Coronation Mass

Great attention being paid to the use of Mozart's Coronation Mass for Saturday's Mass at St. Peter's commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Swiss Guard.

Gerald of the Closed Cafeteria has photos and links here.

Fr. Z of "What Does the Prayer Really Say" also mentions it, uses it as an opportunity to comment on what "active participation" means, and has some of his own photos of Swiss Guard festivities.

It's noted at New Liturgical Movement - there's nothing in the post except the link, but there are numerous comments worth reading.

Finally, Matthew at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping has some interesting thoughts.

That sound you heard was the author of Inter Sollicitudines rolling over in his grave. Or, on the absolutely opposite end of the spectrum, Marty Haugen's head exploding.

Actually, I'm very pleased by this development, and it really shows the depth of our Pontiff's love of sacred art and also the depth of his connoisseurship. I've always loved Mozart's Coronation Mass, even if my own liturgical music tastes tend towards the Renaissance and the early Baroque (Palestrina, Victoria, Gabrieli, Biber), just before the phenomenon of the orchestral mass, Godzilla-like, really got out of control. It is good to be reminded that the stretch between Palestrina and the reforms of the 1910s was not one vast wasteland. (For the record, while well-intentioned, Inter Sollicitudines also caused a good many problems--the Cardinal of Prague, for instance, used it as an excuse to disband church orchestras and failed to foster scholas in their place). We often forget that much polyphony performed a capella today was at times accompanied by some low-level instrumentation (shawms, sackbutts, and in Spain, occasionally the double harp and, quelle scandal, the guitar*), with perhaps the notable exception of Rome, where the papal choir sung unaccompanied throughout all of the Renaissance.

Just a word here: Some of us raised on a steady diet of "new" music from the ancient days of Carey Landry, through the St. Louis Jesuits up to whatever ego-centric, tenor-driven tunes are dished up to us next by OCP tend to think of pre-1965 Catholic liturgical music as a big pot consisting mostly of chant, some classically-composed orchestral Masses and maybe some syrupy Marian hymns which were all viewed as equally appropriate at any and all times. Not so.

The history of liturgical music in the West is rather complex and has always been marked by the tension between prayer/worship and performance. There have been several times throughout history in which bishops and Popes have felt the need to step in and say "Whoa" to certain musical trends and developments. The document Andrew cites, written by Pope Pius X in 1903:

5. The Church has always recognized and favored the progress of the arts, admitting to the service of religion everything good and beautiful discovered by genius in the course of ages—always, however, with due regard to the liturgical laws. Consequently modern music is also admitted to the Church, since it, too, furnishes compositions of such excellence, sobriety and gravity, that they are in no way unworthy of the liturgical functions.

Still, since modern music has risen mainly to serve profane uses, greater care must be taken with regard to it, in order that the musical compositions of modern style which are admitted in the Church may contain nothing profane, be free from reminiscences of motifs adopted in the theaters, and be not fashioned even in their external forms after the manner of profane pieces.

6. Among the different kinds of modern music, that which appears less suitable for accompanying the functions of public worship is the theatrical style, which was in the greatest vogue, especially in Italy, during the last century. This of its very nature is diametrically opposed to Gregorian Chant and classic polyphony, and therefore to the most important law of all good sacred music. Besides the intrinsic structure, the rhythm and what is known as the conventionalism of this style adapt themselves but badly to the requirements of true liturgical music.