Kitabı oku: «Rites and Ritual», sayfa 6

APPENDIX C
ON SAYING AND SINGING

My dear Archdeacon,

With regard to the question which you ask respecting the mode of performing Divine Service, it appears to me evident that it never entered into the heads of those who undertook, in the 16th century, the great work of remodelling, translating, simplifying, congregationalising (to use a barbarous word) the old Sarum Offices, and recasting them into the abbreviated form of our Matins and Evensong, to interfere with the universally received method of reciting those Offices. It is quite certain that they never dreamed of so great an innovation in immemorial usage. Their object was merely to simplify the old Ritual music. It had become so tedious and ornate, that it was impossible for the people to join in their part; and the priest's part was rendered unintelligible by means of the wearisome "neumas" and flourishes, which had little by little crept in, to the utter ruin of the staid solemnity of the ancient Plain Song. So the great business was to make the priest's part devout and intelligible, and the people's simple and congregational.

The first part of our Prayer-book which came out was the Litany. But it came out with its beautiful and simple Ritual Music. It was thus originally intended to be sung; but to music so plain and straightforward that a child may join in it. (It is the same melody as is still generally used for the Litany.) Only the melody was published at first; no harmony: therefore it would be sung in unison.

But a month afterwards a harmonised edition was published for the benefit of those choirs which were more skilled in music. It was set in five-part harmony, according to the notes used in the "Kynge's Chapel." Tallis's more elaborate version was published twenty years afterwards.

But this English Litany was harmonised over and over again in different ways, by different composers; the very variety of setting incidentally proving how very general its musical use had become.

It was in the following year (1545) that Cranmer wrote his well-known letter to Henry respecting the "Processions" and Litany Services, which it was in contemplation to set forth in English for festival days; requesting that "some devout and solemn note be made thereto," similar to that of the published Litany: "that it may the better excitate and stir the hearts of all men to devotion and godliness: " the Archbishop adding that, in his opinion, "the song made thereto should not be full of notes, but as near as may be for every syllable a note."

Four years after came out Edward's First Prayer-book, and almost simultaneously with it (at least within the year) the musical notation of the book, published "cum Privilegio," and edited by John Merbecke.

There seems no doubt in the world that this book was edited under Cranmer's supervision; and was intended as a quasi-authoritative interpretation of the musical rubrics.

The old ritual words, "legere," "dicere," "cantare," continue in the reformed, just as of old in the unreformed rubrics. They had a definite meaning in the Latin Service Books. There is not a vestige of a hint that they are to have any other than their old meaning in the vernacular and remodelled Offices. They are often loosely used as almost convertible expressions. "Dicere" rather expresses the simpler; "cantare," the more ornate mode of musical reading. The word "legere" simply denoted "recitation from a book," without any reference to the particular mode of the recitation. Applied to the Gospel in the old rubrics, it would simply express that the Gospel was to be here "recited," according to the accustomed "Cantus Evangelii." The same with other parts of the service. As "legere" did not signify non-musical recitation in the old rubrics, so neither does it in the revised. In fact, in two or three instances, it is used avowedly as synonymous with "say or sing," —e. g. in the cases both of the "Venite" and the Athanasian Creed. These of course are definitely ordered to be "said" or "sung," —i. e. "said" on the monotone, or "sung" to the regular chant.

But yet in two rubrics which merely deal with the position where, on certain particular occasions, they are to be recited (the rubrics not adverting to the mode of their recitation), the general term "read" is applied to them – "The Venite shall be read here."

Now, as the rubrical directions respecting the performance of the Services are virtually the same in the old and the new Office, so is the music itself as given in Merbecke. His book is nothing more than an adaptation, in a very simplified form, of the old Latin Ritual Song to our English Service. Cranmer's Rule is rigidly followed – "as near as may be, for every syllable a note."

The Priest's part throughout is very little inflected. Even the 'Sursum Corda' and 'Proper Preface' in the Communion Offices are plain monotone; as well (of course) as all the Prayers.

But the Introit, Offertory Sentences, Post Communion, Pater-noster, Sanctus, Agnus-Dei, Credo, 'Gloria in Excelsis,' in most of which the people would be expected to join, are all inflected, though the music is plain and simple.

That there was not even the remotest intention of doing away with the immemorial practice of the Church of God (alike in Jewish as in Christian times), of employing some mode of solemn Musical Recitation for the saying of the Divine Offices, is further evident by the rubric relating to the Lessons. Of course, if, in any part of the Services, the ordinary colloquial tone of voice should be employed, it plainly ought to be in the Lessons.

But not even here was such an innovation contemplated.

The ancient "Capitula" were much inflected. The Cantus Evangelii and Epistolarum admitted likewise of a great and wearisome licence of inflection. Now it would have been absurd to inflect a long English lesson. The Rubric, therefore, ordered that the Lessons should be said to uninflected song.

"In such places where they do sing, then shall the Lesson be sung in a plain tune after the manner of distinct reading" (i. e. recitation); in other words, the "Lessons, Epistle, and Gospel," were to be all alike said in monotone.

You are aware, of course, that it was not till the last Revision in 1662 that this rubric was removed. The Divines at the Savoy Conference at first objected, and, in their published answer, stated that the reasons urged by the Puritan party for its removal were groundless. However, the rubric disappeared; and, I think, happily and providentially. For certainly (except the reader chances to have a very beautiful voice) it would be painful to hear a Lesson – perhaps a chapter of fifty or sixty verses – said all in monotone. Moreover, while in solemn addresses (whether of Prayer or Praise to God), the solemn musical Recitation seems most fitting and reverential, in lections or addresses delivered primarily for the edification of man, a freer mode of utterance appears desirable and rational.

Merbecke's book (I should have added) does not contain the music for the Litany – as that had been already published – nor for the whole Psalter. It simply gives a few specimens of adaptation of the old Chants to English Psalms or Canticles, and leaves it to individual choirs to adapt and select for themselves.

The intention of the English Church to retain a musical service is further confirmed by the often quoted injunction of Queen Elizabeth, 1559 (c. 49), which gives licence for an anthem.

It first orders that "there shall be a modest and distinct song," (i. e. the ordinary plain song) "used in all parts of the Common Prayers of the Church;" while, for the comfort of such as delight in music, it permits, at the beginning or end of the services, "a hymn or song in the best melody and music that can be devised, having respect to the sense of the words."

The utmost that can be said of our rubrics is, that in cases of musical incapacity, or where no choir can be got, where priest or people cannot perform their part properly, then they may perform it improperly. But, unquestionably, whenever the services can be correctly performed, when the priest can monotone his part, and the people sing theirs, then the services ought to be so performed. It is a matter of simple obedience to Church rule. The single word "Evensong" is a standing protest against the dull conversational services of modern times.

In reference to the popular objection, that the musical rubrics refer merely to cathedrals and collegiate churches, Lord Stowell observed, in his judgment in the case of Hutchins v. Denziloe (see Cripps, p. 644, 3rd ed.), that if this be the meaning of the rubrics and canons which refer to this subject, then "they are strangely worded, and of disputable meaning," for they express nothing of the kind. The rubrics, he says, rule that certain portions of the service "be sung or said by the minister and people; not by the prebendaries, canons, and a band of regular choristers, as in a cathedral; but plainly referring to the services of a parish church."

It is very difficult to say when the use of the monotone generally dropped and gave place to our modern careless unecclesiastical polytone. The change, I suppose, took place gradually; first in one district, then in another. The Church's mode of reciting her Offices would involve more care and skill than the clergy much cared to give. So, little by little, – first in one locality, then in another, – they fell into the modern, loose, irregular way of talking or pronouncing instead of "saying and singing."

Yours ever,

John B. Dykes.

St. Oswald's Vicarage, Durham,

January 20, 1866.