Four Suggestions How to Recognise Good Liturgical Music - By Maestro Aurelio Porfiri
I am often asked how one can recognise which music is good for the liturgy and which is not.
In order to answer this question, it is enough to know what the Church teaches in this regard. This teaching is contained in Saint Pius X's Motu Proprio on Sacred Music (November 1903).
1) Pius X put it like this: The more the music resembles Gregorian chant, the more it is fitting for the liturgy. This is the pivotal rule.
2) Sacred Music must be excellent. That's why those evaluating it, must be musicians. This is not about "elitism" but about the fact that the goodness of the form which is part of beauty, aspires toward God's Supreme Beauty. God deserves the best we have.
3) Music must inspire holiness not vague emotionalism. Pius X warns in his encyclical letter Pascendi (September 1907) about reducing religion to sentimentalism. Sacred music is elevation to God, not taking a bath in one's on sinful self.
4) True sacred music is sacred everywhere because Catholicism is universal. Therefore a piece by an African, American, Asian, Australian or European composer may have a particular accent that comes from his background but nevertheless it must be part of a larger culture, the Catholic one.
Picture: © The Pilot Media Group, CC BY-ND, #newsSntcaclilo
In order to answer this question, it is enough to know what the Church teaches in this regard. This teaching is contained in Saint Pius X's Motu Proprio on Sacred Music (November 1903).
1) Pius X put it like this: The more the music resembles Gregorian chant, the more it is fitting for the liturgy. This is the pivotal rule.
2) Sacred Music must be excellent. That's why those evaluating it, must be musicians. This is not about "elitism" but about the fact that the goodness of the form which is part of beauty, aspires toward God's Supreme Beauty. God deserves the best we have.
3) Music must inspire holiness not vague emotionalism. Pius X warns in his encyclical letter Pascendi (September 1907) about reducing religion to sentimentalism. Sacred music is elevation to God, not taking a bath in one's on sinful self.
4) True sacred music is sacred everywhere because Catholicism is universal. Therefore a piece by an African, American, Asian, Australian or European composer may have a particular accent that comes from his background but nevertheless it must be part of a larger culture, the Catholic one.
Picture: © The Pilot Media Group, CC BY-ND, #newsSntcaclilo