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80 THE CATHOLIC CONGRESS.
words could be distinctly understood; and we know how Palestrina,
when applied to to compose a Mass, which should comply with these
conditions, lifted his eyes to heaven and prayed, Domine illumina
oculos meos, and that the result of his prayers and of his efforts was
the production of those immortal masterpieces of church music, of
which the AZissa Pape Marcelli is so famous, As Rev. Carl Becker
says: ‘‘The success was decisive. The committee of cardinals
declared that they could not find a cause to make a chauge in
church music; that the singers, however, should always be cautious
to select similar music for the divine service to that which they had
just heard. In these words the authorized committee sanctioned
and recommended that style of music, which indeed was not in-
vented by Palestrina, and for this reason may be rightly termed the
Palestrina style.’’
The same writer says: ‘‘The music of Palestrina has been said
to be ‘entirely unlike the Gregorian,’ while it is acknowledged by
competent authorities that the Gregorian is the foundation of Pale-
strina’s music. And how could it be otherwise? It was Palestrina
who, upon the injunction of Pope Gregory XIII, commenced the
vast work of the revision of the Dérectorium Chori, according to the
oldest and best codices of the Vatican. How could Palestrina com-
pose otherwise than in the spirit of the Gregorian, in the study of
which he was engaged all his life? It is true, Palestrina’s music is
unlike the Gregorian, inasmuch as the rhythm is that of figured
music, but the spirit and the melody are either the same or analogous.”’
The historian Ambros, quoted by Father Becker, says: ‘‘It is
no music for the concert hall or the musical academy. * * * It
is music for the church, for divine service, for the ecclesiastical year,
with its feasts and seasons, with its days of sorrow, consolation, joy,
solemnity,thanksgiving, and adoration.’’ And Dr. Witt says: ‘‘ The
sixteenth century is an epoch in art, which developed one style of
music, and of musical composition, which, indeed, was-not invented,
but perfected by Palestrina, in such a marvellous manner that I
cannot think further progress in that particular direction is possible.’’
‘‘We shall never forget,’’ said an eminent German musician, speak-
ing of the first performance of the Czecilia Verein, ‘‘the Mass, Qui
Complerentur, by Palestrina, the J/iserere, or the Afissa pro Defunc-
tis, by Vittoria.”
If time permitted, we might examine exquisite Masses and
motettes of Orlando Lasso, Vittoria, Anerio, Croce, Handel, Hassler,
Suriano, Casciolini, and others, but we must leave them, and give a
hasty glance at those of a few of the great composers of the Cecilia
Verein, of Dr. Witt, Carl Greith, Adolph Kaim, etc.
The London Tablet said, several years ago of this music: ‘‘’The
music of the Ratisbonne school of composers is a revelation. Com-
pletely free from dramatical effects, pompousness, chromatic wailing,
and hysterical sentimentality, its effect is marvellous. Those who
have never heard anything but church music in the secular style,
will be amazed at the wondrous power of the divine art, inspired by
the power of the liturgy. It must be confessed that music of this
kind completely spoils one for the productions of those who insist
upon employing abstract music inchurches. * * * The drift of
all the instructions issued by the pope, provincial councils, and indi-
vidual bishops, is not art alone, and for itself, but art in union with
theliturgy. Dr. Witt’s music exactly carries out this idea. When
we hear it, we hear the church’s prayer, not Dr. Witt’s, and this is
the object of ecclesiastical music. It proves to us that figured
music may be modern, yet not in opposition to our prototype, plain
chant, and, that to preserve this unity it is absolutely necessary to
have studied and compared the works of the old masters. This,
indeed, is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Ratisbonne school,
ofwhich Dr. Witt is so distinguished an ornament, and, necessarily,
influences its style. Dr. Witt’s melodies are delightful ; so modest
and simple, so free from excitement and mawkishness. His harmon-
ies are scientific, without that stiffness of mere imitators of the old
ecclesiastical writers, and no man knows better how to sum up, as it
were, all that has gone before, in one pathetic, lingering cadence.
The Ayvie, and Agnus Dei, in St. Caecilia’s Mass, are masterpieces
of contrapuntal art.’’ .
A French magazine, quoted in the Catholic World, says of Witt :
‘‘As-a composer of religious music, Witt far surpasses the most of
his contemporaries, and, if we regard the transcendent character ot
his musical works, we have only too much reason to exclaim, ‘ Inex- .
orable death has robbed us of a second Palestrina.’ ”’
Beautiful, also, and full of tender devotion, are the masses of
Kaim, the well known one ‘‘In Honor of St. Ceecilia,’? and the
Missa Jesu Redemptor; and the masses Size Nomine, and
L’ Hora Passa of Viadana, have a fragrance of sweet innocence
about them that comes to one like the fresh air of a country meadow.
There is still another class of music which can be called
“‘church music,’’ and that is, all that modern music written for the
church, which, although not in the A/a Palestrina style, still con?
forms, on the whole, to the regulations of the church. Such are
the magnificent Mass in C, by Beethoven, the eighth and ninth
Masses of Mozart in F and D, several of Gounod’s Masses, ete.
After having seen what true church music is, it is easy to
define bad church music, for it is simply that music which does not
obey the regulations. of the church; and, unfortunately, most of
Mozart’s Masses, all of Haydn's, Mercadante’s, and a host of
others, come under this head.
It is painful for the musician who has been, used to rank the
operas, symphonies, quartettes, or other concerted music of Beetho-
ven, Mozart, Haydn, Weber, and other great composers, with all
that is perfect and beautiful of their kind, nay, almost to surround
them with a halo of inspiration, it is painful for him to be forced to
acknowledge that much of their so-called church music is no church
music at all. Yet that is the sad fact. With the exception of the
greater part of Beethoven’s Mass in C, the above-mentioned Masses
of Mozart, and a few others, the masses of these great composers
are not liturgical, and cannot, therefore, properly be sung in church.
They are not liturgical, for they are written in a worldly, profane
style; they are so full of repetitions that the “words of the sacred
text are not intelligible,’ and they are so lengthened out that they
impede most seriously the progress of the holy sacrifice. To.
instance only one out of a multitude of cases, Father Alfred Young,
one Sunday, ‘‘irreverently timed the singing of an amen to a Credo,
and found that the priest’s fast was lengthened by it just’ four
minutes and a half.”
The music, also, in the finest of these Masses, is often entirely
out of keeping with the sentiment of the words. ‘One or. two
instances of this must suffice also. The A’yrie of the great imperial
Mass of Haydn begins with a blast of trumpets and a roll of kettle
drums, and the whole movement is in a style of exultation and
worldly pomp. Was this pious Joseph Haydn’s idea of the inter-
pretation of those aspirations of humble supplication, ‘‘ Lord, have
mercy upon us’? Not at all! But Herr Hof-Cappellmeister Haydn
was Composing a mass, not so much to worship the King of Heaven
as to celebrate the coronation of some great potentate of the earth.
_ _ Let us compare, with Dr. Witt, the famous aria, dgnus Det,
in Mozart’s first Mass, with the Gregorian Agnus Dei, in the Mass
for Sundays in Lent and Advent, and then answer his question,
Which is the more appropriate for the sacrifice of the Mass?”
And if composers will write music to be sung to princes and
congregations, need we be surprised that choirs sing rather.to the
congregation than to the praise and glory of God? For everything
about the music is calculated to remind them of an audience, rather
than of a religious service. ,
: And what is the effect ot such music on the morals and behavior
of the choir? Let us look at two pictures, both of which we can
see every Sunday. Scene of the first picture: ‘The “organ loft’’
of a fashionable church. ‘Time: A few minutes before high Mass.
The soprano bustles in, fashionably dressed, with an air of peculiar
Importance, After wishing the organist ‘ good morning,’’ she
says, ‘‘Have you selected an offertory piece??? ‘ Well yes,”
replies he, rather apologetically, ‘I had thought of the air from
Rinaldo, for alto solo.” ‘‘ What! that—that dear old acquaintance!
Well, it’s all Miss A can sing, it’s true. But Mr. B, I think you'll
have to change your programme to-day. You see I have invited
some friends to hear me to-day, and I’ve brought my aria from Der
Freischiitz to sing. True, it is sung very often, but you know it
never grows old, and you'll see what a sensation it will make when
I sing it. By the way, what Mass do we sing this morning?
Weber’s? - H—m! lovely, but it won’t do. Vou know the Agnus
is an alto solo, and comes before the soprano solo, too. No, no, my
dear Mr. B, we can’t have that, Let us take some other one. I
have it! La Hache’s is the thing. That has no alto part at all.
Just then the alto enters, with her offertory, and we prudently with-
draw, just as Miss A says, with a deep sigh, ‘‘Oh why will no one
write Mass with no soprano part to it?”’ ‘
ut now let us gaze on this other picture. A long procession
of surpliced boys and men slowly approach the sanctuary from a
side door, preceded by the processional cross and two lighted candles.
Quietly and teverently they take their places in the sacred enclosure,
and the solemn Mass begins. We scarcely notice the music, for we
are wrapt at once in the holy sacrifice, truly a ‘‘ solemn high Mass,’’
of which the music 1s an essential part, and yet does not distract,
but rather guides us. But when the priest intones the Dominus
vobiscum, we all exclaim, our hearts full of devotion and adoration,