“Sing to the Lord”’s most groundbreaking passage?
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    31. When the choir is not exercising its particular role, it joins the
    congregation in song. The choir’s role in this case is not to lead
    congregational singing, but to sing with the congregation, which sings
    on its own or under the leadership of the organ or other instruments.


    I am surprised there has not been more discussion of this idea out and about, because this seems radically to fly in the face of much conventional wisdom re the role of the choir. How many times have we heard it said that “the choir’s role is primarily to support the congregation’s singing”?

    Now we have a statement (granted, an advisory statement, not a canonically binding one) from the USCCB that flat-out negates this – and not only that, it says that the supporting the congregation’s singing is not the choir’s role! Instead, the choir’s role is <drumroll>.......to be a choir!

    In my opinion, this is the most groundbreaking passage of “Sing to the Lord” that I have yet seen.
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    Ok, some mediation of this idea occurs at §257:
    257. .. The funeral choir is commonly made up of individuals who .. lend their collective voice in support of the assembly song at the funeral Mass.

    Hm.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Hmm, that's quite a lot to spin out of this. Maybe this is just more of that rhetoric about how the choir is really just part of the people and therefore should not be in a loft and separated out, singing complicated stuff in Latin etc..
  • JulesVanNuffel
    Posts: 126
    This is beyond my comprehension......
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    Jeffrey,

    The passage quoted in §257 would support the “rhetoric” that you cite. But ISTM that §31 takes a very different view that supports the idea that the choir has its own distinct liturgical role.

    What I read out of it is that, just as the deacon is supposed to read the Gospel, but when there is no deacon the presider can do it, the choir is supposed to sing certain songs, but when there is no choir (or no suitably skilled choir), the congregation can sing those songs. And of course, the congregation has its own role in the singing that is different from that of the choir.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Often, when promoting congregational singing, I frame it in the idea that the congregation has a role distinct from that of the choir.

    To be honest, I haven't thoroughly read S to the L, mainly because the parts I've looked at seem to be a basic "how-to" of doing music at Mass. As such, I have no problems with it, nor do I find the "rhetoric" parts disturbing. That said, it seems to me that the last bit of paragraph 31 is saying that the organ leads the singing. As opposed to the cantor. Or is there a part of the document which contradicts that?
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Today's word is "equivocation." Can you say "equivocation" boys and girls?

    ISTM that the document says the choir is a choir, except when it's not, then it's the congregation, which is supposed to do the majority of the singing, unless it's carried by the choir, whose primary role is to lead and support the singing of the congregation, when they're not singing more complex choral settings, permitted by GIRM and elsewhere, as long as it doesn't take away from the congregation's primary role as singer of the liturgy.

    Got it?
  • Steve CollinsSteve Collins
    Posts: 1,022
    Often, in Anglican terminology (often itself borrowed for earlier Roman!) the congregation is the "greater choir", and is lead/supported by a smaller "schola cantorum". The schola is, by sheer definition, the "school of singers" and as such has spent more time perfecting the music in worship than members of the congregation typically can. There are exceptions, obviously. At the Colloquium, almost the entire "congregation" is made up of church musicians. Also, the congregation at Our Lady of Walsingham sang Psalm verses to Anglican chant at every Mass, and could even do it without me adding the "pointing" in the worship aid - and event that was totally my fault, but which happened at least twice a year. As long as one is not underestimating the capabilities of the congregation, the choir is still essential.
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