In the Interest of Fairness and Knowledge
  • I just read an interview with Dan Schutte that was very interesting. I was really surprised to see that he still spouts the old line that the "Church never christened any style of music". Still lots of work to do...

    here
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    A friendly reminder that we're in the midst of a novena to Our Lady and St. Cecilia . . .

    Pray! Pray now!

    (BTW, the link doesn't seem to work correctly. I think there's one too many "/" at the front of the address.)
  • Our retreat house (Diocesan) up near the entrance to Sequoia Nat'l Park is hosting a "Dan Schutte" retreat next month.
    The parish secretary put a flyer in my box and casually asked "Are you going to the "Shoot" retreat?"
    I paused, said in reply, "Why? What's he gonna tell me?" Mike, you know I'm an eclectic and Dan and I have been personally acquainted and associated since '79 (he's the SLJ that called me from Berkeley to ask me to play for them at the 79 NPM in ChiTown) and I've done gigs with him within the last couple of years on occasion.
    But, I think that the coincidence of our diocese securing his "expertise" as "composer in residence" at the U.of San Francisco, speaks to what I said in another thread, maybe at the NLM site, that for every 250 folks who, Deo gratias, attend a CMAA function, there will be exponentially more attending "seminars" such as Schutte's.
    Anyone contributing thoughts to this and other current forums will be fortunate if they live to see flyers advertising a retreat featuring the maestro in residence "Mr./Ms. Turkington, Jr., Master of Chant." Yes, David, we might, can, and should continue to pray. But we need to put into practice what we preach as often as we can; even if our jobs are thus put in peril and dispute.
    And to get to the link, right click, choose properties, copy URL, paste and eliminate the two extra //.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    This is a very interesting interview. It really illustrates what a thin understanding of the issues is operating here.

    GV: What is your opinion of the whole "traditional vs. contemporary" worship music debate? How do you answer those who feel your music is not appropriate in a Mass setting?

    DS: Because some of my early pieces of music have been around for nearly forty years (“Sing a New Song,” “You Are Near,” “All My Days”), there are people who call my music “traditional.” A friend of mine, a parish music director, tells the story of a lady who came to hear wanted to plan the music for her own funeral liturgy. The lady began by saying that she wanted the music to be traditional, not contemporary. My friend assumed she, therefore, wanted pieces like “How Great Thou Art” and “Amazing Grace.” “Oh my no!” the lady responded. “I want music like “Here I Am, Lord” and “On Eagle’s Wings” for my funeral. So what is “traditional” and what is “contemporary” is understood quite differently by people.

    I suspect your question has more to do with what one might call the “style wars” that many communities are experiencing. It is a judgment about what kind of music is appropriate for use at worship. It would be important for someone to articulate why exactly they don’t think my music, or music in the style I write, is not appropriate. Many times, when you try to get them explain, the answer comes down to a matter of personal taste. They don’t like my music. They like what I’ll call the more classical “church” music, like plainchant, or Palestrina, or Proulx.

    But worship, and vehicles we use to express our praise and thanks to God, is not about perfection or performance. That doesn’t mean that we don’t do all we can to create beauty in the visual, musical and ritual elements we use for worship, but it means that these art forms are never an end in themselves. All these elements are at the service of the prayer of the community and are judged by how well, or how poorly, they help people to pray. In every age, the new music that’s created must be judged by how well it can do this. The music must stand the test of time. How many years? It would seem that forty years is a rather significant amount of time. And over the centuries, both people of faith have used a variety of styles to express their faith and Church leadership has never “christened” just one kind of music. People are different and find different styles of music help them to pray. I myself find I can pray with many different styles and my music over the years reflects that. I suspect the people who are so critical of my music judge it by how they heard it sung in church. There are many elements of “classical” music in my compositions and I’ve used plainchant melodies in my music. It is simply not appropriate to say that the only kind of music should be used for worship, or even more, to impose the style that I prefer for prayer on everyone.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Honestly, I feel bad for Schutte, Haugen, and the rest. They are such objects of hatred, vitriol, and criticism, and yet they have no hope of understanding why someone wouldn't be enamoured with their works. Schutte doesn't seem to get that there's standards for music which REPLACES chant (as anything but chant in the liturgy does) besides "does it help some people pray." No matter how many times one can distinguish sacred/profane, chant influence, continuity vs. discontinuity, or if one quotes church documents, he just hears "personal opinion".

    And for the record I think we AND Schutte should be careful to distinguish individual works rather than condemning everything someone writes. It simply isn't fair to call Schutte a bad composer. I'd even argue for the suitability of some of his songs. And that misses the point to condemn his entire output, since the issue is his understanding of the purpose of church music.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Oh, and I'd love to see Fr. Z fisk that interview! :P
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I'm not that familiar with Schutte's catalogue, but does he even have any composed music published? How can one be a composer-is-residence if they aren't first a composer? Being a songwriter or arranger (both venerable professions) is not the same as being composer. Irving Berlin was a songwriter. So is Joni Mitchell. George Gershwin was a songwriter who also composed. Some would say that Bernstein was a conductor and a composer who also wrote songs.

    A baker is someone who makes food. I know how to make a salad, which happens to be food. Does that mean I'm a baker? No, because baking is a particular process that yields a particular result. A composer composes, and their product is a composition. Songwriters, like Schutte, write songs.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    His music is sung every week in probably more than half the parishes in the English speaking world. He probably has more music signed by him appearing in missalettes than any single composer (or song writer), living or dead. I'm not sure I think of him as a victim, if you know what I mean. It's true that he doesn't really understand why anyone would criticize his output, but then people tend to be this way in general.
  • From his perspective... He is probably adored at workshops for his music and probably his personality (more than I can say for one of the other modern songwriters) and then he gets wind of a few nutjobs who think his music is not what should be sung at Mass. I wish we could set up a discussion panel with 3 modern songwriters and 3 people like Prof Mahrt, Alcuin Reed, and others on the other. If one could only find an impartial moderator... We all need to hear these things directly from each other.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    The problem, Michael, is the term "impartial". What is impartial? Is it impartial to say that Gregorian chant is the standard by which other music at Mass should be measured? Or to adhere to any of the rest of the Church's legislation on music in liturgy? I suspect Prof. Mahrt or someone on "our side" wouldn't go too much farther than liturgical law, so a truly "impartial" moderator would automatically side with us.

    The problem in these discussions, which I have seen every time I talk to a layman, is that we simply don't begin with the same premises. For example, ANY time someone wished to discuss music with me I always began the conversation with "the Church demands the preservation of the Latin language and pride of place to Gregorian chant. I will NOT debate those points, those are a matter of fact until the Church decides to change them." When Schutte defends his songs in terms of "ability to pray", he's already lost the argument because he's gone beyond what the Church asks of music in the liturgy. Hence why a forum like this is so valuable; with very few exceptions we all discuss things in light of obedience to the rules and traditions of the Roman Rite. Until the "contemporary" folks decide to do the same, we simply have no grounds for discussion with them. Their points of view are automatically invalidated by their disobedience.
  • "And for the record I think we AND Schutte should be careful to distinguish individual works rather than condemning everything someone writes. It simply isn't fair to call Schutte a bad composer. I'd even argue for the suitability of some of his songs. And that misses the point to condemn his entire output, since the issue is his understanding of the purpose of church music."

    Thanks, Gavin, for echoing a mantra of mine on many forums for many years. And yet, you're so young and I'm so old....hope springs eternal ;-)
    I'm going to tackle the whole interview tomorrow, after Vacation Bible School!
  • I think that few of us would argue that Schutte is a lousy songwriter. On the contrary, he does what he does pretty well. The music is very approachable and can probably be updated with contemporary style arrangements. I wouldn't have a single problem with the Church promoting his music for a host of occasions outside the Mass. I'm with Gavin, however. The argument is not about taste in music. If the Church called another council and decided that music must be written in a late 20th-century soft rock style with texts drawn from scripture rather than the Propers, then I'd obey her commands. I'd most likely seek out Masses w/o music, but I'd no longer go to the barricades to fight any longer.
  • mjballoumjballou
    Posts: 994
    I like some of Dan Schutte's ballads. They're very sweet and emotionally evocative. Unfortunately, they just don't belong at Mass. His up-tempo pieces remind me way too much of "Up With People" and a hideous youth retreat I attended as a 16-year-old Episcopalian (yes, I was playing the guitar). Way too bouncy.

    Every day I realize with increasing clarity that we won't fix the music at Mass until there is a fundamental shift in the understanding of what in fact the Mass is. Until "the source and summit of the Christian life" is understood as something far more than "getting my batteries re-charged for next week at work" and/or "having some special time with God," efforts to improve the music (despite all the documents in the world) will always crash on the rocks of personal opinion.

    For a satirical solution to the "hymn wars," I suggest you visit my blog, Sacred Miscellany.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,832
    I should chime in. Although I consider myself a composer, I have done some songwriting in my own time, very much along the lines of the SLJ and others like them. I tend to agree with Gavin and MJ however. As nice and as prayerful as some of those pieces can be, they don't belong in the liturgy. I consider that type of song Christian Inspirational if one was to choose a catagory. Liturgical, definitely not. If a time comes when we stop celebrating ourselves and celebrating the liturgy, the music will right itself along with the proper theological understanding of what the GREAT SACRIFICE actually is. This is why I have such great admiration for the Tridentine liturgy. The mere fact that the priest faces the tabernacle tells all. And that, my dear brothers and sisters is the core and heritage of the liturgy: the priest as mediator between God and man, In Personae Christi. I am praying for the day when the liturgy is purified from the errors that has plagued it so during our lifetimes.
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Nice! But you know, it is probably a good thing to not take too seriously statements from him concerning theology and worship etc. Considering the times, he was just responding to a perceived market demand for music that would somehow make worship more familiar and friendly. I really don't think it is any more complicated than that. An entire generation had lost its connection to all the theological and intellectual capital surrounding the Roman Rite, and people were sure what was happening all around them. The music was written, sung, became an industry, and stuck. Once it becomes clear that there there was no need for rupture, the art that is attached to the Mass will reassert itself gradually as people are trained. Much of what has gone on in these years will someday be seen as something of an embarrassment.