Music & Rituals

 I grew up Roman Catholic. This means I have attended the Mass many times, in many different churches, and with many different styles and settings for music. I've heard things from magnificent choirs, brass, and organs to one man humbly accompanying on a small keyboard. I think it's cool that when attending a Catholic church in a new place, you never really know what you are going to hear. While the content of the music is the same throughout, performance practice varies wildly depending on the size, funding, and community of the church. 

Many of my early church memories take place in a relatively small but beautiful church in Buffalo, New York. Our instrumentation included a very proficient musician on the electric organ, the occasional choir, my mom playing the flute, and singing from the congregation. Sometimes even I would get to play, which I was always very excited about. I have fond memories of sitting in the front row off to the side where the musicians were placed and getting to watch them make the music happen. Much of my early music reading skill came from singing (a little bit poorly) from the hymnal. I've heard the hymns so many times that now I rarely hear ones in Mass that I don't recognize. 

In much contrast to that experience, I have been going to the cathedral in downtown Charleston for several years now. It's a huge, beautiful building with music to match it. 

The music in this church is done by a large choir, grand pipe organ, singing of the congregation, and brass and string players on special occasions like Christmas, Easter, and holy days. Something that remains constant in every church and every setting of the Mass is the Mass ordinary, consisting of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. Commonly in America, these are sung in English and written with standard modern notation. At some traditional churches such as the cathedral in Charleston, they are sung in Latin and written in neumes! They are responsorial, meaning one singer (the cantor) sings first, followed by everyone else. 

Music in Mass, while it can be quite grand, is not viewed as performance but rather it is meant to serve the liturgy. However, there are times when room is given to the musicians to show their skills during the prelude (before Mass) or postlude (after Mass). It is not uncommon to hear the organist at my church play something virtuosic after the Mass, which I will always sit and listen to. 

This past Christmas, our musicians got to do about 45 minutes of prelude music before the midnight Mass. My favorite piece they did was Philip Stopford's "Lully, Lulla, Lullay", a more modern arrangement of the traditional "Coventry Carol". 

Attending Mass (and learning about it in music history) has made me appreciate the music in all the ways it can be performed, as well as the function it serves in the setting. In my lifetime, I hope to do more exploring of music in rituals extending beyond the Catholic faith.