A chant expert on the new chants

Chant expert Bruce Ford speaking on the Gregorian List on the subject of the new chants for the ENTIRE Novus Ordo in English:

The ICEL musicians ought to have read John Boe’s dissertation, “The Ordinary in English: Anglican Plainsong Kyrials and Their Sources” (Northwestern University, 1969) before they did their work. They appear to have been unaware of all but the most obvious “set-forms.” Credo I, for example, is almost entirely formulaic. Mocquereau did an analysis of the “set-forms” in this chant at the beginning of the twentieth century. Winfred Douglas used Mocquereau’s analysis in his own adapatation of the melody of the old Anglican translation of the Creed. The ICEL people ought to have used it in setting the new ICEL translation. Instead, they appear to have transcribed phrase by phrase.

Clearly, they transcribed the Lord’s Prayer phrase by phrase instead of applying the formulas to the English text.

Credo III is not composed of “set-forms,” but it consists largely of three musical phrases from Kyrie de angelis freely applied to the Latin phrases, expanded, contracted, and adjusted to fit them. Instead of applying these phrases to the English text directly, they transcribed phrase by phrase, retaining the notes of each phrase but violating the style of the piece.

Their adaptations don’t “sing” all that badly, however.

Anyone of the same opinion? Or different? Has anyone here read Boe’s dissertation?

Paul Ford

Paul F. Ford, Ph.D., has been professor of theology and liturgy at St. John Seminary, Camarillo, CA, since February of 1988. He is the author of <em>By Flowing Waters: Chant for the Liturgy</em> (The Liturgical Press, 1999) and the convener of the five-member Collegeville Composers Group, authors of <em>Psallite: Sacred Song for Liturgy and Life</em> (The Liturgical Press, 2005–2010).

Please leave a reply.

Comments

13 responses to “A chant expert on the new chants”

  1. Jeffrey Tucker

    I would certainly defer to Ford’s judgment here. I find the theoretical tangles associated with adapting Latin chant to English to be nearly impossible to unravel. Ford has a lifetime of experience in this, and, more importantly, sincerely believes in the viability and utility of the project.

    Reply
  2. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
    Anthony Ruff, OSB

    I’ve read Boe, and I don’t think it settles the question definitively. I once was skeptical of adapting Latin chant to English. But I’ve become less skeptical (though still somewhat skeptical of some genres such as Mass propers) largely through the influence of Bruce Ford. (BTW, we have two Fords here so please use first names, everyone.) I think the proof is in the pudding. That is, the question is, do they sing well in English and are they artistically fit to the words in English and are they still good melodies with the proper modal balance? I’ve seen people with great theories whose actual adaptations don’t work, and vice versa. If the adaptations don’t sing that badly, that it sounds like they’re ok – not bad, not great. Whatever we think of that judgment, at least we’re on the right grounds – the grounds of whether they sing well or not.
    awr

    Reply
    1. Jeffrey Tucker

      Fr., I completely agree that the “proof is in the pudding” but in my own experience as a singer, so much of the question of whether it really “works” turns on how it is sung, pronounced, and presented. I have no problem with the methods of Palmer-Burgess, e.g., but I like Bruce Ford’s American Gradual too. To my ear — certainly not a test! — either can be made to sound gorgeous or silly depending on presentation. Latin is less susceptible to such manipulation for two reasons: 1) it is intrinsically a more beautiful language for singing, and 2) we don’t know Latin as a vernacular so we aren’t bothered as much when it is presented poorly. Such is my own theory of this.

      Reply
  3. Adam Bartlett

    I am amazed that the ICEL music committee did not include Fr. Columba Kelly, OSB. Fr. Columba is trained in Gregorian Musicology, as opposed to, say, history or organ performance, and has spent more than 40 years adapting Gregorian chant with an immense knowledge of the art.

    As one who has studied his methods and regularly sings his English chant, I have to say that many of the “laws” of Gregorian composition, which are respected with great care in Fr. C’s work, are routinely broken in the ICEL chants. These mostly deal with the placement of word accent and the modal laws. I suppose that we will take what we are given, but I believe that a much better job could have been done.

    Reply
  4. Father Allan J. McDonald

    I’m reluctant to get into the area of music theory as I have no expertise in it. But I’ve heard ever since my seminary days that it is very difficult to put Latin Gregorian Chant into English, although some of the English chant I hear sounds good to my untrained ear. I know that Gregorian Chant is unique to the Latin Rite, but why is there a reluctance to use “Anglican Chant” or does it not translate well into the structure of our Latin Rite English? I’ve had Episcopal Choir directors who have placed the responsorial psalm verses into Anglican chant sung by the choir and I thought it was really beautiful. I would really like to know your opinion about that.

    Reply
    1. Karl Liam Saur

      My opinion, which you did not ask for, is that the purists who insisted that chant could only be done in Latin were part of the reason chant did NOT take off as it ought to have after Vatican II. People like Dr Theodore Marier, who championed the use of vernacular chant (without diminishing the glories of Gregorian chant), were unfortunately too few in those days. Had the purists not been so priggish, there might be much less to complain about regarding the state of liturgical music today.

      Reply
      1. Father Allan J. McDonald

        Karl, thanks and am grateful for your response! But what about Anglican chant, is it better suited to English?

      2. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
        Anthony Ruff, OSB

        Fr. McDonald, Anglican chant means psalm tones for singing psalms. It has nothing to do with service music like Preface or dialogues. For that, Anglicans and Episcopalians (like Lutherans and any other liturgical tradition) use tones losely based on Latin. These tones have been adapted to vernacular languages by liturgical Protestants for nearly 500 years.
        awr

      3. F C Bauerschmidt

        I sometimes wonder what things would look like now if liturgy after the Council had gone more in the direction of Dennis Fitzpatrick’s Demonstration English Mass. Ken Candeo has a podcast about Fitzpatrick that includes some selections from his chant-based setting for the vernacular mass: http://www.kencanedo.com/uploads/KTFB-ChapterThree20090610.mp3.

        By way of contrast, you can also check out the Ursource of what we ended up with: Ray Repp’s Mass for Young americans. http://www.kencanedo.com/uploads/KTFB-ChapterSix20090716a.mp3

      4. Karl Liam Saur

        And Ted Marier used the Roman psalm tones for setting the psalter in Hymns, Psalms & Spiritual Canticles, with falsobordone SATB harmonies in the second verse halves. It’s a wonderful vernacular Psalter.

  5. Tom East

    I think there is a danger in creating music of any sort in reference to a set of rules. Musical rules are created by analysts, not composers, and applied to the music in question retrospectively.

    I think the key to creating chant is to find someone with a true musical voice, rather than a person (or persons) who know(s) a lot about the “rules” of gregorian chant and who thinks inside the boxes created by academics.

    That said, I have just looked at (and sung) the new chants and, although they seem rather ungainly and counterintuitive (e.g Ho-LEE-EE, Ho-LEE-EE at the start of the sanctus), the melodies differ very little from the Latin originals, so they should exist side by side without causing too much difficulty in switching from one to the other. I think that’s a very good thing.

    I asked in another thread about how the new ICEL chants came into being. Can anyone enlighten me?

    Reply
  6. Adam Bartlett

    “I think the key to creating chant is to find someone with a true musical voice, rather than a person (or persons) who know(s) a lot about the “rules” of gregorian chant and who thinks inside the boxes created by academics.”

    I would argue that a person with a vast knowledge of the “rules” is needed, but undeniably agree that this person is also working in the realm of “art”, and therefore is making decisions and applying his own artistic merit to the work.

    The need for the “rules”, as given to us by musicology no doubt, I would argue, is that the “language” of Gregorian chant was quite codified and very consistent (at least in the authentic repertoire). Just like Classical composers were trained in the “rules” of counterpoint, theory and harmony which taught them the grammar of Classical composition, so too should the chant adapter be thoroughly imbued with the musical “grammar” of the Gregorian compositional language, and then apply it to the needs of English texts. Or this is my thought on the matter at least.

    Re: your last question: I believe that there was an music committee assembled by ICEL to do the work, the members of which must remain unnamed.

    Reply
  7. Jack Wayne

    This site has videos of some of the new chants being performed:

    http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/09/tutorial-videos-on-new-missal-chants.html

    I’m not a music expert, but I think the new chants work rather well. My only quibble with the videos is that the dialogues are all sung by the same person (so it’s as if he’s responding to himself).

    Reply

Posted

in

,

by

Paul Ford

Tags:

,

Discover more from Home

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading