Ceremonial Instrumental Music

FSSPmusic

Although Wagner's Bridal Chorus and Mendelssohn's Wedding March have been much deprecated, there seems to be an organ transcription repertory of what I will call ceremonial music of secular origin that has been generally tolerated, such as Clarke's "Prince of Denmark’s March" (Trumpet Voluntary), selections from Handel's Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks, Mouret's Rondeau, Campra's Rigaudon (from the opera Idoménée), Mendelssohn's "War March of the Priests" from Athalia, and Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" marches. A few of these remain on the list of wedding music selections I offer couples, but should they? I was reviewing the CDF's 1987 document on Concerts in Churches and noticed the following (emphasis mine):

The principle that the use of the church must not offend the sacredness of the place determines the criteria by which the doors of a church may be opened to a concert of sacred or religious music, as also the concomitant exclusion of every other type of music. The most beautiful symphonic music, for example, is not in itself of religious character. The definition of sacred or religious music depends explicitly on the original intended use of the musical pieces or songs, and likewise on their content. It is not legitimate to provide for the execution in the church of music which is not of religious inspiration and which was composed with a view to performance in a certain precise secular context, irrespective of whether the music would be judged classical or contemporary, of high quality or of a popular nature. On the one hand, such performances would not respect the sacred character of the church, and on the other, would result in the music being performed in an unfitting context.

Is it legitimate to appeal to custom to justify pieces that by now have arguably become more associated with church ceremonies than secular ceremonies? What about secular melodies that have become "Christianized" by the setting of religious hymn texts, either from the concert hall, such as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy," Holst's "Jupiter," or Schubert's "Ave Maria," or folksongs such as Kingsfold or The Ash Grove? I heard Debussy's "Clair de lune" played as an organ prelude before High Mass at a church famous for its traditional liturgical music program, and Cardinal Burke marched down the aisle in cappa magna to a Handel overture in Florence a few years ago. Where should the lines be drawn?

Palestrina

The CDF's principles for determining stylistic origins are, surprisingly enough (given the amount of time that had elapsed and what had happened in that time) very consistent with Pius X's principles as set out in his motu proprio.

For what it's worth, I don't think that an appeal to custom for justifying the liturgical use of pieces with overtly secular (and especially operatic) origins is a slope that one would want to tread. Precisely the same argument could be applied to allow for the worst of everything, and of every period, and in every place!

Put another way, the entrenched nature of a liturgical abuse does not make it any less an abuse - I think, for instance, of the number of occasions on which the Congregation was asked about accompaniment of singing on Good Friday (etc) because of an established usage in a place and responded to say that this was an abuse that needed to be eliminated.

I also had a quick look at the regulations stemming from the motu proprio for the Diocese of Rome and note (at 30), that the prohibition against performance of musical compositions in 'free style' that have already been pronounced unsuitable, even in non-liturgical contexts or extra-liturgical offices was forbidden.

As to hymnody, its uses and abuses, I would suggest, again, that anything operatic or overtly secular must be out. As to the folk tradition, this seems to me to be more complex, especially when I think of the tradition of Christmas carols and how closely interwoven it is with folk music in some places. I can only think that this is the reason that the publication of hymnals was once carefully regulated. It does make me wonder about the Lutheran chorales that we have adopted at times, some of which do have secular origins (Wachet auf). Perhaps the case for the adoption of folk melodies might be that these were once, long ago (but are no longer anywhere) used for any secular purpose? That would be making an argument analagous to the idea that the pipe organ, once heard in the Roman circuses, was ultimately adopted and adapted solely for liturgical purposes.

a_f_hawkins

The CDF document is about concerts in churches. One can say that a concert performance of Mendelssohn's incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream is inappropriate without saying that the Wedding March may not be used as an adjunct to the Nuptial Liturgy.
Beware scrupulosity.

MatthewRoth

Also that document seems particularly concerned about places where the state either owns churches or pays for their upkeep or otherwise has an interest in the use of the church that Americans don’t have from their government wherein turning the church into a concert hall for any and all kinds of music would be bad.

I think that there are probably more problematic things to play in the baroque repertoire: arias even religious ones given explicitly sacred words like with “Thine be the glory” (in Dublin, at Saint Patrick’s, they use the Handel melody for “Hark the Herald angels sing”) never caught on with Catholics as far as I can see. I get a bit nervous with organ reductions of arias or overtures from classical operas above all but the Rigaudon would be unrecognizable as such even if you note the piece in the leaflet. Same for Handel’s other famous aria from a classical opera. “Overture from Xerxes” on the other hand…that would irk me a bit more.

The Rondeau and the Pomp and Circumstance March no. 1 have active secular associations apart from the original context. I don’t mind the former, although some might, and it could cause some snickering, but the second has words, and I think that that poses a different problem. The rest of the examples don’t faze me.

I would encourage people to come up with baroque repertoire in particular that evokes the feelings and power of these common pieces without the perhaps problematic aspects.

francis

"Ode to Joy," Holst's "Jupiter," or Schubert's "Ave Maria,"

yuck, yuck and double yuck.

I LOVE Holst's Jupiter but can we just leave it in outer space where it rightly belongs and where it truly shines?

The Ave was a huge blunder/snafu... how could one prefer THAT to the GC hymn?? Sentimentality blurs the religion.

TCJ · 1:17AM

I have removed Ode to Joy and Jupiter from the parish repertoire, although I did it slowly. For Schubert's "Ave Maria" I haven't been able to completely get rid of it, but families do accept it when I tell them they have to have a cantor because I don't have breath enough to sing it from the bench. If they don't want an extra cantor, they get the chant.

Chant_Supremacist · 3:30AM

Are you also going to remove every beloved tune and text that had a Protestant origin 100, 200 or300 years ago which almost nobody today recalls?

Palestrina · 4:05AM

Confessional distinctions aren’t always easy to gauge from a musical standpoint, as a quick survey of some cross-pollinations in Central Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries shows.

The potential problem with Wachet Auf is that it was a secular song adopted by Luther for another purpose. That said, I think that if something secular has been adopted for a sacred purpose and fallen out of secular use entirely, there’s an argument for its retention, provided that the style itself is not overtly secular (or operatic).

FSSPmusic · 4:23AM

Thank-you to everyone who has chimed in so far. As expected, there has been a considerable range of responses from strict letter-of-the-law to "beware scrupulosity." @Chant_Supremacist anticipated my follow-up question about concert performance of sacred or religious music not written for Catholic worship. I imagine that most of us would find any number of Handel oratorios or religious works by Bach unobjectionable, but what about Mendelssohn's "Reformation" Symphony in a Catholic church? A setting of a non-biblical text from Jewish liturgy? A Requiem by a non-Christian composer of scandalous morals? Religious arias or choruses from operas, again, in a church concert setting?

Protestant hymn writers rarely come right out with blatant heresy, and there are even eucharistic hymns by Anglican and Lutherans that could appropriately be sung by Catholics. If I were oblivious to their origins, I wouldn't have a problem with some of the LDS (Mormon) or Christian Science hymns. I brace myself, however, when I see the words merit or alone in a Protestant text. That being said, you're not likely to find sentiments like "Christ did not die for reprobate sinners" or "they hate God because He hated them first" in Protestant hymnody, even if that's what many of those from the Calvinist confession profess. The more outlandish and explicitly anti-Catholic texts, such as "The Romish Lady," have long been unfashionable and are likely to give us occasion for hearty laughter nowadays.

In the case of derivative works, should "the original intended use of the musical pieces or songs" be taken to refer only to the composition or arrangement immediately in question, or to the material it incorporates? Beethoven's Ninth and Holst's Planets remain widely performed and arguably among the most popular concert works; Schubert's Lady of the Lake cycle much less so. Nearly all Catholic hymnals include Passion Chorale or Innsbruck. The strictest possible reading of the document would have to reject Bach's St. Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio because of their inclusion of those secular melodies, but that seems excessively literal.

@Palestrina tell us more about the secular origin of "Wachet auf" and its adaptation by Luther. This is news to me. I thought it was composed by Nicolai more than half a century after Luther's death, which seems to be the standard account.

MatthewRoth · 4:39AM

The objection to the Schubert Ave is probably that it’s bad music especially out of context.

The potential problem with Wachet Auf is that it was a secular song adopted by Luther for another purpose.

The trouble is that they didn’t think in such strict terms. I feel a bit lost reading some of these comments. Much of the Renaissance repertoire would be excluded because it’s based on music with secular words or associations; madrigals, chansons, etc.

As I said, now we do, to the point where certain associations are inevitable.

The following are good examples in Europe and/or among sports fans). For example the Prélude of H. 146 is the Eurovision Song Contest’s theme song. We would not wish to exclude that setting from our repertoire. “Zadok the Priest” should still be used at the coronation of a British monarch or performed in sacred and religious concerts, despite the fact that the youth were shocked that it was not in fact originally composed as the theme song for TV broadcasts of the Champions League.

I do not take the Vatican’s provision to exclude performing the secular music in concert when it is directly related to the composition of sacred music.

I think the oratory model of a seasonal or themed selection of sacred music with prayer or other reflections which is mentioned by the CDF is fine. But I have no scruples about judiciously performing the secular text to frame the sacred composition appropriately; one might also use instruments and print the text if the words were offensive, but that’s another conversation. Besides one interpretation is that the “armed man” is Saint Michael himself.

And I think that the Ordinary can decide to permit such a concert even if the law and the framing of the document might seem to exclude it, whereas a symphony is just completely out of bounds and not in keeping with the sacred character of the place and probably should not be permitted in a church open for divine worship.

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