Church Music Reform

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVII, Issue 16, 22 April 1909, Page 622

Church Music Reform

The Catliolic Archbishop of Adelaide is known as the easily most learned man in. Australasia in all matters pertaining to musical lore. With the keen insight of" the skilled theologian and rubricist and of the cultured tasto of the artist as ■to the true place and meaning of music in ritual, Archbishop O'Reily had long advocated a reform along the. lines which were subsequently taken in the Moiu Proprio of Pope Pius X. His Grace hus made that document a- living reality •throughout his far-spreading jurisdiction. A Commission appointed by him has the oversight of c all harmonised music used in the churches of the archdiocese. It will be the Commission's business to say what music is permissible ;" what music is not permissible. What it approves of may be used; what it has not approved of, still more what it in express terms coudemns, may not be used.' All music ' intended for use in our choirs,' says his Grace's recent circular, 'must be submitted to "the Commission's judgment. If that judgment is favorable, the copy or copies will be impressed with the Commission's seal, and after impression ■ may lawfully be put into use.- If the seal is wanting to any music, the want is plain proof that the composition has not been approved of and is therefore unlawful' of use.'

A period of grace (extended to May 1) is allowed to tho smaller choirs to enable them to make arrangements for falling into line with the Motu Proprio on sacred music. With strong practical sense, the Archbishop procures from Europe constant supplies of church music that is not open to objection. Catalogues have been prepared 1 showing the number of voice parts of which each piece is composed, and marking the degree of the ease or difficulty of its performance.' And thus the foundation is solidly laid for introducing into his wide territory true church music — a sacred chant that shall be ' the handmaiden, not the mistress, of religion ' — and devoid of those alterations, repetitions, inversions, undue prolongations, ostentatious solos pure and simple, and all the resb of tlie flim-flam of the theatrical music that so long surrounded tlie most sacred offices of the Church Avith. the shrieking irreverences of the barn-stormer and the blare of the brass band.