In this article, I defended Western high art composers’ successful appropriation of secular materials for sacred, liturgical use. (I explored this a bit in my article on the Credo from Joseph Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass.) In this article, I discussed how such appropriation seems not to have occurred within the genre of praise & worship music in a manner that would make P&W fitting for the sacred liturgy.
TURNING SECULAR TUNES INTO MASS SETTINGS
In the first article linked here, I briefly discussed Palestrina’s Missa L'homme arme, based off the popular secular song L’homme arme. I wonder why the same methodology of composition cannot be used more often in our times. In the wake of the recent release of Top Gun 2, I would so welcome a Missa Top Gun that draws out the Top Gun theme into a cantus firmus and writes a glorious, polyphonic Kyrie above it. In my head, I can easily imagine the Agnus Dei being sung directly to this tune, but this may be too explicitly secular! In fact, I may or may not have already whipped it up into music notation software just as a bit of fun/parody…
When Disney’s Frozen II came out, a good amount was written about the chant theme (the first 4 seconds in this recording) in the movie that uses the first four notes that the Requiem Mass sequence Dies Irae does. At the time, I made this funny meme while I was learning the computer coding for Gregorian chant, hoping that any copyright issues might be covered under fair use law!
(P.S. The code for the Frozen tone above can be found here.)
TURNING SACRED TUNES INTO MASS SETTINGS
I once played the organ and sang for a Catholic priest who absolutely loved Marco Frisina’s setting of “Anima Christi.” I adapted this setting into a Missa Anima Christi that used Frisina’s melody in the Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Ite Missa Est (I was too lazy to include a Gloria). I have since realized that this was in violation of copyright law - oops!
I thought at one point that I would adapt some of this priest’s favorite tunes, such as “O God Beyond all Praising”, into Mass settings. (This hymn is an excellent example of the appropriation of a fitting, secular tune [“Thaxted”] for sacred use.) I never did get around to writing Missa Thaxted, but I think someone should.
CONTEMPORARY CHRISTIAN PROPERS?
Four years ago, I remember wondering why, in the wake of:
1) the use of much CCM in Catholic liturgy (“praise & worship Masses”),
and
2) the post-2010 publishing of many sets of many sets of propers for the Novus Ordo (such as the English psalm-tone Lalemant propers or syllabic chant Simple English Propers),
no one had written a set of propers in the style of CCM. Two years ago, it appears that the Entrance and Communion antiphons from the 2010 Roman Missal (which, as I discussed here, do not match the other two sets of propers that the Novus Ordo has), were set by contemporary composers through OCP. While I do not necessarily approve of this work (or this publishing company), I think that its release is worth noting, as it appears to be the first of its kind. It is worth noting, however, that the SEP (Simple English Propers) have been sung with contemporary instrumentation at Masses like those conducted at SEEK, a Catholic college student/young adult conference run by FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students).
DIRECT APPROPRIATION OF CCM FOR THE CATHOLIC LITURGY
In the wake of the advent of the “praise & worship Mass” that consists mainly of P&W songs at the opening, Offertory, Communion and closing, I have also wondered why certain pieces of CCM have not been directly appropriated for liturgical use. One rather obvious example seems to be the opening “Alleluia, alleluia” from Michael W. Smith’s song “Agnus Dei”, which could easily be used as the Gospel acclamation in a Novus Ordo Mass. Similarly to above, I do not necessarily approve of such a thing, but I still wonder about it.
FINAL THOUGHT
A bit has been written by musicologists about how Martin Luther’s chorales were actually in the tradition of 15th-century, high art songs. In the first article that I linked here, I mentioned the rhythmic and stylistic similarities between 16th-century A) secular madrigals and B) sacred polyphony. Indeed, secular dance rhythms were successfully appropriate by Renaissance composers for sacred, liturgical use. Luther originally wrote his famous chorale “Ein feste burg ust inser Gott” (“A mighty Fortress is our God”) using said dance rhythms (see this recording, starting at 0:35). See also the original, rhythmic version of 16th-century German Lutheran pastor and composer Philipp Nicolai’s “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (“Wake, awake, for night is flying”, according to 19th-century Anglican Catherine Winkworth’s translation).
It appears that J.S. Bach in the 18th century in his cantatas was the first composer to straighten these German chorales out from their original dance rhythm versions into the famous metrical versions that became standard in so many hymnals. (See Bach’s “Ein feste burg” and “Wachet auf.”) While Bach’s chromatic harmonizations are certainly more complex and sophisticated than the older harmonizations he would have known, I confess that I prefer the older, rhythmic versions!