Damien Thompson has been making people cry with his remarks about the composers of "contemporary" liturgical music. The reader who said that Holy Smoke was the first blog he had read which ever made him cry was writing on the Society of St Gregory Forum. The discussion there was somewhat prophetic since it took place in advance of Damien's post which included the comment that a better name for the SSG would be the "Society for Composers of Gruesome Seventies Ditties that Make You Want to Run Screaming for the Exit."You are invited to make your own mind up by listening to some of the selections (try the Kyrie from the Mass for Easter) from "Baptised with Fire" - described by Damien as "a good choice of title, since judging by the extracts I’d rather be burned alive than listen to the whole album." Now generally on the blogosphere, this kind of comment will spark off a good old flame war and heads are metaphorically broken on both sides.
If some trendy musician were to suggest that the Mass settings so beloved of traditionalists were so awful as to make them want to pull their own ears off or whatever, I suppose nobody is going to burst into tears on behalf of Mozart or Pope Gregory the Great. One of the advantages of tradition, perhaps?
Anyway; Damien's response to the criticism?
Here’s why I don’t feel too guilty. First, the Mass settings produced by the “composers” of the SSG really are bad: they range from nails-scraping-down-a-blackboard painful to stuff that sounds like a wicked parody. Someone needs to say – in a loving way, of course – that it’s drivel.I think that he has a valid point there. Perhaps we should fight back. When you next hear "Bind us together", tell the parish priest that you felt "violated". Or take out a big box of paper hankies and run out sobbing with anger when the liturgical dance starts up.
Second, I’m getting a bit sick of the liberal response to any criticism, which is to bang on about how “hurtful” it is. The message is: emotions come first. So a congregation has to sit through a decade of wailed “folk Masses”, because if you complain you’ll hurt someone’s feelings.
It is interesting that the SSG forum recognises the character of the Catholic blogosphere. As they say, "Catholic bloggers who follow other than a rigorously conservative line seem quite hard to find". (For "rigorously conservative" here, read "in line with the teaching of Pope Benedict".) Another telling comment was "They play in a different league over there, don't they!"
Indeed. Now which of those "leagues" is in continuity with the Church's past and which sees a rupture with the past some 40 or so years ago?
31 comments:
Think 'bind us together' is bad????
We 'sang' that awful 'He's got the whole world in His hands' a few weeks ago.
I did mention to the parish priest how 'violated' I felt, and he agreed with me that it is a terrible song, but said it was the organist's choice!
I'm 17 and even I can't stand some of these 'hymns.'
I've now used my inverted comma quota for the month!
"Catholic bloggers who follow other than a rigorously conservative line seem quite hard to find".
Why? Surely old trendies can blog too, or is it they have nothing to say, or no-one to say it to, surely they have a constituency who want to listen to them, or is it simply the are a failing force; capable only of destruction but contributing nothing to the life of the Curch?
Yuck!!! Those "hymns" sound like the "New Christie Minstrels" singing Irish folk songs.
Errrr .... am I "dating" myself by mentioning the New Christie Minstrels?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3NvLkBA9vsQ
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3vXmx3A1SyA&mode=related&search=
I was nearly brought to tears in our church last night.
I live in a small country parish called Flitwick, Sunday mass attendance about 250 I would guess, including the "chapel of ease" at nearby Ampthill
A few weeks after the July 7th motu proprio announcement, our parish priest Canon Denis put a message in the newsletter for two or three weeks explaining that the bishop had written to the priests of the diocese about the motu proprio and it was the Popes wish that those who wanted it should have the mass etc. provided in the old rite.
Anyway in the fourth week he put a notice in that people had approached him sked for a Tridentine Mass and so at 7.30 last night he arranged and presided over a Sung Tridentine Mass to celebrate the feast of St Francis.
It was a dank Autumn night and I arrived a little anxious that there might be more people on the sanctuary/choir than in the congregation. The mass clashed with Fr Davenports monthly Thursday evening Tridentine Mass at Chesham, further down the M1, and this would limit the turn out of Tridentine "regulars". I had left my daughter crying at home because she couldnt come with Daddy, 7.30pm mass is a bit late for a 5 year old with school the next day - so that would mean most of the Traditional young large catholic families in the area couldn't come.
As I walked to Mass I passed the C of E parish church with its Tower looming out among the pine trees in the country lane, the Tower beloved by my younger daughter who can see it from her bedroom window. This was probably the last place to hold a traditional Latin Mass in Flitwick, nearly 500 years ago, our parish church was only built in the 1980's
I need not have worried about turnout, over 60 people were at Mass, the vast majority local parishoners of all ages, for some of whom it must have been the first time they attended a Tridentine Mass. Even a couple of children - a bit older than my daughter, who were fascinated with proceedings.
The proper and responses were heartilty sung by the congregation with a good lead by the Choir. Canon Denis had printed a special mass book for the occasion too so people were not confused.
It was a most uplifting parish occasion and I for one was amazed at the level of interest. The attendance was approximately the same as the 9 O'clock Mass on Sundays - and this at 7.30 at night and not even a Holyday.
Deo Gratius.
A friend of mine has drawn up two lists of hymns from a certain well known hymn book. These lists are entitled:
'Bizarre/heretical or not entirely Christian' and
'Fluff and vacuous doggeral/Neo-Pagan'.
Given that these lists are both rather long, perhaps it's time that the 'Orthodox Bloggers' drew up a list of hymns which are TRUE TO THE FAITH, GIVE GLORY TO GOD RATHER THAN TO OURSELVES and HELP PEOPLE TO PRAY - for instance, hymns which address Christ in the Eucharist at communion time when he is so close to us, rather than those with words addressed to each other when Christ himself is present.
Between us, surely we could come up with a list of hymns which fulfil those criteria? Some of us will surely know some modern ones which are good also - there must be some!
Maybe some Bloggers are able to write hymns themselves?
Then all we need is someone to take on the publication - how about Joanna Bogle - she knows about publishing?
Sorry to remain anonymous on this one - don't want to identify the friend who wrote the list!
I'm sick to my guts of the "that was hurtful" response to vigorous criticism. It's a form of moral blackmail which renders the "hurt" party invulnerable to further criticism.
It seems that anyone with any attachment to traditional forms of the Catholic faith (and not necessarily just those with an attachment to the Traditional Latin Mass) has to put up with all sorts of abuse and marginalisation (cf the south west of England) but challenge a hippy and they curl up like a slug in salt.
Some dissenter will now need counselling as a result of that last phrase. My heart bleeds. Really.
Let's also remember that the gaffe has been blown on these people as a direct consequence of one of their number attempting to palm of the faithful of Portsmouth diocese with a pack of lies about the content and intent of Summorum Pontificum. Why would he want to do that? Well, in the absence of any explanation or apology, we're entitled to connect up the dots...
The Old Gang do not "get" the Internet. Of course, they've nothing interesting to say (as Fr Blake points out); but it goes deeper than that. For nearly two generations, our New Masters of the Discontinuity have depended on control of the flow of information to ensure that only the party line gets through to the flock. Their regime is established on spin and "economy with the truth" and they've become so used to the culture that the effect of the Internet in giving a highly effective voice to traditional Catholicism, unspiked by conniving editors, is proving genuinely shocking to them.
I'm assuming that Emma doesn't go to my Church, but that is exactly the response of my parish priest. He says he loathes the 'music' played at Mass, but feels obliged to give way to the organist (who, btw, doesn't have horns, is a lovely woman, whose family is very involved in parish life).
Is this a problem other priests have too? Can't they do something about it? The 'music' is truly ghastly.
One of the most ghastly 'hymns' (sorry, but you do have to use inverted commas) is called something like "Will you let me be your neighbour?" Like many modern 'hymns' I find myself unable to sing it because not only is it utterly tedious but I don't really understand what it's all about - bizarrely, it seems to be a 'hymm' addressed not to God but to your neighbour in the pew. It's trite, pretending to be meaningful. Ghastly.
Sorry to moan, but sometimes you've just got to say what you feel!
Fr Ray - the 'old trendies' wouldn't know a blog from a bull's hoof, never mind having to fire-up a computer and actually use the mouse and keyboard! Their's is a mindset that is on the wane and guess what there's no-one coming up in the ranks behind them! Yippeeeee! Now is a very good time to start claiming back 'real' Catholic hymns. When is the last time you heard or sang God Bless our Pope or the Salve Regina after Mass.
Emma (good on you - tell 'em as it is), however, nothing 'violates' me more than the trendy 'Gloria' with all that rapid hand clapping, it makes my skin crawl and I just want to slither under the pew and cringe! How easy it is to destroy and trivialise the true meaning of those sacred words 'Gloria in Excelsis Deo'. Makes you want to weep.
Yes - time to fight back is long overdue.
The only people interested in blogging on Catholic issues are .............CATHOLICS:-)
Paulinus - I wonder whether the old trendies will try the old PC trick and come back at us with howls of 'hymn hate crime'!
'Report him to the Bishop, he just said that kum-ba-ya was infantile and stupid'!
Ever since the 'motu proprio' things have started to hum. Not only has the traditional Latin Mass been brought into the spotlight but also the music which one associates alongside it. Suddenly, people have started to object to far more than their denial of the traditional Mass.
"Holy Smoke" has certainly fulfilled the saying that there's no smoke without a fire.
JARay
The SSG website is striking because those people on it are all so old. The picture of the poisonous Inwood is in black & white for example. That seems to sum it all up.
george,
the clappy Gloria was a staple at my primary school, and I do understand how it might be appropriate to use music that engages younger children and holds their interest. But, when you do not progress and move away from 'colours of day,' 'bind us together,' 'follow me' and 'He's got the whole world in His hands' when you get to high school and then in your parish as well, you start to dispair!!
I would like to point out that our organist is a fantastic lady without whom we would have no music at all. Her opinion is that of 'if its in the hymn book, it must be ok!'
I've just had my Friday afternoon wrecked! How? you may ask. Well, I blame Fr Tim for posting the links and I'm afraid curiosity got the better of me. I clicked on the link called 'Kyrie' - I lasted about 7 seconds, then I clicked Baptism with Fire, yep - about 5 seconds. It's just so cringingly terrible, an assault on everything I hold Sacred and Holy. Just plain awful. I'm with you Fr Tim, but rather than be burned alive just boil me in oil! It's got to be less painful - than the music(k) that is. Aren't our 'Catholic' hymnals just full of such crap already???? As if we need anymore. Saints preserve us - I can just imagine the heavenly angelic choirs rushing to the SSG blog-site and downloading some of their liturgical music - let's sing some of this new, really cool, 'deep' emotional, get-in-touch-with-your-inner-goddess-stuff guys and ditch the Gregorian Chant!!!! You've just got to laugh because the only other alternative is to scream!!!!
PS - and what's poor old St Gregory done to deserve having his good name 'hi-jacked' by this crew?
Emma is indeed fortunate that, in her parish, they have an organist. For many of us, this is a luxury we would welcome. We in our Parish are reliant on CD's to provide the musical accompaniment to Mass (all) and Benediction and are therefore severely restricted as to choice. Fortunately, having discovered the site Liber Usualis, some relief has been found (sound quality not withstanding). If such parishes as ours are to be spared from 'populist' and trite hymnology, then a national effort should be made to record all that is both beautiful and traditional (hymns and mass settings alike).
Fr. Finigan - I find myself with a foot in both camps as a regualr reader of your blog, that of Fr. Z, the NLM and also a member of the SSG.
There is much more to the SSG than the collection 'Baptised With Fire'. Would that traditionalist bloggers had picked up on the mention on the SSG home page of "Chant and Pray" - how an afternoon on chant in Latin and English led by the Master of Music and precentor of Westminster Cathedral (which, incidentally is open to the public at a very reasonable price!) fits into the stereotype of the SSG put about by Damian Thompson I really can't say.
I happen to agree with what Fr Z had to say about Paul Inwood - and he said it in a manner appropriate to a priest. The comments made by Damian Thompson in his original post, and more especially those who subsequently contributed to that post were a blatant breach of Fr. Z's 5 rules of engagement.
Most members of the SSG would rather boil their heads in oil than indulge in Bind Us Together or any of the other three chord 1970s ditties. That said, we serve a community and are frequently instructed by our pastors or liturgy committees to play things that we personally don't like. Would that I could foist my tastes on my community - Graduale Simplex/Romanum/Kyriale here we come. As it is, I do what most do, give them what they say they want, buy a little goodwill and then go for something a littel better. A community that had no recent tradition of Plainsong has, in that way, begun to acquire a little.
For a more balanced view of the work of the SSG I'd recommend to any of your readers that they request a copy of the SSG's Music and Liturgy magazine. A quick look at the Liturgy Planner will show that we're not a bunch of lefty trendies (though there are of course some among us!) as alongside the usual suspects from more recent years you'll find some of the best sacred music written in the last several centuries.
The SSG does a lot of good work in the Church today - life in the Ordinary Form might not be great, but it would most probably be worse if it weren't for the work of the SSG's members.
That Kyrie. I'm speechless. I took down a post on my blog about music because I thought it was too ranty. Maybe not.
How long was that right hand piano figure using C, F and Bb going to go on for? The performing quality was shameful.
It must be modelled on 'Make me a channel of your meandering D major chord with annoying C#s that when combined with the A in the bass say F#m (=Chord iii??) and no chord change in the gtr chords til bar 7(though the organ part seems different which is the case for much of it. Bar 7 organ looks like Em7, gtr says A7) and then it's a terrible cadence. Peace? I'm going nuts. And that's just the first phrase. Does anyone know just how many Gs you have to sing before the final descent at the end? Congregations differ on that one. That hymn (her, them surely more pc) has not only put me off that prayer, but comes to mind whenever anyone mentions St Francis. I too feel 'violated.' ;-(
The MP is great because it will get more people to check out what is actually allowed and in the long term stop musicains inflicting their egos on the liturgy. The Church knows how powerful music is and it needs to be controlled because it really gets to people and can be very intrusive.
Fr. Tim,
The poor bewildered contributor to the SSG thread summed it up nicely:
"Are we supposed to now act as if the last 40+ years never happened?"
After 40+ years of liturgical disaster, catechetical collapse, mass lapsation and vanishing vocations, how can any rational person look upon the past 40 years as a golden age and lament its passing?
As an American Catholic, I note that we have had too much 'Pope Barney/Puff the Apostolic Dragon' stuff.
However, our choir leader, a nice traditional lady at heart and a firm contralto voice, has at least one old hymn every Mass. Sometimes, she and the organist conspire to inspire, and take on every old traditional piece, hymns to 'mood'-fill pieces.
Some of us are lucky AND blessed.
The problem with modern liturgical music is not that it is not sincere or not devotional, but it is bad. It lacks creativity, art, beauty, and just about everything else music is judged by.
The modern liturgical music ignores the 2000 or so years of music that came before.
A friend of mine once described the Modernist heresy as "the willful destruction of everything that came before."
Francis is right. The last 40-some some years have really been the 'dark age' of Catholicism. In fact if we really take a deeper look at the so-called Dark Ages, from a Catholic spiritual perspective they were very enlightened indeed!
Francis ~ "Are we supposed to now act as if the last 40+ years never happened?"
You'd be amazed at how many still do act as if the last "40" never happened.
I took part in a vocations retreat a couple of years ago and the seminary rector leading seemed to have no grip on reality.
The current chaos will carry on for at least another 30.
Emma - when I was in primary school the wonderful nuns taught us how to sing joyous hymns to Our Lady, some hymns in Latin and Soul of my Saviour which I remember to this day. We seemed to get by very well without having the 'clappy gloria' inflicted on us!
God Bless.
"Francis ~ "Are we supposed to now act as if the last 40+ years never happened?"
Indeed not, we need to act with eternal vigilance to make sure that the events of the last 40 years NEVER happen again!
For what it's worth, I find myself in total agreement with Francis.
I only wish I had said it first.
On another point :
Given the artistic achievements of the time, particularly in the art of illuminated manuscripts, George is quite right to describe the Dark Ages as "the so-called Dark Ages".
Historians and art historians have long known the "Dark Ages" to be a misnomer.
Could anyone recommend a traditional hymnbook (preferably with piano part) for use at home?
I've only been able to track down the most ghastly happy-clappy things, but would love to be able to sing well-loved old hymns around the piano as a family ...
Yes - there is a new hymnbook that is similar to the "Parish Hymn Book" which has the traditional (unaltered) words and the traditional harmonies. Used by the Birmingham Oratory and Holy Ghost Balham.
Someone will comment, I hope, with the full title etc.
Cheer up ,trendy Anglicans sing even worse hymns.
I am afraid my family always sang "come by car Lord", with variations. However they felt that "come by bike Lord" was lacking in reverance.
Forgive my error, reverence should be spelled correctly. Mea culpa.
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