Church Music, Part III [pp. 743-754]

752 C/turck Music.
which he will strongly exhort all the We cannot close fl~is portion of our
bishops to adopt it. As soon as this remarks without calling attention to
desire of the head of the Church shall the great boon which this wholesome
have been brought home to us in the musical reform will prove to country
proper way, those whose hands are churches. In o~r large cities, we
waiting direction will lose no time in have been able to perform in our
preparing an edition of this work in churches music which is a tolerable
musical notation, and harmonized for imitation of the same style of harmothe use of organists, an imperative ny as given at the opera and on the
need for the great majority of our boards of the concert-hall to paying
players and singers, to whom the audiences. As a rule, we have not
learning of the plain chant scale and charged any price of admission to
d~f~ would be a labor equal to that our ecclesiastical concert offices, and
of acquiring the knowledge of a fo- our second-rate performances have
~ign language. Our choir-boys, and therefore been justly treated with
the generation of choristers who shall great leniency by the critics. But
succeed them, can be taught the plain as you leave the city and enter
chant notation from the first, and will churches in our small towns and counfind it much simpler, and more ex- try villages, you hear an imitation of
pressive in typography, than the mo- the city fashion which is no longer
dern musical scale, with its varied tolerable. One must have advanced
keys in flats and sharps. far into the spiritual ways of devout
A word as to the comparative cost contemplation to endure the horrible
of the authorized churd~ music and cacophony without suffering indescrithe concert music which now repla- bable tortures of soul. Then again,~
ces it. It will be seen that we have there are numberless village churches
advised the engagement of four pro- where never a sound of music, professional singers, and the services of a fane or religious, is heard. Yet, if
special teacher both for them and the these muse-abandoned people were
chorus of boys. This teacher, in disabused of their ignorant belief that
most cases, would be one of the four our popular fiond music is the only
salaried choristers or the organist. music possible or fit for the Catholic
It will be seen at once, by those in- Church, and learned that, even if too
terested, that even in the beginning poor to purchase an organ, they could
we shall not be put to any greater have with a little study and practice
expense than we are already at for all the music for the divine offices
our music. In the matter of music- executed in a devout and decent style,
books there will be an immense sav- it would not be long until the invaing for those churches which possess riable low Mass on all Sundays and
a large chorus. We ourselves own a festivals, and the recitation of the Romusical library whid~ has cost us se- sary in lieu of Vespers, would be a
veral thousands of dollars; and to tell rare exception, instead of being, as it
the honest truth, not one half of it is is now, not far from the rule. As an
of the least practical use even with example, we confess extraordinary, of
the present liberty we enjoy (?) of the gross~i?gnorance of our country
singing what we please. A set of people concerning church music, we
Graduals and Vesperals, with a suitably remember being told by a Catholic
harmonized version for the use of the woman who had never been out of
organist, will suffice under our new her own little village, that one reason
and better rc'gk~e. why she was certain of the falsehood