Catching Up on my Register Blog

Just in case you haven't seen them, here are two posts I submitted to the National Catholic Register blogroll in the past two weeks:

In the first, May Traditions and the Blessed Virgin Mary, illustrated with this beautiful Maesta from Sienna by Simone Martini, I consider how traditional the month of Mary is, with all its events, and its Marian devotion. I am reading Yves Congar's book on The Meaning of Tradition, and I thought this passage explained the maternal aspects of these traditions:

In his book "The Meaning of Tradition", Yves Marie-Joseph Cardinal Congar summarized the role Tradition plays in Catholic Church doctrine, worship, and discipline. He explored the historical and theological aspects of Tradition (the magisterial teaching Tradition of the Church) and tradition (certain customs) in a two volume study published in 1960 and 1963—"The Meaning of Tradition", which is published in English by Ignatius Press, appeared in 1964.

In chapter one, “Tradition and Traditions” Congar offers us an insight into why May is such a maternal and traditional month. There is an intrinsic connection between the feminine genius, to use Pope St. John Paul II’s term, and tradition. As Congar notes, “We may even discern a feminine and maternal touch in the vital aspect of tradition. A woman expresses instinctively and vitally what a man expresses logically… The woman is the recipient, the matrix and fashioner of life. She creates the surroundings in which life will retain its warmth; one thinks of the maternal breast, of tenderness, of the home. She is fidelity.”

Congar goes on to note how important the home is to security and stability: graduating from high school to perhaps go to college; graduating from college to go into the working world, building a career and our own lives; progressing in our spiritual growth as Catholics as we receive the Sacraments. All of these transitions are supported by security of the home: “A home or milieu possesses a wealth of strength and certainly found nowhere else. Both provide security and with it the possibility of expansion that security affords.”

Looking at May as the month of Mary, I found this little-known encyclical of Pope Paul VI to be inspiring:

Blessed Pope Paul VI wrote a brief encyclical, “Mense Maio”, in 1965 to Catholic bishops throughout the world as the Second Vatican Council was meeting:

The month of May is almost here, a month which the piety of the faithful has long dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God. Our heart rejoices at the thought of the moving tribute of faith and love which will soon be paid to the Queen of Heaven in every corner of the earth. For this is the month during which Christians, in their churches and their homes, offer the Virgin Mother more fervent and loving acts of homage and veneration; and it is the month in which a greater abundance of God's merciful gifts comes down to us from our Mother's throne.

We are delighted and consoled by this pious custom associated with the month of May, which pays honor to the Blessed Virgin and brings such rich benefits to the Christian people…

The escalation of U.S. military involvement in the Vietnam War (with the possibility of using nuclear weapons), conflict between India and Pakistan, civil war in the Dominican Republic, and other conflicts led Pope Paul to urge prayers for peace:

So, Venerable Brothers, throughout this month of May, let us offer our pleas to the Mother of God with greater devotion and confidence, so that we may obtain her favor and her blessings. Even if the grave sins of men provoke God's justice and merit His just punishments, we must not forget the he is "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort," (Cf. 2 Cor. 1.3) that He has appointed Mary most holy as the generous steward of His merciful gifts.

He concluded by asking the bishops “to make provisions for special prayers in every diocese and parish during the month of May” and “in particular, on the feast of the Queenship of Mary” (August 22) for peace in the world and the success of the Second Vatican Council.

Please read the rest there.

And this week, the Register published this post on how to listen to Gregorian Chant or other liturgical music. I really appreciate the choice of illustration: the Angels singing from the Ghent Altarpiece by Jan van Eyck. You can read more about that great altarpiece at The Getty Foundation website here.

I criticize the view that Gregorian chant, particularly, is music to relax to and even fall asleep to:

I try not to listen to Gregorian chant or other liturgical music as though it is background music. Readers might remember the “Gregorian Chant for Relaxation” CDs issued after the great success of the recordings by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silo in the mid-1990’s. Gregorian chant was promoted as calming and perfect for meditation, Christian or otherwise. One critic commented on an anniversary re-release of the CDs:

. . . this is music for reflection, calming down, re-fueling and getting away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life--which may be even more needed now than they were 10 years ago. Texts are not supplied and you won't need them; it's all about reverence and mood. Doing nothing but listening to this in 25-minute chunks will allow your breathing to slow and re-energize you. Each 55-minute CD will probably put you to sleep--and this isn't meant as a criticism.”(Emphasis added)

Since the Latin Biblical texts are the reason that chant exists, saying that they’re not necessary demonstrates a real misuse of this liturgical music. A listener should not be lulled to sleep listening to chant: she should be awakened and inspired to prayer and devotion.

On the other hand, I don’t want to respond to this music as though I’m in a concert hall, applauding a performance.

Please read the rest there.

The Bonfire of the Vanities

Today is the 520th anniversary of the Bonfire of the Vanities, led by Fra Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, Italy. As the History Channel summarizes the event:

On this day in 1497, the Bonfire of the Vanities took place in Florence, Italy, as supporters of the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola burned thousands of objects deemed to be associated with vanity, temptation, and sin. Artworks, books, cosmetics, dresses, mirrors, musical instruments and much more were burned. It was seen as a religious act, as a cleansing of the soul and a rejection of worldly pleasures. His bonfire took place on the day of the Mardi Gras festivities—traditionally a series of carnival celebrations beginning on the Epiphany and ending on the day preceding Ash Wednesday.

Although the 7 February Bonfire of the Vanities was the most notorious of these fanatical fires—involving thousands of objects all going up in smoke in front of the Florentine public—it was not the only one. Rather, these sorts of burnings had been a regular accompaniment to the Franciscan missionary San Bernardino di Siena’s outdoor sermons in the first half of the 15th century, only on a smaller scale.

Many great cultural works were incinerated in Girolamo Savonarola’s day of destruction, including copies of books thought to be immoral, including works by Boccaccio, as well as manuscripts of secular songs. Many antique sculptures and paintings were burned, including pieces by successful artists such as Fra Bartolomeo and Lorenzo di Credi. It is even thought that several masterpieces by the great Sandro Botticelli—most famous for painting the Birth of Venus—were willingly burned by the artist, who was a follower of Savonarola’s. According to Giorgio Vasari’s The Lives of the Artists (the first ever book of art history), “Botticelli was so ardent a partisan that he was thereby induced to desert his painting, and, having no income to live on, fell into very great distress!”

The Bonfire of the Vanities was orchestrated by the charismatic, passionate Savonarola, who was known for his apocalyptic sermons. After the ruling Medici dynasty was overthrown in 1494, he was effectively the political—as well as spiritual—leader of the city of Florence, and his great bonfire was the high point of his career. However, his popularity fell away at an astounding rate afterwards, and the following year he was excommunicated and executed.

There is a new recording from the ORA project, combining Renaissance polyphony with a modern commissioned work in honor of Savonarola:

Following the stunning success of their best-selling debut, Suzi Digby’s crack vocal ensemble ORA presents their new album: ‘Refuge from the Flames’. Dedicated to the legacy of Girolamo Savonarola, 15th century Dominican and religious reformer, this new CD further showcases ORA's commitment to bringing together Renaissance choral masterpieces and commissioned reflections from contemporary composers. ORA bring a wealth of experience that gilds these pieces, both new and old, into the lustrous works of art they truly are.

“We begin and end this second ORA album with two contrasting settings of the Miserere mei (Psalm 50, Vulgate). Over the centuries this text has inspired reflections by many Christian writers, none more influential than those by Girolamo Savonarola, and we have devoted much of this album to his extraordinary legacy. Central to the recording is Savonarola’s meditation on the psalm, 'Infelix Ego', written shortly before his execution. We present it here in William Byrd’s justly famous setting, and in a newly commissioned masterpiece by the Latvian composer Eriks Ešenvalds.”
Suzi Digby OBE [artistic director & conductor]

1 Allegri: Miserere [edited by Ben Byram Wigfield]
2 Animuccia/Savonarola: Iesù, sommo conforto
3 Anon/Savonarola: Alma, che sì gentile
4 Anon/Savonarola: Che fai qui, core?
5 Bettini: Ecce quam bonum
6 Verdelot: Letamini in Domino
7 Byrd: Infelix ego
8 Eriks Ešenvalds (b.1977): Infelix ego *world premiere recording commissioned by ORA*
9 Richafort: O quam dulcis
10 Le Jeune: Tristitia obsedit me, magno
11 Anonymous: Ecce quomodo moritur
12 Clemens non Papa: Tristitia obsedit me, amici
13 James MacMillan (b.1959): Miserere

There was a CD set dedicated to Savonarola last year too, from Magnificat, centered around the Miserere by Josquin de Pres, but with the same works by William Byrd, Le Jeune, and Non Papa.

St. Philip Neri, Savonarola, and Renaissance Polyphony

Girolamo Savonarola was executed in the main square of Florence on May 23, 1498--it was a brutal execution that came after the Dominican friar had been tortured. He and his companions were stripped of their habits and hung by the neck above fires lit to burn their bodies. Their ashes were scattered in the Arno.

Savonarola was a hero to St. Philip Neri, as he had studied at the convent of San Marco (St. Mark's). Blessed John Henry Newman wrote about his patron's admiration of the Florentine friar in the two sermons he preached at the Oratory in Birmingham in 1848.

First, describing Savonarola:

A true son of St. Dominic, in energy, in severity of life, in contempt of merely secular learning, a forerunner of the Dominican St. Pius [V] in boldness, in resoluteness, in zeal for the honour of the House of God, and for the restoration of holy discipline, Savonarola felt "his spirit stirred up within him," like another Paul, when he came to that beautiful home of genius and philosophy; for he found Florence, like another Athens, "wholly given to idolatry." He groaned within him, and was troubled, and refused consolation, when he beheld a Christian court and people priding itself on its material greatness, its intellectual gifts, and its social refinement, while it abandoned itself to luxury, to feast and song and revel, to fine shows and splendid apparel, to an impure poetry, to a depraved and sensual character of art, to heathen speculations, and to forbidden, superstitious practices. His vehement spirit could not be restrained, and got the better of him, and—unlike the Apostle, whose prudence, gentleness, love of his kind, and human accomplishments are nowhere more happily shown than in his speech to the Athenians —he burst forth into a whirlwind of indignation and invective against all that he found in Florence, and condemned the whole established system, and all who took part of it, high and low, prince or prelate, ecclesiastic or layman, with a pitiless rigour,—which for the moment certainly did a great deal more than St. Paul was able to do at the Areopagus; for St. Paul made only one or two converts there, and departed, whereas Savonarola had great immediate success, frightened and abashed the offenders, rallied round him the better disposed, and elicited and developed whatever there was of piety, whether in the multitude or in the upper class.

It was the truth of his cause, the earnestness of his convictions, the singleness of his aims, the impartiality of his censures, the intrepidity of his menaces, which constituted the secret of his success. Yet a less worthy motive lent its aid; men crowded round a pulpit, from which others were attacked as well as themselves. The humbler offender was pleased to be told that crime was a leveller of ranks, and to find that he thus was a gainer in the common demoralization. The laity bore to be denounced, when the clergy were not spared; and the rich and noble suffered a declamation which did not stop short of the sacred Chair of St. Peter. . . .

A very wonderful man, you will allow, my Brethren, was this Savonarola. I shall say nothing more of him, except what was the issue of his reforms. For years, as I have said, he had his own way; at length, his innocence, sincerity, and zeal were the ruin of his humility. He presumed; he exalted himself against a power which none can assail without misfortune. He put himself in opposition to the Holy See, and, as some say, disobeyed its injunctions. Reform is not wrought out by disobedience; this was not the way to be the Apostle either of Florence or of Rome. Then trouble came upon him, a great reaction ensued; his enemies got the upper hand; he went into extravagances himself; the people deserted him; he was put to death, strangled, hung on a gibbet, and then burned in the very square where he had set fire to the costly furniture of vanity and sin. 

And then of St. Philip Neri's connection to Savonarola:

Philip was born in Florence within twenty years after [Savonarola]. The memory of the heroic friar was then still fresh in the minds of men, who would be talking familiarly of him to the younger generation,—of the scenes which their own eyes had witnessed, and of the deeds of penance which they had done at his bidding. Especially vivid would the recollections of him be in the convent of St. Mark; for there was his cell, there the garden where he walked up and down in meditation, and refused to notice the great prince of the day; there would be his crucifix, his habit, his discipline, his books, and whatever had once been his. Now, it so happened, St. Philip was a child of this very convent; here he received his first religious instruction, and in after times  he used to say, "Whatever there was of good in me, when I was young, I owed it to the Fathers of St. Mark's, in Florence." For Savonarola he retained a singular affection all through his life; he kept his picture in his room, and about the year 1560, when the question came before Popes Paul IV. and Pius IV., of the condemnation of Savonarola's teaching, he interceded fervently and successfully in his behalf before the Blessed Sacrament, exposed on the occasion in the Dominican church at Rome.

There's a new CD from Magnificat (directed by Philip Cave) of music inspired by Savonarola: Scattered Ashes: Josquin's Miserere and the Savonarolan Legacy. You can listen/watch a sample of this recording here. According to Linn Records:

Magnificat's 25th anniversary recording, Scattered Ashes, features contrasting and parallel works of great passion inspired by the meditations of the infamous Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola.

The liner notes for the CD are here, including details about how Savonarola wrote a meditation on Psalm 50/51 and began one on Psalm 30/31 and how different composers wrote settings of those psalms or the friar's meditations. Among the works including on the recording is William Byrd's Infelix Ego and the author of the liner notes, Patrick Macey, invokes the specter of persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England and how "Byrd's setting of Savonarola's meditation must have given voice to their sense of persecution, as well as their hope in the Lord's mercy." Note that Patrick Macey wrote an Oxford monograph of Savonarola's musical influence published in 1998 but out of print now, with the evocative title Bonfire Songs:

An underground tradition of sacred songs--Italian laude--thrived in Italy during the sixteenth century. The texts of many were written by the condemned heretic Fra Girolamo Savonarola, who was burned at the stake in Florence in 1498. This study explores the religious and social functions of these laudeduring Savonarola's time in Florence. It also reconstructs music for laude written to venerate the friar after his death. Savonarola's meditations on Psalms 30 and 50 were also set to music as motets by some of the leading composers of the 16th century, in a style of "high art" music remarkably distinct from the more popular tone of the lauda. These complex motets were often the result of networks of patronage at courts in Ferrara, France, and England. The book includes a CD with a generous selection of performances of the music discussed.

Remember that the Italian Laude were also incorporated into St. Philip Neri's Oratorian meditations, as just cited in the oratorio by Alessandro Scarlatti that I just reviewed.

Upheld by Stillness: Reflections on Renaissance Gems

I posted a preview of this new CD earlier this month: Upheld by Stillness: Renaissance gems and their reflections - Volume 1: Byrd. I received my copy last Friday and have listened to it several times this past weekend. ORA, founded and conducted by Suzi Digby, is a new vocal group. From their website:

ORA believes that we are in a second Golden Age of choral music, matching that of the Renaissance. It takes the musical experience of old and new masterworks to new levels through its live performances and recordings.

ORA combines the talent of the UK’s leading singers with a fresh and enticing approach to performance. It is not just about singing, though that is at the core of its being, it is also about engaging audiences on many levels with a dramatic and all-encompassing approach to performance that makes true ‘experiences’ out of concerts.

ORA is also about championing contemporary composers. We love the choral music that is being written today and ORA is passionate about commissioning, recording and performing new works. We hope you will share our passion. 

This first CD is the beginning of series of recordings ORA plans to make of Renaissance compositions matched with newly commissioned works. According to this interview, Suzi Digby has many works lined up, and the first one is a blockbuster:

For the 250th anniversary of Tallis's epic Spem in Alium, we have commissioned James MacMillan (considered by some to be the greatest living choral composer) to write a 40-part reflection. This happens to be in 2020: a fortuitous number!

Other forthcoming pairings include...

Ēriks Ešenvalds - Infelix Ego (paired with Byrd’s setting of the same text)

John Barber - Sicut Lilium (with Brumel’s setting)

Jonathan Dove - Vadam et circuibo (with Victoria’s setting)

Ken Burton - Loquebantur (with Tallis’ setting)

Richard Allain - Videte Miraculum (with Tallis’ setting)

Frank Ferko - If Ye Love Me (with Tallis’ setting)

Harry Escott - O Light of Light (with Tallis’ setting of O Nata Lux)

Alec Roth - Night Song (with Tallis’ setting of Te Lucis Ante Terminum)

and a new setting of Psalm 150 to Archbishop Parker’s words in his Psalter, to accompany Tallis’ Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter.

It would make sense for the second CD to be focused on the works of Thomas Tallis, another great English Renaissance composer, if that's what ORA intends. 

The work on this CD that most intrigued me as an historian of the English Reformation and as an English literature major was the one I highlighted in my first post about the CD, Alexander L'Estrange's "Show me, deare Christ". To recall what he said about his thought process in composing this work:

It was fascinating to reflect on what the words ‘I believe’ would have meant for William Byrd as a well-known recusant - a Catholic who refused to go to church. In Elizabethan England, being caught with Latin ‘popish’ books, celebrating Catholic Mass or, even worse, harbouring a priest in your house, could mean jail. For Jesuit martyrs like Edmund Campion, Robert Southwell and countless others, their fate was much worse: hanging, drawing and quartering and then your body parts being boiled in salt water and cumin seed before being displayed on pikes around the city. Lovely!

So it is all the more amazing that Byrd was able to write and publish his three Latin masses in the 1590s. Remember this was effectively illegal music that only someone courageous enough to risk accusations of treason would buy or sing. Church choirs certainly wouldn’t be queuing up to sing it.

In the course of my research, I eventually came to churchman and poet John Donne's Holy Sonnet XVIII. This poem beautifully expresses Donne’s lifelong despairing of the fragmentation of the church. Donne himself was a Catholic and his brother died in prison, guilty of 'harbouring a seminary priest'. Donne converted to Anglicanism in 1615 and later became Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London. Like Byrd, he would have understood only too well the dichotomy of different brands of the same Christian faith – which continues to challenge the Christian community to this day.

I don't know if L'Estrange intended this reaction, but I as listened to the music--and even more, read the words he sets to music--I heard a great debate between belief and doubt, between Byrd, Campion, and Southwell on one side and John Donne on the other. William Byrd, the recusant Catholic, and the martyred Saints Edmund Campion and Robert Southwell are confident in their Catholic faith, ready to die for it, or at least pay fines and suffer trouble for it. "Credo in unum Deum . . .  Et unam sanctum catholicam and apostolicam ecclesiam." Donne, on the other hand, is uncertain about where the true Church Jesus founded is: he is not restful in the Anglican church, even though he is one of its ministers, serving as the Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, encouraged by King James I. Donne's sonnet is mostly questions, while Byrd, Campion, and Southwell make statements and live and die by them, while Donne finally resolves to court and embrace "thy mild dove" which is "open to most men."

L'Estrange quotes Byrd's last will and testament: " . . . that I may live and die a true and perfect member of the holy Catholic Church, without which I believe there is no salvation for me". St. Edmund Campion is determined " . . . either to win you to Heaven or to die upon your pikes" and L'Estrange also cites his words at the conclusion of his trial with the other priests in 1581: "In condemning us, you condemn all your own ancestors, all our ancient bishops and kings, all that was once the glory of England . . .". And he quotes the poems of St. Robert Southwell too, all juxtaposed with the Latin of the Nicene and Athanasian Creed  ("For unless a person keeps this faith whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever."). Because the composition ends with the statement of belief from the Credo, it seems the Catholics are more steadfast and resolute than doubting, questioning Donne. 

The Original Miserere from the Sistine Chapel

The new album from the Sistine Chapel Choir contains a different version of Allegri's Miserere than we are used to, as this site explains:

The Deutsche Grammophon-recorded album even includes a world premiere, but it's not one you’d expect. Allegri’s Miserere may have been topping the classical charts for years, but the Sistine Chapel’s performance of the work in its original form (from the Sistine Codex of 1661) is, unbelievably, the first of its kind. Hardly anyone alive today will have heard the Miserere as Allegri originally conceived it. The version that most of us know – below, with its thrilling high C in the semichorus – is from a much later transcription.

‘The version of the Miserere that most people are familar with is based on a later transcription, most probably the one made by [former choir director] Lorenzo Perosi at the beginning of the 20th century,’ says Palombella [the current choir director]. ‘That version has the additions of many Vatican singers, but we have now recorded the true, Renaissance Miserere.

'It’s very simple, very clear, and we are singing it as authentically as possible, given what we know about the choir’s history. The soloist on the recording sings from the Salla Regia next to the Sistine Chapel, and we have also used two male cantuses [countertenors] in the semi-chorus rather than boy singers, because this is most probably how it was done in the past.’

The article also addresses the story of Mozart's secretive transcription of the music:

Allegri’s famous setting of Psalm 51 is already the stuff of legend – not least because of the widely-circulated tale about Mozart allegedly defying papal law by smuggling it out of the Vatican using memory alone. According to the story, the 14-year-old Mozart heard the Miserere during Mass on a visit to Rome in 1770 and wrote it down from memory that evening. Is it true?

‘I can believe the Mozart story is true,' says Palombella, 'but mostly because it’s very easy to transcribe the Miserere! The harmony is always the same, and it’s repeated many times. But the part about the music not being allowed to leave the Vatican is probably a myth. It is true that music was written specifically for the Sistine Chapel, and that there was a sort of copyright, but if a pope was asked to have the scores sent somewhere else, generally he accepted.’

The story I've linked includes two versions of the Miserere: one by The Sixteen (the one with the high C) and the one by the Sistine Chapel Choir. More background on the composition here. 

Emeritus Pope Benedict's Honorary Degrees and Sacred Music

From Vatican Radio:

Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI received Doctorates honoris causa on Saturday from the Pontifical John Paul II University of Krakow and the Krakow Academy of Music. The motivation for the honors issued by the University’s Academic Senate specifies five contributions Pope Benedict has made to knowledge and culture: his great respect for the musical tradition of the Church and remarkable sensitivity to the music of faith; the life-long and constant demonstration of a special concern for the noble beauty of sacred music and its proper place in the celebration of the sacred liturgical rites of the Church; his constant insistence on the didactic importance of the via pulchritudinis – the way of beauty – which can become a way of knowing and worshiping God for the modern man; his lifelong commitment to Truth, which strengthens the Christian faith in times of spiritual confusion caused by liberalism, postmodernism and relativism, and his tireless efforts to restore the spiritual dimension of Europe; his kind support for the work of transforming the schools of the Pontifical Academy of Theology into the Pontifical John Paul II University.

Father Benedict had some prepared remarks. In The Spectator, Damian Thompson writes:

One of the finest speeches Benedict XVI ever delivered was about sacred music. It is a small masterpiece, in which Benedict recalls his first encounter with Mozart in the liturgy. ‘When the first notes of the Coronation Mass sounded, Heaven virtually opened and the presence of the Lord was experienced very profoundly,’ he said.

Benedict robustly defended the performance of the work of great composers at Mass, which he insisted was necessary for the fulfilment of the Second Vatican Council’s wish that ‘the patrimony of sacred music [is] preserved and developed with great care’.

Then he asked: what is music? He identified three places from which it flowed. First, the experience of love, opening ‘a new grandeur and breadth of reality’ that inspires music. Second, ‘the experience of sadness, death, sorrow and the abysses of existence’. These open ‘in an opposite direction, new dimensions of reality that can no longer find answers in discourses alone’. Third, the encounter with the divine. ‘I find it moving to observe how, in the Psalms, singing is no longer enough for men — an appeal is made to all the instruments: reawakened is the hidden music of creation, its mysterious language.’

Our musical Pope Emeritus changed liturgical music practices at St. Peter's, as this Crisis article notes, and those changes have reverberated throughout the Church:

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was different. He had written an entire book on the music issue. He had written another book on the liturgical question. He had spoken about the subject on many occasions. He never feared the subject and this is for two reasons: 1) he understood the goals of Vatican II and saw that they had been seriously distorted, and 2) he was a trained music (sic) of the highest calibre who understood the role of music in the Roman Rite.

When he became Pope, the changes began and they were relentless. We started hearing chant in Papal liturgy, just a bit at first and then more as time went on. With Summorum Pontificum (2007) he took away the stigma that had been attached to traditional chant by granting full permission to the liturgical structure that had originally given rise to chant. This was deeply encouraging for a generation that was ready to move forward. We started seeing chant workshops fill up. Groups began to form at the parish level. New resources started to be published by independent publishers. A real fire had been lit in the Catholic music world. And it all happened without any impositions or legislation.

The musical program of St. Peter’s Basilica began to attract the attention of serious musicians. A new standard came to be applied to visiting choirs: you must know the basics of Gregorian chant or you cannot sing at St. Peter’s. This was a gigantic decision that fundamentally upset the dynamic that had long developed between Rome and traveling choirs. Now choirs had to learn and discover chant if they hoped to take that long-sought pilgrimage to Rome.

Meanwhile, Joseph Ratzinger’s writings on music were selling more than ever, and having an ever larger influence. Benedict XVI spoke about the topic often in homilies and spontaneous remarks following concerts. He worked to elevate high art to a new status on his travels. His team worked hard to encourage groups that sang for liturgy for his trips to embrace chant and polyphonic music of the Renaissance. It didn’t always work but the progress was obvious.

Read the rest there. The issue that Pope Benedict addressed was that the Church, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, had mistakenly jettisoned our great heritage of beautiful Gregorian chant, Renaissance polyphonic Mass settings, and even high classical Masses, like Mozart's Coronation Mass. The fathers at Vatican II had said positively that Gregorian chant should have pride of place in the celebration of the liturgy, and yet I grew up never hearing chant at all--until it became popular as background music and the different chant discs (for Meditation, Relaxation, etc) came out. 

This reminds me of course of that "Agatha Christie Indult" letter, the one sent from England to Pope Paul VI, descrying the elimination of the traditional Latin Mass. Remember that it was signed by many non-Catholics and several musicians and they were concerned of the loss of so much culture:

The rite in question, in its magnificent Latin text, has also inspired a host of priceless achievements in the arts - not only mystical works, but works by poets, philosophers, musicians, architects, painters and sculptors in all countries and epochs. Thus, it belongs to universal culture as well as to churchmen and formal Christians. In the materialistic and technocratic civilisation that is increasingly threatening the life of mind and spirit in its original creative expression - the word - it seems particularly inhuman to deprive man of word-forms in one of their most grandiose manifestations. The signatories of this appeal, which is entirely ecumenical and non-political, have been drawn from every branch of modern culture in Europe and elsewhere.

Perhaps along with the Anglican Ordinariate, this revival in sacred and liturgical music will be one of Pope Benedict's greatest legacies, God bless him!

St. Benedict of Nursia, pray for us!

A Sequence of Music for Lent, St. Joseph, and the Annunciation

I haven't figured out what music on this CD is for St. Joseph, but listening to Miserere on the vigil of the First Sunday of Lent, I appreciated the mixture of plainhant, Renaissance polyphony, and contemporary liturgical music composed at and performed in Westminster Cathedral. Unlike Harry Christopher's The Sixteen, the Westminster Choir has boys singing the soprano parts, and realizing that this choir sings this music in the context of the Mass and not in a concert hall added to the devotional impact for me. Then when we went to Mass on Sunday the choir sang an English translation of the first chant on the CD, "Attende Domine" and everything just fit. The liner notes describe the chant melody thus:

Plainsong exists to solemnify the text that it adorns. Attende, Domine has its origins in the Mozarabic Rite of the tenth century and is one of the more emotionally complex melodies in the literature. It is classified by Solesmes dogma as a Lydian tune, although it is authentically Ionian. On the one hand the chant drives the physical momentum of litaneic procession, while on the other it colours the plangency of Lenten supplication. The aural hook of this hymn of exhortation comprises two consecutively occurring perfect fourths (heard at the beginning of the second phrase of the refrain). This descending medieval solecism occurs to great effect no fewer than eleven times, and since the nineteenth century this chant has beguiled the willing ears of Anglicans as well as those of Roman Catholics, as witnessed by the melody’s prominent inclusion in the English Hymnal of 1906 under the title ‘A Lent Prose’.

It "beguiled [my] willing ears" too!

Sheppard, Davy, and Mundy from The Sixteen

On their new CD and in their 2014 Choral Pilgrimage:

The Sixteen returns to its grass roots and revisits the golden age of Renaissance polyphony in England for the repertoire of its latest disc. In this new programme the award-winning ensemble presents a stunning selection of music by Richard Davy, John Sheppard and William Mundy.

Little is known about the life of Richard Davy. He is, however, the second most represented of all the composers in the Eton Choirbook and wrote in the beautifully florid style so characteristic of 1490s English music. The mere fact that his music survived the Reformation is nothing short of a miracle. He was a scholar of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he acted as choir master and organist and it is believed that he wrote the monumental O Domine caeli terraeque creator in the span of a single day during his time at the college.

John Sheppard's musical style contains all the grandness and idiosyncrasies of English harmonic invention, as is aptly displayed on this new recording which includes one of the gems of Tudor music - the glorious seven-part Trinity antiphons Libera nos with their ethereal combination of upper voices balanced with an even-note cantus firmus in the bass, as well as one of the most grandiose of Sheppard’s responsories, Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria, a magnificent setting of the responsory and prosa for Second Vespers for the Feast of the Purification.

William Mundy was one of the few composers whose career bridged the Reformation and allowed him to develop his style through a variety of important periods. His Votive antiphon,Vox patris caelestis, probably written for the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the reign of Mary Tudor, can be considered as the culmination of the great antiphon tradition with its elaborate and virtuosic vocal writing and daunting extended range.

The track listings are:

John Sheppard (c.1515-58/9)
1. Gaude, gaude, gaude Maria
William Mundy (c.1530-before 1591)
2. Adolescentulus sum ego
Richard Davy (c.1465-c.1521)
3. O Domine caeli terraeque creator
Sheppard
4. Libra nos I & II
5. In manus tuas I
Davy
6. Ah, mine heart, remember thee well
Sheppard
7. In manus tuas III
Mundy
8. Vox patris caelestis

While enduring withdrawal symptoms from the football season Sunday night, I watched the first episodes of Music and Monarchy again--with performances from Eton College, King's College, Cambridge, et al. I enjoyed again how David Starkey and his experts demonstrated the arrangements of College choirs around the huge choir book; then showed the changes made in the composition of music and the membership of the choir during the Tudor Reformation transitions, etc.

Something I did not comment on when I posted my review of Music and Monarchy is the other gradual transition Starkey demonstrates. From the Tudors to the Stuarts to the Hanoverians to the Windsors, the purpose of music at Court, Chapel Royal, and Cathedral changed. First, as Starkey showed particularly with the example of Henry V and Henry VI, the purpose was worship of God. Then, with the Restoration of Charles II and particularly the coronation of James II, the purpose was supporting the monarchy and king, which Purcell continued with the odes to Mary, for example, during the reign of William and Mary. After William curtailed music at Court, English music was revived during the Hanoverian dynasty by the German Handel--and George III supported his music and talent so much that the focus of the musical performance for the monarchy became recognition of the composer. With the Windsors, the purpose of music for the monarchy was patriotism or even nationalism: "Land of Hope and Glory", the Proms, the processional hymn by Ralph Vaughn Williams at Elizabeth II's coronation, "All People That On Earth Do Dwell", the focus was on the people and the glories of being English!

From God, to the King, to the composer, to the people.

English Monarchs and Music on the BBC

I wonder if we shall see David Starkey's BBC series on Music and Monarchy, on PBS which includes many examples of Renaissance polyphony, royal influence on musical composers, and the integration of music in the life and ceremony of royalty in England from the Middle Ages to the modern era. If not, a book, DVD, and CD are either available now or for pre-order and release later this year. There is also a youtube video of the first episode, beginning with Henry V and Henry VIII (interrupted by commercials).

Gramaphone Magazine liked the series:

There's a sort of exuberant delight to Starkey's presentation – there he is pondering a performance just off centre-stage, or sometimes even standing right next to the conductor, or perhaps midway between the two ranks of choir stalls. He may as well stand in the best acoustic spot I suppose – but I guess the message is that Starkey is on a journey of discovery, and, through him, so are we. It's accessible history in the best tradition: rich in observation, a strong narrative told with conviction and colour, enthusing energetically throughout. The script takes fascinating facets of the story and elevates them with the sort of rhetoric which has made Starkey such a successful communicator of history. Thus, Henry V's French invasions were 'A Holy War to be fought with music'. Henry VIII 'was a master of the politics of splendour, and the brightest jewel and the most effective instrument was his Chapel Royal'. Episode one closes with Elizabeth I's court and the glories of her Chapel Royal: 'Outside it was the cold winter of Protestant austerity, inside it was indeed the warm summer of the Golden age of English Church music'.

But above all, we get to see some of the most important pieces of music of the past half-millennium performed in the places for which they were written, by the modern musicians who know them best, among them David Skinner, Fretwork, Richard Egarr and the Choirs of King's College Cambridge and Westminster Abbey. The lists of works featuring in the series runs onto four sides of A4.

Music, argues Starkey's series, was as integral to the image and power of monarchy as were armies and architecture. Nothing embodies the latter quite so well as Westminster Abbey itself of course, built as a shrine to a King-Saint, and later adorned at the east end with its glorious Lady Chapel in the most exquisite Perpendicular Gothic and itself a monument to Tudor prestige. Here, and throughout the Abbey's many chapels, the kings and queens now lie silent beneath austere tombs. The music, of course, lives on. Perhaps it's fitting that of all the memorials in the Abbey, it's one to a musician - Handel, sculpted by Louis-François Roubiliac - that is by far the most full of life.

The Spectator likes the book too, and highlights the influence of the English Reformation on English music, as Starkey notes that Henry VIII nearly destroyed the liturgical music he loved so much:

The Reformation targeted not merely the liturgy gracing the chapels themselves but the very performance style of their masses and motets. As early as 1516 Erasmus, in his Commentary on Corinthians 1.14, had criticised the vogue for increasingly complex polyphony, ‘a certain elaborate and theatrical music’ for which English clerics cherished a special fondness. ‘Those who are more doltish than really learned are not content unless they can use a distorted kind of music called descant.’ Thirty years later, with the walls whitewashed, shrines desecrated and idolatrous images torn down, Archbishop Cranmer, backed by Queen Catherine Parr, took up the cry. ‘In mine opinion,’ he told Henry VIII, ‘the song that shall be made would not be full of notes, but as near as may be, for every syllable a note, so that it may be sung distinctly and devoutly.’

Starkey and Greening neatly demonstrate how much of what we treasure in Tudor church music is due to skilful religious fudging and compromise by Catholic court musicians, as also to the unfathomable quirks and ambiguities of Elizabeth I’s spiritual outlook and artistic tastes. Sovereigns in her time were noted, not always sycophantically, as accomplished performers, vocal or instrumental. Elizabeth may not have been quite such a versatile keyboard player as her flatterers claimed, but King Charles I handled a bass viol with professional skill and honoured his lutenists and singers with the ultimate royal accolade of leaning a hand on their shoulders as they played. Music & Monarchy captures the tragic irony underlying Charles’s execution outside the very same Inigo Jones Banqueting House once resonating with the lyrics and dances of those extravagant masques which, during the 1630s, had sustained the increasing illusion of his kingship.

The book and the DVD are definitely on my wish list!

Just Another Catholic in Exile: Composer Peter Philips

Now whirling in my CD player, this recording of works of Peter Philips, contemporary of William Byrd, "Cantiones Sacrae Quinis Vocibus". The Tudor Consort and Peter Walls performing on the Naxos Early Music label:

Peter Philips (1561-1628) stands with William Byrd (1543-1623) among the greatest composers of the Counter Reformation. These two English Catholic recusants composed sacred polyphony which is unsurpassed in sophistication and interest. Unlike Byrd, who remained in England, protected from serious legal harassment for his beliefs largely by official recognition of his remarkable gifts as a musician, Philips chose to live in exile on the continent.

Philips’ career was determined by his religious convictions. He is first heard of as a fourteen-year-old choirboy at St Paul’s in London. The person responsible for him there was Samuel Westcote, who was frequently in trouble with the authorities for his recusancy. In 1582, shortly after Westcote’s death, Philips fled England - and we are told that he did so "pour la foy Catholique". He went first to the English College at Douai where, at that very time, the Catholic English translation of the Bible, an answer to Protestant translations, was under way. (The Douai/Rheims New Testament appeared in 1582; the Old Testament was to follow in 1609). He then went on to the English College in Rome, which at that time provided refuge for a number of religious exiles. Philips remained at the English College for three years and was appointed organist. He was, therefore, in Rome at the height of Palestrina’s fame. Moreover, in 1585 Felice Anerio, Palestrina’s successor at the Papal Chapel, was appointed maestro di cappella at the English College, and so worked with Philips. Philips included music by Palestrina and Anerio in some of his own publications. In other words, he was thoroughly conversant with the riches of late-sixteenth-century Roman polyphony.

In 1585 Philips left Rome in the service of another English Catholic, Lord Thomas Paget. Together they travelled through Spain, France, and present-day Belgium. Paget died early in 1590, and Philips settled in Antwerp, where he married and "mainteyned him self by teachinge of children of the virginals being very cunning thereon". In 1593 he visited Amsterdam "to sie and heare an excellent man of his faculties" (Sweelinck). On his way back from Amsterdam, he was taken to The Hague for interrogation, on suspicion of plotting against Queen Elizabeth.

Four years later, he became a member of the household of the Archduke Albert, the regent of the Spanish Netherlands, and there he spent the rest of his working life. Thus, in this final and longest stage of his career, he illustrates quite literally the charge, made in 1630, that ‘Though all our Recusants be the King of Englands subjects, yet too many of them be the King of Spaines servants’.

Read the rest here. Thomas Paget had been the Third Baron Paget until 1589, when he was attainted of treason for supposedly plotting against Elizabeth I. His title was forfeit and he returned to Spain as an exile. Try to imagine Philips's terror at being arrested and questioned in Amsterdam--evidently he was able to present some facts that convinced Elizabethan authorities that he had not conspired against her. Becoming part of the household of the Archduke Albert provided more protection; not even exile guaranteed safety from Elizabeth I's "police state".