among non-liturgical, non-sacred christian music... Fine background for a saturday afternoon outdoors parish party, or a diocesan youth meeting, or the like.

ISTM that the problem with the argument lies in several areas.

First of all, there seems to be a presumption (apparently just as common in Lewis' day as in ours) that taste and appropriateness can be judged against each other. Taste can vary based on level of education, exposure to various levels of quality within any particular area and one's own ability to appreciate, respond and perhaps even give reasoned expression to whatever it is that one appreciates. Appropriateness is sui generis, something is appropriate because it is so, or because tradition informs us that it is so. Take for instance one of my favorite examples: a portrait of Elvis painted on black velvet. Depending on one's experience with this genre as against the whole universe of painting, one's level of education and cultural exposure, one may prefer to look at a black velvet Elvis as against, say, a Jacques-Louis David, or a Mattisse. Tastes aside, would it be appropriate to hang a black velvet Elvis in a museum where the others hang? No, and tradition tells us this is so.

This may be a feeble argument, or poorly-worded. But the second problem I think is more problematic than the taste/appropriateness issue, and that is an assumption that the average person in the pew is unable, at a profound spiritual level, to grasp transcendent beauty even in the face of being unable to explain or give reasoned expression to their profound reaction. If this were not so, we wouldn't have recorded history of deeply spiritual people (some saints, some just profoundly spiritual) prior to the use of banal music in church.

The issue is one of "form follows function", or to put it another way, the music we use must serve a utilitarian purpose. Another parallel: do we recognize the beauty of Gothic architecture or baroque furnishings in a church because we possess great knowledge and understanding of art and architecture? Or, does the beauty found in examples of these genres somehow touch us profoundly?

In short, I'll take Augustine of Hippo over C.S. Lewis on matters of beauty, truth, goodness and transcendence any day.

I will agree, David Andrew. I'm OK with Augustine. Although some of my fellow easterners consider him a bit of a heretic.

Francis: Augustine pretty much made up all of Western theology. Justification, dual procession, monergism, it all comes from Augustine. I know a lot of Orthodox people, and trust me; they are NOT fans of Augustine!

Ah yes, original sin is also rejected by the Orthodox as having been "made up" by Augustine. It's my impression that the Eastern Rite Catholics operate under the same theology as the Orthodox; is that correct in either theory or practice?

Don't forget that the IC was defined by papal decree, not a council of the Church. That should eventually be addressed IMO. Frankly, I've never understood the need for it. The Dominicans proposed that Mary was purified in the womb like John the Baptist, but the Franciscans got the common folk all worked up about the necessary purity and Mary's chosen status at the Creation.

I understand and accept the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Is it also dogmatic that Mary never committed a sin of her own volition?

I've always felt that C.S. Lewis's Narnia books betray a certain priggery, or smallness of mind, in Lewis's character. I fear the referenced essay does, too.

A couple of points here:

The IC was defined by Pius IX, not Pius XII (the pope who defined the dogma of Our Lady's assumption body and soul into heaven at the end of her earthly life).

He (Pius IX) did so after consultation with the bishops, so ham-handed would seem to be a bit extreme as a description of the definition. The vast majority of the bishops wanted him to do it.

All of us receive sufficient grace to be saved, but we have to cooperate with it. Our Lady cooperated fully with the grace given to her. Seems like a fine example to me.

OK . . . all together, now . . . RABBIT HOLE!

Could we please get this back on the track, which was a question regarding the necessity of blending the "coarse with the fine" in terms of the music we use at Mass?

Don't we always mix the coarse with the fine to some degree? I know I have given in and done things that I didn't care for on occasion, to keep peace in the choir. Other times for the benefit of someone I cared about since it made them happy. Of course, there are limits to everything.

Oops. Right, Pius IX. Pius XII was a commentator on this. Of course this brings up the whole issue of papal infallibilty, which was proclaimed not long afterwards. Anyway, I'm with Aquinas on this. I don't see the need, but if the Church proclaims it, I'll go along.

David, nothing is compelling you to read the naturally occurring sidetracks that discussions often take.

Gavin,

I seem to remember that Erik Routley discusses Lewis's views in "A Short History of English Church Music". However, I can't find my copy, and it's some years since I last looked at it. Perhaps someone out there has a copy, and can precis any contextual material in it?

I don't even remember what the article said, and it's gone.