Homily on Music
  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    Father Hollowell's homily "Josh Groban at Mass?"

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  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    That was great. Father Hollowell is easy to listen to and makes his point eloquently and simply. I will share this with my choir. Thanks.
  • fcbfcb
    Posts: 338
    So Gregorian chant doesn't elicit emotional reactions? Sorry, I found it quite unconvincing. Gregorian chant can certainly receive a better defense than this crypto-Jansenism (and I say this as something of a Jansenist sympathiser, as well as someone who loves chant).

    Also, the Psalms are liturgical texts; I don't know what basis he has for saying that the dancing, hand-clapping etc. that the psalm speaks of does not refer to things that would have been done in the Temple liturgy. They were slaughtering animals, for Pete's sake. What's a little hand-clapping alongside that?
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    So Gregorian chant doesn't elicit emotional reactions? Sorry, I found it quite unconvincing. Gregorian chant can certainly receive a better defense than this crypto-Jansenism (and I say this as something of a Jansenist sympathiser, as well as someone who loves chant).


    Yeah.

    I'm starting to get beyond-bothered by the apologists of rationalism in liturgy. I get the impetus (as being a reaction against the sentimentality of pop-based music), but let's be clear: Rationalism is a heresy too, yo.
  • Andrew Motyka
    Posts: 946
    Note: Fr. Hollowell's parish is hiring a music director.
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  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    So Gregorian chant doesn't elicit emotional reactions?


    That's not what he is saying. Certainly it elicits emotion, but that is not the primary purpose, and it certainly isn't like the modern stuff in which not only is it all about feelings, but in general forcing one and only one sappy emotion. Really now, we finally hear a defense of good music from the pulpit and our reaction is to cavil?
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,501
    I agree with Scott. I don't think that is what he is saying. I have to argue this point with my choristers all the time. They say that GC is "boring" it doesn't elicit "emotion". But it is prayerful and leads us to a place of prayer, beauty and reverence as we all know here. I understood this to be his point.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    There is nothing at all boring about Alleluia Pascha Nostrum, Jubilate Deo, Precatus est Moises, and an endless number of other chants. These are terribly exciting, passionate, joyful, exuberant, rapturous, enthralled, exclamatory and more. Some tell stories, relate theological truths, or express the gamut of human emotion relative to given events. Yes, some chants are 'prayerful', 'beautiful', 'reverent', etc. But to describe the corpus of chant with such subjective terms, which rather lean to the saccarine, is to show something of a lack of apprehension of its spectrum of emotion and musical ingenuity. Those rather challenged souls who maintain (with a straight face yet!) that chant is boring will never be converted by being told that it is reverent and prayerful. Sing them some that is exciting! Furthemore, each example of chant is not just 'a chant': someone, a real person, with an admirable grasp of verbal imagery and spiritual insight COMPOSED IT. (The appropriate response to 'chant is boring' is laughter!)
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  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    But...M. Jackson Osborn, the purpose of chants are not to extract emotions from the faithful.

    I don't consider it saccarine to describe chant as "prayerful," "beautiful," etc. On the contrary, I am much more drawn to it than to one described as "exciting" (which brings up, in my mind, images of guitars, strummed twenty times per second), "modern" (which brings up images of guitars and drums....), and other terms of the sort....and which, if given a choice of churches, would be one I would rather avoid.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    But... Paul Viola, we may be splitting some hairs: to express emotion is not necessarily a cheap bid to extract it. Many chants express a variety of emotions and may or may not incidentally elicit emotion. Purpose is central here.

    'guitars strummed twenty times per second' are not exciting, they are an unexciting abomination.

    'modern' can hardly be intelligently apprehended as being guitars and drums in combos and such. There is nothing at all 'modern' here.

    nor did I mean to imply that prayerfulness and reverence are inherently saccarine: far from it.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Gregorian chant is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
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  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    Sort of like the psalms themselves, actually.
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  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    I think I heard the inimitable Jeffrey Morse (long may he live!!) utter the claim that Gregorian chant aurally exemplifies chastity, poverty, and obedience.
    And I always liked that.
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  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    Aye, Adam Wood, it just hit me that you took that from the Boy Scout law. :)
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  • fcbfcb
    Posts: 338
    Scott, I think it would be a much better critique to say that the problem with much modern music elicits only one emotion -- not unlike how, during the 70s, the Scriptural source of the words of the SLJ's music (admittedly an improvement over Ray Repp) seemed to be almost entirely the second half of the book of Isaiah. But this homily seemed to focus on emotion per se. It also contained the ridiculous implication that somehow men are less emotional than women.
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  • Scott_WScott_W
    Posts: 468
    It also contained the ridiculous implication that somehow men are less emotional than women.


    I heard no such implication. Let's concentrate on what he actually says rather than what we think he says. I don't think anyone here disputes that men's participation in parish life is lackluster to say the least. It's not all the sappy music's fault of course, but when you add up everything experienced in the typical AmChurch parsish, what you get is a faith that is trivial, and men rightly ask, if no one is going to take it seriously, why should I?
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  • ChoirpartsChoirparts
    Posts: 147
    There is a time for Sacred Music, and another time for a Concert. I like Josh Groban as well as Palestrina, Byrd, Mozart and Gregorian chant. The event venues tend too be completely different. I like Jimmy Buffett too, but I hope his music doesn’t show up in church. Father Hollowell’s homily seems to be saying, church is for Sacred Music. I agree
  • innocentop
    Posts: 64
    On the question of poverty, chastity, and obedience in Gregorian chant, there's a great essay by the Dominican Fr. Delalande which treats of this theme: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B7KkwQrYwggJdVNNTG11VzBaUG8/
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  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Adam,

    I would whole-heartedly agree that Rationalism isn't a liturgical trait, but being accessible to reason is. I would further agree with the idea that emotion is welcome at Mass -- but not just some homogenized emotion, pre-packaged in cheerful wrapping paper. I made the case some years ago that if many modern Catholics think chant to be boring, that is a result of the repertoire to which they have been exposed. If most of what I knew was from a requiem, and I formed my whole opinion based on minimal access to said requiem, I would get a warped view of chant.

    Might I highlight something else Father said, although neither he nor I can quote Pius XII directly: it would be wrong to mandate or expect uniform participation from all the lay faithful, for the simple reason that we've all not had the same day when we come to Mass.

    Cheers,

    Chris
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    I would whole-heartedly agree that Rationalism isn't a liturgical trait, but being accessible to reason is. I would further agree with the idea that emotion is welcome at Mass -- but not just some homogenized emotion, pre-packaged in cheerful wrapping paper


    Yes. There was a REASON that Pius X defined musica sacra as 'elevating the minds AND the hearts of the people to God.'

    That conjunction is critical. The biggest challenge for musicians is to find the balance-point; Chant has it.
  • johnmann
    Posts: 175
    "You Raise Me Up" was written for a funeral. How does Palestrinia elicit any less of an emotional response?

    I actually like the idea of liturgical music being somewhat subdued, at least compared to CCM. But that still covers everything from Gregorian to Groban.
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