The Revival of Catholic Musical Creativity

Years ago, I lamented that the end of the age of Catholic musical creativity had seemed to be upon us. In the 1980s, we became aware of these vast treasures of polyphony thanks to the secular popularity of great music of the Renaissance. On CDs, we listened to the amazing work of a thousand years and we wondered: what happened? Where are Josquin, Palestrina, Victoria, Mozart, Bruckner? What happened to smash this tradition? The documents of the Second Vatican Council talk about beauty, chant, and polyphony but all we hear in our parishes is something else entirely. Then chant became popular the same way. We listened in our cars, in our living rooms, on our iPods. Chant was everywhere but in our parishes. Why did all musical greatness seem to be in our past but nowhere in the present and highly unlikely in the future? Thinking about this more I began to understand. The liturgy was unstable, and composers aren't drawn to that. Choirs were being disparaged and put down. Excellence in music was under attack in favor of a chic amateurism. The beautiful was unfashionable because it supposedly contradicted the real world in which we live our lives. Liturgy was supposed to be more like reality television than prayerful theater. No wonder the composers had lost interest. The musicians had all been chased away. Well, that was all before this year. In 2011, we've seen an incredible outpouring of fantastic composition by excellent musicians, structured for liturgical use using the musical and textual language of the liturgy itself. The books and collections are pouring out faster than even close observers can follow, and this new material is completely unlike the usual fare we've been treated to over the last decades, which has been essentially pop music with made-up, feel-good lyrics. The new approach to composition takes the liturgy and its tradition seriously. This is an astonishing turnaround, something that could only be expected by a person of a mighty faith and optimism. What has inspired all of this? There are many factors. The Propers of the Mass have been rediscovered as source texts after decades of neglect. The proliferation of the extraordinary form of Mass has given hope that order can prevail over chaos. Papal liturgy has been seriously upgraded. Gregorian chant is back as a living form of music. More than anything else, the appearance of the third edition of the Roman Missal has provided incredible encouragement that the church has once again begun to take its liturgical task seriously. The language is solemn, rhetorically high, and dignified. It is not pop language, so it strongly suggests in its own linguistic structure. Pop music is not the appropriate approach. The missal calls for chanted music that comes from the liturgy itself. This is what has inspired so much creative energy. Most serious musicians I know are very excited about the opportunity. …