The Sts. Gregory and Romanos Guild

I have already presented what I see as the three key activities of the Guild:

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.

All three of these points, individually and collectively, inform all of our activities, but they have particular bearing on how I pick the music for a given “gig” at Mass. I have no strict system by which I choose what we will sing, but the following general principles may be observed:

• Under points 1) and 2), I generally confine myself to the Gregorian corpus, perhaps with a side extension into music that is not strictly Gregorian but was composed as plainchant; only in rare circumstances will I choose a metrical hymn.
• Under point 1), I will select Propers from the Graduale romanum if the Guild has sufficient time to practice them, and so build up that part of our repertory. If time is not available, simpler pieces from the Liber cantualis and/or the Cantus selecti may be chosen. I am not fond of the Graduale simplex, and so tend to avoid it.
• Point 3) indicates that the Guild does not intend to sing alone exclusively, but wants to get the congregation involved as well. In my opinion, this is most effectively done by choosing the Ordinary from parts the congregation knows, or choosing an Ordinary that can be taught to the congregation relatively quickly. We normally use Kyrie XVI, Gloria XV, a spoken Creed, Sanctus XVIII, and Agnus Dei XVIII.
• The Proper is not always choir-only, however; for instance, on our Easter Monday appearance, the Alleluia, Communion, and Recessional were pieces with which the congregation was familiar.

In this way, the Guild attempts to strike a balance between what we sing exclusively and what the congregation sings with us, while also giving the congregations we sing with fuller exposure to the Gregorian corpus.

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.