Sacred Music Relegated to Concerts

The sad expulsion of great and beautiful liturgical music from our worship of God

By Aurelio Porfiri *

Until a few hundred years ago, sacred music concerts were not held, simply because sacred music was practiced daily within the liturgy. There was no need to showcase those pieces of music, as they could already be frequently heard in their proper setting. Certainly, there may have been performances for particularly illustrious individuals or for a small circle of friends, but music was tied to the act of doing something very specific, not to a generic performance in a concert.

There is nothing wrong today with holding sacred music concerts, but it brings us to a painful reflection: those works can now only be heard in this setting and have been almost entirely excluded from their proper context. I do not intend to fuel fanaticism, and I understand that there were understandable reasons behind the liturgical reform, yet I do not think it is wrong to point out that liturgical music has likely gone in a direction that was not originally intended. Many identify Monsignor Annibale Bugnini as the cause of the current situation, but I believe that is not entirely correct. I have spoken with various collaborators of Monsignor Bugnini, and all of them more or less told me that he would have been horrified by the current state of liturgy and sacred music.

Whatever the truth may be, it is certain that relegating the great heritage of sacred music to concert performances has, in practice, betrayed the directives of Vatican II.

Let us recall that the then-Congregation for Divine Worship issued an instruction on concerts in churches on November 5, 1987. Among other things, it stated:

Sacred music, both vocal and instrumental, deserves positive recognition. By this we mean ‘that music which, composed for the celebration of divine worship, is endowed with sanctity and goodness of form.’ The Church considers it as ‘a heritage of inestimable value, which excels among other expressions of art,’ recognizes its ‘ministerial role in divine service’; and recommends that ‘the heritage be preserved and carefully cultivated.’ When the performance of sacred music occurs during a [liturgical] celebration, it must adhere to the rhythm and the proper modalities of the same. This often requires limiting the use of works created in a time when active participation of the faithful was not proposed as a source of the true Christian spirit.  

This change in the performance of musical works is analogous to that carried out for other artistic creations in the liturgical field, for the sake of celebration: for example, the presbyteries have been restructured with the presidential seat, the ambo, and the altar ‘versus populum.’ This did not mean disdain for the past but was aimed at a more important goal, which is the participation of the assembly. Any limitation that may occur in the use of these musical works can be compensated by the complete presentation of them outside of [liturgical] celebrations, in the form of sacred music concerts.  

Unfortunately, what may seem like a reasonable argument in theory turns out to be flawed in practice, because I don’t believe that encouraging the participation of the assembly should have meant devastating the music in our liturgies. Initiatives should have been encouraged that would elevate the faithful to the beauty of the liturgy, rather than bringing the liturgy down to our level. In this way, true sacred music would have been an important instrument for spiritual elevation. Sacred music was not born for concerts but for the liturgy, and only within it does it have a true reason for existence.

Again, one can understand that performing those compositions in concerts is a way to save them from oblivion, but in another sense, it is also to decree their expulsion from the context where they truly belong and make sense.

Ultimately, this is a great loss, especially for the assembly of the faithful, who are deprived of a form of spiritual nourishment of the highest value.

Many do not see this problem and, certainly in good faith, think that by promoting an intense concert activity, they are saving the great sacred music from abandonment. Indeed, there are pieces that can now only be performed in concerts, even for reasons of excessive length—take, for example, Handel’s marvelous Dixit Dominus. However, much of Renaissance music or music from other periods could still, if desired, find a place in the liturgy. The problem is that there is no desire to do so.

And thus, the concert becomes convenient for easing one’s conscience, even though reality would tell an entirely different story. In reality, concerts do not provide as much help as one might think, because often, the same musical pieces are repeatedly performed. There is an immense heritage of art and music that lies dormant in dozens and dozens of archives or in books that no one uses anymore. Many of these works could still be used, but it seems that a door is closed to them.

Sacred music was born for the liturgy; this must be made very clear, and we must never think, I repeat, that a concert performance can replace its primary purpose, which is liturgical. The fact that it no longer finds a place in the liturgy does not justify concerts; rather, it makes it all the more urgent to ask why we are in the present situation. The issue is often flipped, but this is done to avoid facing the real problem. The refusal to call things by their name does not help us find a necessary final solution, but instead, we continue to accept a state of affairs in our churches that does not help the faithful rise to the beauty of the supernatural. When I see prestigious choirs performing certain repertoires in concerts because they are effectively prevented from doing so in the liturgy, I feel a certain sadness, especially because a piece in its appropriate liturgical context has a different effect than a concert performance of the same piece. It is, after all, the same effect one experiences in museums when hundreds of paintings are stacked one above the other, leaving us unable to fully grasp the distinctive beauty of each one.

I realize that the nonsensical opposition we witness, often from priests, forces much music still suited to the liturgy into a context that is not truly its own, as I have tried to explain. All of this can only communicate great sadness, prompting us to reflect deeply on where the liturgical reform is heading. Russian writer Leo Tolstoy said, “What effect does music have? And why does it evoke certain sensations? They claim that music ennobles and refines the spirit. What nonsense! It’s not true at all that it elevates the soul. It does have an effect on it, but it’s an exciting effect. What do you want? Music makes me forget my conditions and my existence; it transports me to a world that is not real. Under its influence, I seem to feel sensations that I don’t actually feel at all, to think things different from what I commonly think. I am convinced that music has the same effect as yawning or laughter; even if I’m not sleepy, I yawn when I see someone else yawning; even if I have no reason to laugh, I laugh when I see someone else laughing.”

I would add that music makes us delve even deeper into the real and sublimates everything, leading us into a world that is too real, despite what Tolstoy says, for us to see with our wretched human faculties.

* Maestro Aurelio Porfiri is a composer, conductor, master organist, writer and educator in Rome. His blog on music, Cantus, is available on Substack, and his latest book, The Right Hand of the Lord Is Exalted: A History of Catholic Traditionalism from Vatican II to Traditionis Custodes, is now available from Sophia Institute Press.