I Thought You Were A Schola Cantorum

Alert readers with a musical background, or who enjoy singing in their parishes, may notice that two of the pieces listed in our program for July 8 are modern metrical hymns. Those readers would almost be right: three of them actually are, since we used Abbé Duguet’s tune for O salutaris hostia. These same readers may now be wondering why we sang music so far from our core repertory.

Three reasons may be offered. The first has to do with authority: that’s what the pastor of St. Matthew’s wanted us to sing. The second is a matter of time: we only had two rehearsals before the dedication, and since we are busy with our summer project (about which I will post later), we could only devote a small portion of rehearsal time to preparing for this service.

The third is more philosophical. As the director, I understand the mission of the Guild to involve the following specific tasks:

  1. Build a schola cantorum capable of singing at least a sizeable portion of the Gregorian repertory, Ordinary and Proper.
  2. Foster the use of Gregorian chant in the liturgy, at least within the Champaign Vicariate.
  3. Encourage the musical participation of the congregation, both by listening and by singing.

The third point in particular was on my mind for the dedication service. Our use of metrical hymnody, whether in Latin or in the vernacular, will always be one-off; it will always be secondary to our main repertory, which is the Gregorian corpus for the Mass. However, extra-liturgical devotions, particularly Eucharistic worship outside Mass, often have well-known, well-established music that is part-chant, part-metrical hymnody, which those in attendance will gladly sing. If the Guild is asked to assist in such a case, we are not unwilling to sing music outside our usual demesne, although we will emphasize chant insofar as we may.

How we choose what we sing for Mass is another topic, which I will address in a subsequent post.

This entry was posted in Commentary. Bookmark the permalink.