I would like to invite folks to share their experiences and opinions about Choirs in Eastern Catholic Parishes.

I will start things off with two observations, which may or may not be true in the larger experience of the group.

a} Choirs were an important part of parish life in North Anerica from the beginnings at the end of the last century through the 1950's .
(This seems to still be the situation in most Orthodox parishes in North America.}

b} Somewhere in the late 50's through the 60's, Choirs were given less importance than Congregational Singing, which was promoted as a way of involving folks in the Liturgy.
(Can anyone document examples of discouraging choirs, or encouraging Congregational Singing, and the reasons offered?)

I look forward to hearing what others know and think about this topic!

Phil Yevics

Glory to Jesus Christ ! This is an excellent question, Phil. An excellent example is the story of the choir at the Cathedral of St.Mary in the Van Nuys Eparchy. The choir had been strong from the earliest days of the parish in the late '50s. They sang in four part harmony. They had made several world famous albums! I own a tape of one under the direction of Michael Bodnar. The pastor, Eugene Chromoga, also can be heard on this tape. This tape has some of my favorite Nativity and Paschal music. The choir retained its reputation until St. Mary became the cathedral of the new Van Nuys Eparchy, under the omophorion of Thomas V. Dolinay in 1982. The new bishop forbade choral singing. Most of the singers left the parish. The choir was replaced by one or more cantors and their assistants whose purpose is to lead the congregation in participation. The current pastor, Archpriest Michael Moran, plans to re-model the cathedral. There will be no choir loft. Instead, he would prefer to have a space for one cantor to lead the congregation on the south side of the church. My opinion is that there is a place for both. The movement against choral singing is misguided in seeking to ban all liturgical choral singing. They are correct, however, in warning against the developments in other sister Orhtodox churches. In Russia, for example, choral polyphony eclipsed congregational singing. I have visited several Orthodox Churches in Southern California: Russian; Ukrainian; Greek and Syrian. It is hard to stand through an entire Divine Liturgy and not hear the congregation. In a few cases they sang not one note! In other cases the congregation chanted only the Symbol of Faith and the Our Father. On the other hand we miss centuries polyphonic liturgical music. There are times during the Litury when choral singing helps one to pray ( e.g. while the deacon is censing the church, the Cherubic Hymn, while the clergy and people are taking Communion.) Singing in harmonised parts has an important place in our Orthodox Tradition. Choral singing is a great treasure. We ought to come to see its value before we lose it. Glory to Jesus Christ!

Doulos,

I can sympathize with your longing for choral singing. I grew up with an a-capella choir at my church, and later sang with them. Interesting though is the fact that all the compositions were not indigenous to our Rus' Church. Many of the choir members would have been horrified if they found out that the composer of the music they have been singing were Orthodox!

Our church has always been 'prostopinije' or Plain Chant - which BTW can be sung in harmony. We forget that antiphons and stichera are to be sung from 'opposing' choirs. Today, the people sing the stichera AND the psalm verses. The same goes for the antiphons during liturgy. Yet something is lost to our unique form of church singing when everything is treated as a 'hymn' or anthem. It gets more pathetic when a choir entertains the folks down below with rich choral adaptations as the people stand praying the rosary. We do a good job teaching ourselves how NOT to sing.

Now you mention that the people in other churches even sing with the choir. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the choir sang (in harmony) plainchant correctly? I have been to only a half dozen liturgies in my life where two (opposing) scholas led the congregation. Imagine, now, several hundred parishioners singing at the top of their lungs in harmony the stichera for vespers or the Cherubic Hymn. But the trouble is that many people are not interested in learning to sing plainchant properly. What you are looking for can also be found in plainchant.

The recent phenomenon in our church today is the 'dumbing down' of our music to fit the abilities of the people. Of course, this is an attempt to get more congregational singing. But there is a huge difference between singing the proper melody and singing it several notes LOWER than should be. Everything begins to sound like a funeral march. Yet our youth will sing the right notes (sometimes high) to their favorite rock song! Having ignorant cantors is also another problem. Some cantors have as much life in them as the fake flowers on some tetrapods! The fact that some don't know how to read music is another factor. There is nothing like banality.


Elias


[This message has been edited by Elias (edited 08-03-1999).]

A few thoughts... Our parish does have a thriving choir that sings three out of four Sundays a month. Many of the people do sing along with them. It's interesting that during the parts of the Liturgy led by the cantor (or the Sunday that the cantor leads), participation drops and it becomes a solo affair.

As to music, the choir sings some Ruthenian "plain chant" harmonized and some music from other Orthodox traditions. Yes, alot of what we sing comes out of books published by St. Vladimir's, but is there a source to get quality choral music or harmonized plain chant from the Metropolia?

Plain chant is great, but it was not used for so long (at least in our parish) that it's reintroduction makes it as difficult to sing as a gregorian introit or gradual (especially stichera at Vespers).

As a side note, we started using the "new" service books for the Presanctified this past Great Fast with just the cantor leading. Prior to this year, the choir sang at the Presanctified every week. Attendance dropped and the whole affair turned into a race between the priest and cantor to "get it done." The plain chant is beautiful, but sung as a "solo," it leaves alot to be desired. Somebody please publish some decent, singable arrangements of it!!!

I thought I would weigh in here in favor of congregational singing, with the proviso that it is done well -- something which is possible but which requires commitments from everyone involved.

It is possible for the melodies to be fairly complex yet singable. The key is having a cantor/reader who is familiar with the appropriate chants, a priest who is supportive of it, and some creativity and leeway in making things "singable". In our Melkite parish it works pretty well, but we are blessed by having all of these factors present in our community. It also may be the case that congregational singing works better with Byzantine Chant than with Rusyn Chant -- I don't know.

I have been to many Orthodox parishes where the congregation is singing nothing at all -- it can seem very cold. And while the choirs can be quite beautiful, there is something tangible lost when the worshippers are aloof from the liturgy in that way. It reminds me of many Roman Catholic parishes where the music is so beautiful that the congregation is afraid to sing because they just can't keep up. OTOH, it is horrible to have congregational singing done poorly -- it demeans the beauty of the liturgy.

What is really needed are people who are committed to learn the chants properly and teach them to the people in the parish. This is a time-consuming process, but with the right personnel, it can make a world of difference to the liturgical life -- and really make people participate in the liturgy more thoroughly -- something which can only be a great spiritual benefit, and not just an aesthetic one.

orientale

I've been thinking more about choirs/choral singing vs. congregational/plain chant singing. I don't think that it matters as much as to who is leading the singing, the choir or the cantor. If a choir is leading the singing, I personally feel more confident in singing out louder (a good choir covereth a multitude of sins!) than if only the cantor is leading. Just because there is a choir, that doesn't mean that they need to sing "choral" music. Bortniansky, Rachmaninoff, Ledkovsky are great to listen to at the Liturgy, but the whole service doesn't have to be sung with settings composed by the great composers. A choir chanting prostopinije in unison is a great "support" for congregational singing. Who knows, maybe someone in "the pews" will add a one or more lines of harmony (especially if the MUSIC IS PRINTED IN THE PEW BOOKS). Ahem. Excuse me. Throw in a choral piece here and there for variety and to give the people a break. Yes, a break! If you expect people who have never sung at Liturgy to all of the sudden sing from beginning to end, all you'll get is more silence.

As to the choice of what to sing? Ruthenian plain chant is great for congregational singing provided that the leaders know what they are singing. Some prostopinije that I have heard (at least the little used stichera, irmosy, samopodens, etc. from Vespers/Matins) are no easier for a congregation to sing than a choral piece of music. Having only the Divine Liturgy doesn't give much of a chance to use and practice these other melodies either. These ain't the "good ole days in the old country where everyone knew every melody and sang 'em with gusto."

In other places on this forum, the future of our Church as multi-ethnic (non-ethnic?) entity has been debated. That being the case, why can't such a Church sing a variety of music from other Orthodox traditions, be it Antiochian, Bulgarian, Russian, etc. or even NEW music commissioned by our hierarchs or liturgical commissions expressly for this purpose? It seems to me that to say, "We should sing plain chant because it's OUR music," defeats the purpose of trying to include everyone in the membership and faith life of our Church.

I'll climb down off my soap box now if everyone would just TRY and sing next Sunday!

Glory to Jesus Christ!!!

Congregational singing was at one time the norm for all Eastern Churches. In teh greek Church, choral singing began to replace plainchant in the late Byzantine period, mainly as a result of contacts with the West. In the Slavic lands, congregational singing was the norm until the Nikonian reforms of the 17th century, when at the instigation of the Tsars, "composed" liturgical music began to supplant the old Znamenny chant which was "the glory of the Rus'".



According to Sr. Joan Roccasalvo, in her monograph "The Plainchant tradition of the Southwestern Rus'", up through the 1930s, all liturgical singing in the Subcarpathian region was congregational, using the "Prostopinje" plainchant which has its origins in the Byzantine chant brought north by the Athonite monks in the 14th century. It thus represents one of the oldest, and most authentic of the liturgical traditions in the Byzantine commonwealth, having been bypassed by the changes that have affected the Greek and Russian useages.



Acording to the eminent ethnographer and musiculogist Johan von Gardner, choral music was actually prohibited in the Carpathians, and the people learned all the liturgical tones by heart, being able to sing them in three part harmony in many cases.



In Russia and Greece, the adiption of "composed", polyphonic music that could only be sung by trained voicxes led to the demise of congregational sining, something which many in the Orthodox Church now deeply regret. In Russia the Church is trying hard to recover the Znamenny chant tradition which almost disappeared with the demise of the monastaries under the Soviet Union--for, with the collapse of congregation singing in a parochial setting, it was only in the monastaries that plainchant was retained.



In this country, many Orthodox Churches that had congregational singing traditions seem to have deliberately eschewed them, perhaps because it was seen as "too Proteastant"--or today, "too Romish". this is a shame, because the Byzantine Liturgy is meant to be a sung dialog among the priest, the deacon and the people, all of whom must work together to affect the sacrament of the Eucharist. When the people are relegated to the role of spectators by the use of elaborate choral settings, it diminshes their role in the liturgical drama.



As a member of my parish men's chorus, I note that we only sing one liturgy every month (not counting special occasions like weddings or pontifical liturgies), and that most of the time we sing Prostopinje chants arranged for four voices--the same chants that are sung congregationally the other three weeks. We fully expect that the people will sing along with us--and are seldom disappointed. In this way, the chorus serves mainly as leader and sounding board of the congregation, and provide them with an exampel of how the music ought to sound. Our role, then, is manly didactic--teaching the people how to sing without reliance upon a chorus. This system works eminently well for us, and it would behoove other parishes to follow our example. A congregation that actually sings the liturgy absorbs the text and the thelogy better than one which merely listens.

Thanks to all who have contributed so far!

I stumbled on the following comment by Mary Berry in the article on "Byzantine Chant" in the _New Westminster Dictionary of Liturgy and Worship_ (1986) p. 133:

"All Eastern rite services are sung throughout: a said liturgy is an impossibility. The Council of Laodicea (367) ruled that the people should have no vocal part to play in the services, so as to safeguard the purity of the chant: only the clergy, the cantor, and the trained choir are permitted to perform, and so the chant is divided among these three participants in the form of a lively and moving dialogue. The Council of Laodicea also ruled that musical instruments were to be banned from the services. ..."

These sweeping generalization of the ban on congregational singing strikes me as being too simplistic, as does the generalization offered in the previous post to the effect that congregational singing was always the norm in all of the Eastern Churches. I hope to find out more about the Council of Laodicea, and I hope others will continue to contribute their own perspectives.

Phil Yevics

Here are my 2¢: I went to a Byzantine church with a choir loft and no choir. I thought that was absolutely perfect, because a lot of the families with little childen went there. The children could see, but not bother others by their wiggling. My children had the opportunity to really learn to behave without being *taken out of church*, which is generally counterproductive, altho unavoidable. I could also pay attention to the Liturgy!

To top it all off, the congregational singing sounded wonderful--guess that was an exceptional parish!

I will also weigh in on the side of congregational singing. The Liturgy is the work of the people, not the entertainment of the people. We praise God together, in cooperation with the celebrant and (if you're lucky enough to have one) the Deacon. As a cantor, I consider it a high compliment that my parish SINGS. It doesn't have to be dumbed down, but folks do have to be given a chance to get familiar with the melodies.

I also agree strongly that printed music is ESSENTIAL in this day & age when most of us didn't grow up singing three times a day in the village church.

As for choral music...When I go to a Liturgy which is sung chorally, and I don't know the arrangement, I feel excluded. There is a vibrant physical link which is cut. The music may be lovely, but I cannot enter into the prayer with the entirety of my self - I can't inhale and exhale this glorious edifice of prayer as a part of the community which builds it - I am outside. Might as well just sit in a pew....

Just the $.02 of a religious fanatic.

Cheers on this Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy and Life-Giving Cross!

Sharon

Sharon Mech, SFO
Cantor & sinner
sharon@cmhc.com

Thanks again to all who have responded to this thread. While I would be interested in any and all experiences folks have with choirs, the last few responses have focused on the dynamic which originally led me to post the topic.

Several folks have spoken (with passion and grace!) of the values of congregational singing. I would certainly affirm this from my own experience, altho inherent in this affirmation is the realization that when done poorly, congregational singing can also be a spiritual trial.
At a "theoretical" level, most would seem to resonate with the statement of the Declaration on the Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council of the Catholic Church that the goal of liturgy should be "full conscious and active participation" by all. For many of us, congregational singing is a powerful way we feel ourselves to be participating in the Liturgy.
Choirs CAN remove this sense of participation, and reduce those who are not members of the choir to passive observers of a performance. A major issue for me now is, does it have to be that way?
Several of the earlier respondents suggested that choral singing can enhance congregational participation. My bias is that I would like it to be so, i.e., I would like to find a way to maximize the benefits of congregational singing AND choirs, rather than seeing them as competing.
The questions I'm asking would seem to focus on:
Does it have to be either/or with choirs and congregational singing, or can it be both/and?
For those who would suggest it can be both/and, what are some of the ways to maximize the positive aspects of choirs while avoiding the dangers of reducing the congregation to passive observers of a performance.

Glory to the life-giving Cross of Christ!

Phil Yevics

Phil, I believe that it can be both (choir and congregational singing). Our choir uses singable melodies (albeit Znameny, Russian, Bulgarian) as well as Prostopinije (harmonized). They repeat the same music often so that it becomes very familiar. They do very little true choral music (Rachmaninoff, Ledkovsky, Bortniansky, etc.).

I'm sure that if there was a good source for harmonized plain chant, they would use that too. It's just very easy to find other chants or harmonized Orthodox music and it is not easy to find harmonized plain chant. We do use the Ruthenian tones for the tropar, kontakion, and prokemenon, communion, etc. Even with the eight week cycle, singing at these portions of the liturgy (sung only by the cantor) drops.

Publishing a liturgy book WITH the music (with more than just the melody!) in Prostopinije can only help. This is still a dream. Give people credit that maybe they can read another line of music beside the melody!

My advice for a choir: LEARN and sing easy music, repeat it weekly, and encourage the people (maybe before the liturgy and in the bulletin) to sing WITH the choir, becuase the choir is there to lead the singing, not perform it.