A little dare

There will soon be a new translation of the Roman Missal, and one would expect music publishers to be updating their catalogues to provide for the newly translated rites.  Marty Haugen has updated his Mass of Creation (a.k.a. the Massive Cremation) to use the new words.  One of the good things about Rome is that they can be relied upon to shift things around just as the profit margins for some of the big publishing houses are getting a bit thin.  The new translation will be big business once it is promulgated for use across the English-speaking (and -singing) world.

As an example of the brave new world, here is the Gloria from a newly-composed mass setting.  I dare you to listen to the end, at least twice.  Physical self-harm constitutes a penalty if inflicted while the track is playing, and you must recommence the challenge once you have stopped bleeding.

Now, American Catholicism has its own very particular culture.  This Gloria setting expresses that culture very nicely -- if you would prefer to sit by the pool sipping on your preferred after-5 beverage instead of getting down and devotional at Mass.  The problem isn't necessarily the fact that the style of the music is more redolent of a bordello in the middle of Las Vegas than an encounter with the transcendent.  On the upside, at least it includes a part for (Hammond) organ.

The problem is that it's really an extremely ambitious piece of music for its purpose.  The refrain is highly syncopated ("swung" being the technical term).  Half the reason that performing medieval music is a highly specialized field is because it employs a sophisticated style of rhythmic notation that presents an intimidating face to the layman.  Rhythmic complexity is no bad thing, but it takes training in order to realize it properly, so you might consider that the performers in the recording are clearly conservatory-trained professional musicians.  The recording has been made using good technology, and there's a high likelihood that the finished product is the result of cutting and pasting three or four takes together.  Your average liturgy coordinator in a Catholic parish will use this as a guide for whether to include a piece like this in the mix for some special event, where there will be no chance to have three or four goes to get the piece right.

And here's where the real problems begin.  Catholic music is notable for its lack of professionalism at the parish level (and this is not a specific denominational problem).  It is very rare for a parish to have a properly trained music leader,* whether that person plays a keyboard instrument or not.  And if finding a music leader with some level of skill is hard, then it is extremely rare to find a good group of well-trained singers in a parish.  Parish music often suffers from being directed by the liturgy coordinator, for which the main qualifications are sincerity, prolixity, and high enthusiasm combined with general ignorance.  These people choose music using recordings, and then get all snarky when the real performance with their fellow amateurs doesn't measure up.  They set their musical forces up to fail by trying to be ambitious -- attempting to have a champagne party on a beer budget.

There is a further complication here as well.  Given the widespread insistence in Roman quarters on the congregation singing the whole of any given text in the Ordinary of the Mass, why does this piece appear to only give them a refrain?  Are the people too thick to learn a musical setting of the rest of the Gloria?  A through-composed setting that went straight through the text would be more in line with the longer-term thinking about the proper place of music vis a vis congregational participation.  The style itself asserts that the vocal group is not a choir -- indeed, it is distinctly anti-choral music.  So the setting takes all from everybody and gives nothing to anybody.  Hardly a positive statement about the place of the laity in the church.  Indeed, it makes me think of a certain Adorno quote about collectively willed self-deception I couldn't quite lay my hand on.

So, go back and listen to that recording again.  Ask yourself the following questions:

• Do I know any instrumentalists who could carry off the accompaniment?  Could I afford their session fees from week to week?
• Can I imagine the choristers in my parish performing the opening of Annie as the first sung item in the service?
• What would make this piece sustain repeated hearings?  Why?
• Could I listen to this for six weeks at a stretch without wanting to strangle everyone in sight?

Now, a challenge to any composers out there.  Here's the theme for your Agnus setting to dangle next to that Gloria....

------------------
* And by properly trained, I mean someone who has at least studied an instrument sufficiently to be able to read music fluently, and to sing with fair accuracy. While institutional training might be the ideal, the reality is that anyone who has passed through a few grades of public examinations or spent a few years with a good teacher is already miles ahead of the average practitioner on the ground right now.