Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 13 - The Georgia Bulletin, August 23, 1990
Catholics In Disharmony Over Music
* BY CHRIS KISSELL
ST. PAUL, Minn. (CNS) -- The changing role and
content of liturgical music have put a song in the hearts of
some people, but have broken the hearts of others.
A quarter century of musical evolution has divided the
liturgical community between those who have a positive
„ view of changes from Latin to the vernacular and those
who see the new music as a cheap rendering of an
important aspect of the Mass.
The two sides, however, agree that the changes have
brought more attention to liturgical music meant to involve
the congregation in the Mass.
The disagreement arises from just how to do that.
„ "People are coming to recognize that the liturgy is not
“Some people don’t realize that this is
plastic music,’’ said one Minnesota liturgy
director.
just a collection of songs," said Jim Frazier, music director
for the Worship Center of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and
Minneapolis.
Liturgical music "helps people to feel important by
. giving them a way to participate in the Mass," he told the
Catholic Bulletin, archdiocesan newspaper.
Contemporary church music, Frazier said, "can stand up
to the judgment of a musically trained person."
*' Music had been - like other areas of church life -
pretty much a constant until the close of the Second
Vatican Council in 1965. As the church wresded with
ways to adapt, parishes began to re-examine the role of
music.
"The most profound change that came out of Vatican II
was in the constitution of the church," said David Haas, a
* local composer whose music has become widely used
nationally in the last 15 years.
"The prime component of the church became the
assembly itself," Haas said. "The assembly should be the
church; not just be at church, but actually be the church.
Music is the most available way that the assembly can
participate and become the church."
* The switch to the vernacular created a need for music
that would explain the meaning of rites Latin had ob
scured.
Many composers began incorporating elements of
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change, and the influence of contemporary musical forms
such as folk, pop and even rock began to be felt in their
works.
Piano and guitar were heard more often than the
traditional organ. Choirs diminished in importance as
congregations were invited to sing.
"There has been a growth in an understanding of the
role and influence of music on the liturgy," said Notre
Dame Sister Lynore Girmscheid, liturgical music director
at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in St. Paul Park, Minn.
"Now, there is a major sense of participation and a
sense of community that didn’t exist before," she told the
Catholic Bulletin.
Not everyone approves of the newer liturgical music.
"People believe that plastic flowers are inappropriate for
important occasions," said liturgy director Jim Dorn of St.
Patrick Church in Edina, Minn., "but some people don’t
realize that this is plastic music."
"We have lost some of the awe, transcendence and
majesty," Dorn said of the newer music which "doesn’t
have the lasting quality of the older stuff."
"A lot of the composers aren’t even trained musicians,"
said Dom, who is finishing his master’s degree in liturgi
cal music at St. John’s University in Collegeville.
Dan Schutte, music director at Our Lady of Lourdes in
Milwaukee and composer of such favorites as "Here I Am
Lord" and "You Are Near," disagrees that today’s music
isn’t up to old standards.
"There is new music that’s inferior, but so is some of
the old organ music," Schutte said.
Bob Harvey, contemporary music director at St. Olaf
Parish in Minneapolis, has been working on ways to blend
the contemporary and traditional. At two Masses each
week volunteers perform both new and more traditional
songs to the accompaniment of guitars, pianos and violins.
It’s worked.
"It has helped to blend the division between contempo
rary and traditional groups within the parish. We’ve gotten
a drawerful of positive responses from people," Harvey
said.
Frazier said that instead of "holding one Mass with
guitar, one with organ, and that kind of thing," parishes
"are mixing all of these elements together. They are trying
not to segment the parish," he said, adding that he hopes
the approach will lead to agreement on music’s role.
But he also admits it won’t be easy.
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