— Can the tract become a soloist’s chant once more?

In the liturgy, there has always been a soloist’s chant, just as there has always been a chant of the assembly. There has always been, at least since the birth of the schola, a chant of the schola and there has always been a chant of the celebrant. But the best efforts have always had unforeseen consequences and effects. So one of the consequences of the reform that followed St. Pius X was a leveling of the Gregorian repertory and the idea came about that everyone sings everything. This idea was very influential in monastic life. When St. Benedict spoke of psalmody or of chant, he only spoke of the disposition of the singers. Look at what Saint Crodegang said in his Rule for canons. Taking up the Rule of St. Benedict he adds that it is necessary to sing together, in one voice. It is only thus that communities appropriated a repertory that was not their own: the assembly had never had this repertory to sing before. This movement was reinforced as the era went on. On this subject, there are some very good reflections of Monique Brulat in her thesis on the voice in the seventeenth century. For example, consult her citations on Port-Royal: “At Port-Royal, they sang like angels…” Afterwards, there was the reform that followed St. Pius X and the Solesmes style of Gregorian chant where homophony was prized completely: I am not saying that this was not a good thing, I’m not saying that you must not sing together in your communities. It’s a model of chant that had never existed in history, because there were others before and there will be others afterwards. In the twentieth century, the Gregorian revival is linked with this movement, this reform of St. Pius X, with the Gregorian chant of Solesmes, and with certain other conditions that took place in that century.

The liturgical renaissance is bound to Gregorian Chant, for it includes the real values of participation, of the different [liturgical] roles, and the link with the Word. There have been more or less good experiences. Now that we understand the chant better, the reflections we make should have consequences for Gregorian Chant. And the adaptations that we had to make for the transition to the vernacular should also be considered for the communities that have held on to the Latin. They will not conserve the chant if they don’t, there will doom themselves to holding on to the simple allure that Gregorian Chant has had during the twentieth century. We can’t engage the liturgical life only on the basis of aesthetics; we can’t base the Liturgy on aesthetics, because in the liturgy there are things that change, and others that don’t change; this is linked to individual places and circumstances. Today what’s important is to ask questions, and I can say that there is a monastery of this congregation where, this year, the Tract was chanted by alternating verses with a soloist. The chant of the soloist is not made to be sung by an assembly of 80 people, this is not possible. The substance of the chant must be respected. It’s helpful to know these things and it also helps in practice to know what questions we can ask.