The renewed understanding of the role of a choir in liturgy

Abstract

The author indicates a few crucially significant issues arisen after the Second Vatican Council, namely the revival of music and singing in liturgy, particularly the role of a choir, and the questions of a repertoire, choir composition and voice arrangement during liturgy entailing the problem of women’s inclusion into the choir. Through his most exhaustive, against the paper limitations, historical analysis, the author demonstrates how the role of the choir in liturgy was understood at the beginning and how this understanding has evolved over the years.

According to the reformatory movement of sacred music and liturgy, the so called cecilianism, it is singing itself which is part of liturgy and not merely the music decoration of the latter, that is why “choir dignity” derives from the unity with a celebrant occurring while singing the antiphony through which the choir represents the faithful. The advocates of the cecilian movement claimed that the choir could consist solely of boys and men, which was later confirmed by the decisions of diocesan synods. Motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini issued by Pope Pius X in 1903, the 1928 Apostolic Constitution Divini cultus of Pope Pius XI or the encyclical Musicae sacrae disciplina of Pius XII from 1955, all addressing the issue of liturgical singing, even proposed the exclusive men’s choir composition. The Instruction on Sacred Music and Sacred Liturgy published in 1958 by the Congregation for Rites provided as well a precise definition of a singing choir: although the baptized laity take an active part in liturgy: “the direct, albeit symbolic service” may be delivered only by the laity of the male sex – boys, young men or adults. In its Constitution on Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum concilium of 4 December 1963, in the chapter devoted to church music, Vatican Council II postulated, on the one hand the promotion of boy’s choirs (“particularly in cathedral churches”), on the other hand it imposed upon the bishops and other ecclesiastical executives the obligation of guaranteeing that „whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs“. The Instruction Musicam sacram of 5 March 1967 specified the role of a choir naming it capella musica or schola cantorum which is “to ensure the proper performance of the parts which belong to it, according to the different kinds of music sung, and to encourage the active participation of the faithful in the singing”. Although article 22 stipulates that a choir should consist of men, yet there is no quality differentiation with regard to liturgical service between boy’s and men-women’s or even solely women’s choirs. In this way the process of clericalisation of a singing choir finally reached its end.

The author emphasizes as well a vital role of children choirs in liturgy, advocated by the liturgical movement which originally assumed children’s singing in a schola or a choir as a “pioneering function for singing of the faithful”. One of the main propagator of the above pioneering function of children’s singing was Pius Parsch, founder of the Volksliturgiche Bewegung. Pope Paul VI used beautiful words to describe the role of singing children when addressing Pueri Cantores: “We trust that you will become co-participants or even the pioneers of a concrete and practical liturgy revival of our liturgical assembly. Wherever children sing, the faithful pray and wherever children are silent, the faithful reluctantly open their mouths to sing”. Just like sacred music plays a servicing role in liturgy (cf. CL 112) “the primary and the most essential function of a choir or of a cantor is to serve the faithful in their singing during liturgy, not to replace them. The secondary function is to perform by the choir the singing parts which the faithful are not capable of performing on their own and on a high artistic level” (the Austrian liturgist Philipp Harnoncourt). In his letter celebrating the 100th anniversary of publishing motu proprio by Pius X on 22 November 1903, Pope John Paul II highlighted the double role of a choir: “The task of the schola has not decreased: it indeed develops in the assembly the role of guide and support and, at certain moments of the Liturgy, has its own specific role“. Pope Benedict XVI defied the exclusive singing of the faithful and of liturgical music, ascribing to the choir singing an equivalent value: „there are a good number of people who can sing better  «with their heart»  than  «with their mouths», but their hearts are really stimulated to sing through the singing of those who have the gift of singing «with their mouths». It is as if they themsleves actually sing in the others; thankful listening is united with the voices oft he singers in the one worship of God”.

To conclude his study the author ensures that the responsibilities of the choir were not, despite the concerns voiced by some of church musicians, limited after the Second Vatican Council, rather they have become more ambitious. The role of a choir is not only to sing on behalf of a congregation, but also to sing together with it as part of a celebrating unity – and this involves, functionally and substantively, the choir in liturgy.