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Why learn Gregorian Chant?

There are many reasons to learn Gregorian Chant, but one of the most important is in order to understand the nature and function of liturgical music in order to inform our discernment regarding vernacular liturgical music. This was underlined by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 when he said, “An authentic updating of sacred music cannot occur except in line with the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian Chant, and of sacred polyphony.” (http://www.zenit.org/article-16415?l=english)

In the same vein, Pope John Paul II noted to special qualities of Gregorian Chant in 2003 in his Chirograph for the Centenary of the Motu Proprio Tra le sollecitudini on Sacred Music:

Among the musical expressions that correspond best with the qualities demanded by the notion of sacred music, especially liturgical music, Gregorian chant has a special place. (7)

With regard to compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the “general rule” that St Pius X formulated in these words: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple”. It is not, of course, a question of imitating Gregorian chant but rather of ensuring that new compositions are imbued with the same spirit that inspired and little by little came to shape it. (12)

The Sacred Congregation of Rites, predecessor of today’s Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacramenets) in 1967 issued this counsel for vernacular compositions:

In preparing popular versions of those parts which will be set to melodies, and especially of the Psalter, experts should take care that fidelity to the Latin text is suitably harmonized with applicability of the vernacular text to musical settings. The nature and laws of each language must be respected, and the features and special characteristics of each people must be taken into consideration: all this, together with the laws of sacred music, should be carefully considered by musicians in the preparation of the new melodies. (54)

Among the melodies to be composed for the people’s texts, those which belong to the priest and ministers are particularly important, whether they sing them alone, or whether they sing them together with the people, or whether they sing them in “dialogue” with the people. In composing these, musicians will consider whether the traditional melodies of the Latin Liturgy, which are used for this purpose, can inspire the melody to be used for the same texts in the vernacular. (56)

The chief reason why Gregorian Chant is the paradigm of liturgical music (and there are many other reasons!) is its unique marriage of word and melody, in which the word takes primacy and the melody, which is totally at the service of the sacred text, serves to release the music that is embedded in the text. Indeed the melody has no free existence apart from the text, to which it has been indivisibly fused. To do that, Gregorian Chant absolutely respects the nature and laws of the Latin language. It is utterly imbued with a reverence for Sacred Scripture that enables it to make holy writ come alive on our lips. Just as the chant is totally at the service of the sacred text, we its singers, must be totally at the service of the Word, Christ our Lord.

In short, Gregorian Chant pesents us with a paradigmatic relationship between melody and sacred text that is the standard against which the success or failure of vernacular liturgical music is to be judged.