www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros Choirs in Eastern Catholic Parishes

I had begun this discussion back in 1999 on the Parish Life Forum. I copied all of the posts as a unit. I would welcome fresh discussion of the topic.

Author Topic: Choirs in Eastern Catholic Parishes
Phil Yevics unregistered posted 08-03-1999 02:49 PM

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


Doulos of Fatima unregistered posted 08-03-1999 06:17 PM

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!


Elias unregistered posted 08-03-1999 06:50 PM 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


posted 08-04-1999 07:49 AM

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!!!


orientale unregistered posted 08-04-1999 07:55 AM

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


posted 08-09-1999 12:50 PM
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!!!


StuartK unregistered posted 08-09-1999 01:53 PM

Congregational singing was at one time the norm for all Eastern Churches. In the 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 adoption of "composed", polyphonic music that could only be sung by trained voicxes led to the demise of congregational singing, 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.


Phil Yevics unregistered posted 08-11-1999 04:18 PM

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. ..."

This 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


Philothea unregistered posted 09-14-1999 02:32 AM

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!


Sharon Mech Member Member # 883 posted 09-14-1999 11:51 AM

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


Phil Yevics unregistered posted 09-15-1999 10:05 AM
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.

Glory to Jesus Christ!

A good choir can be a wonderful thing, AS LONG AS it doesn't replace congregational singing. We live a block away from an OCA parish at which the people sing the Our Father - and that's about it. Everything else is sung by the choir (with a pause for the pitch pipe before each response).

As far as printed music:

1. The People's Book in preparation has music throughout (including a far selection of melodies for the major liturgical hymns, the Cherubic Hymn, Our Father, and so on, AND festal melodies throughout the year, including both simple and ornate settings of the irmosy) - and there have been a significant number of requests for printed harmonized music. As a result, I expect to see harmonized music for the Divine Liturgy to be made available with the People's Book.

2. The complete Sunday Matins book from the Metropolitan Cantor Institute includes a harmonized setting of "Having Beheld the Resurrection" (largely because the Kievan Tone 6 music used throughout the Archeparchy really demands it). It also uses the traditional podoben melodies (Carpathian where we still have them, and Ukrainian where we don't) for sessional hymns/sedalens, and Bulgarian chant (!) for the Gradual hymns. (There are no surviving prostopinije melodies for the graduals, and the Ukrainian melodies are a bit too challenging for regular use in most parishes.)

So harmonization and choirs do have a place - and the requests mentioned in the old posts in this thread for books with music, a rejection of "dumbing down", and the occasional use of other musical traditions, all have a place in the music coming from the Cantor's Institute these days.

Yours in Christ,

Jeff Mierzejewski

Clory to Him forever!

Please remember Jeff that the congregation singing the Symbol of Faith and the Our Father and the choir or cliros doing the rest is the Russian tradition. The Greek tradition is for the very few Readers/Caantors only to sing. The Carpatho-Rusyn tradition is for congregational singing. IMO we should all respect one anothers' traditions and not force out traditions on others.

In Christ,
Deacon Nikolai

I wonder how much Russian singing is choir versus kliros nowadays. Does it vary by parish in the OCA?

Jim, Cantor
St. Thomas the Apostle Church,
Gilbert, AZ

My parish uses only cantors-we are a very small parish and never had a choir (prior to that, i was RC in a German parish-everyone sang melody there for hymns, otherwise it was chant or genuine polyphony-if anyone sang another part they were given dirty looks because congregational part singing was Lutheran). Thus, actually west-european protestant part singing very strange to me (which is what the Russians like). Heterophony does occur occasionally. To my mind, monophonic chant, with or with out organum type singing, really ought to the norm, since this is really the type of singing e. g. the Typikon expects. Having a fourpart choir goes against proper church-singing (how does one achieve antiphony with a choir?), and is detrimental to sacramental singing (for a notion of singing as a sacrament, you ought to check out what the Old Believers have to say about it).

In Christ,
Adam

Adam,

Perhaps choirs are anti-antiphony... :rolleyes:

To All,

Growing up in a church that had a strong choir, I had felt that choirs were the preferred method of congregational worship. As I learned and studied more of the prostopinije traditional chant, I began to realise the beauty of the Rusyn melodies used in congregational singing. When the choir wasn't singing, they really still were though as congregants following the cantor. The result was that there was always harmony(polyphony) during the Divine Liturgy. Over the years, the choir shrank in size, a new bishop who didn't want a choir, and an exodus of parishioners who had good voices, led to a loss of harmonized congregational singing. Now, after many years without a choir, we are starting the choir again and slowly but surely harmony is returning to the congregational singing.
While I still like choirs and currently sing in a choir, (until recently I sang in two choirs, one Catholic and one OCA), I feel that the plain chant should always be prominent over choirs in liturgical worship.

Just my two cents,

Steve Petach
Cantor, Cathedral of St Mary, Van Nuys, CA

Steve - while certainly from a purely archeological perspective certainly monophonic Znamenny or two-note Bulgarian chants are older liturgical musical forms, even Von Gardner in his observations marvelled at the harmony he observed in Western Rus', often four parts falling into place naturally with the congregation and no formal choir.

We had a Latin bi-ritual priest at our parish last week and he was like a kid in a candy shop with our harmonization of the Divine Liturgy chants.

Jim - regarding the OCA, it is interesting in our local parishes. Like some Greek Catholic parishes, the larger parish has a choir/kliros which does most of the singing.

The smaller OCA parish, on the other hand, uses congregational harmony singing without a kliros, and that a wonderful mix of Obikhod, Carpatho-Russian, Bulgarian, Galician and Greek Chant. The priest and his wife are both music teachers so that helps.

I think the use of harmony and its ability to accent major and minor keys is now really a mainstay of Western (European and Slavic) liturgical music.

And has been pointed out brilliantly in several articles (I heard Mark Bailey talk about this once in a wonderful lecture, giving many examples impromptu), in the Slavic mind a minor key does not necessarily mean sadness but on the contrary, in an antimonic way, can mean great joy.

I have never understood the disputes on this issue. There can be a place for both congregational singing, and a choir. It doesn't have to be an either/or.

I agree that it doesn't have to be either/or, it can be both. I admire a good choir, but unless I am singing in it I feel a bit frustrated.

Having experienced the prostopinije chant I have grown to appreciate and prefer it. The congregation seems to find it's own natural harmonies I cannot describe, but an untrained singer can follow the cantor and it really draws a person into the liturgy.

I have seen that choirs which sing every Sunday will mute the congregation, and they will not be able to raise their voice in praise. It is one of the most frustrating aspects of visiting the various OCA parishes in my area. This can have a detrimental effect on those congregations that are shrinking due to location or other factors, the choir starts to lose key people and the congregation will not, or can not sing.

Eventually the result can be sorta sad.

+T+
Michael

I haven't understood it, either. Such disputes deal with window-dressing, waste time and resources, and can cost parishes members, creating other problems where they didn't already exist.

Makes me appreciate the story of a midwest diner here. The cook was interviewed by a local newspaper. She said, "All our food is horizontal. I think vertical food is stupid." She cooks and feeds her clientele with great success, because of the quality of the food itself.

Worship itself is more important than whether there is a choir OR a kliros, and if a change will effect worship, it should be considered with prudence, and not be subject to personal preference.

I think much of what actually happens in parish use has to do with the available resources of people to sing, people to teach, size of the parish, etc. as well as what the pastor will go for.

I also never saw any sense at all to a debate on the issue, and love Rachmaninov and Archangelsky as well as two voices singing Valaam Znamenny to a humble Hutsul mountain parish congregation singing in natural harmony, and even one voice singing Byzantine chant while others are holding an eison. All have their own very unique beauty and majesty in transmitting the sacrifice of praise.

If I may digress.
I see two types of choirs around here.
One is in the balcony and does most of the singing.
The other has a few key leaders, one cantor who is leader, but sits with the people.
The people really really sing prostopinije. Especially during presanctified, signing the pslams, back and forth from one side to another, different women singing different notes, it is easy to sing, and beautiful. The cantor tries her best to wing out the different tones when she has to sing alone, but it is prayer and praying is what matters.
The thing is, I am not used to people in church singing loudly. Like the whole church is the choir. It is trully great prayer. It is awesome to sing aloud and everyone else is doing it too.