The Spirit of Gregorian Chant - Church Music Association of America

INTRODUCTION 17
and the composer has but to study the text in order to be enlightened
regarding which to use. The Church liturgy is like the
Church feasts, but the joy does not go beyond bounds and to the
delight of the senses, nor does the sadness sink into worldly afflictions
and pessimism. The joy emanates from, and is ennobled
through, the majesty and sublimity of the sentiment of the Feast.
"Sadness and penance embrace the consolation of devotion in the
hope of Christ. 1 ' 1
Joy and jubilation as well as sorrow and fear have their regular
place in Church music. It was, however, particularly with
the advent of Richard Wagner that these different emotions of
the soul took on a manner of portrayal which until his time had
not even been suspected. Now we find a "virtuoso presentation
of languishing desire (as in the Prelude to Tristan and Isolde)
and of the most rapturous sensuousness (as in the Overture to
Tannhauser)" 2 Then, too, the gradual advent of unprepared
dissonances into our modern music has made us somewhat "widerhearted"
and less sensitive than the musicians of past generations,
especially those of the more distant epoch of pure diatonic music.
So we of the present age must be especially on our guard in making
the distinction between that which is liturgical, and that which
is purely subjective in Church music.
A discreet use of chromatics at the proper place can be very
effective in Church music, but dissonances and chromatics weaken
music if they are used too continuously—more as a "padding."
In commenting on Guido's statement, "Diatonic music is healthy,
chromatic music is sick music," Dr. Wagner observes: "For Church
music that statement applies even today. ... It is a dangerous
venture to lead chromatics in as a legitimate constituent of instruction
in Church music, as deteriorating for the future of Church
music as for the psychical well-being of music students." 3
The late Dr. Kretz^chmar, a distinguished Protestant writer
and pedagogue, at one time head of the Berliner Hochschule, signals
the "original sin" in music, which justifies the "music police"
i Einf., Ch. IX. * i^d. » Ibid.