May 2024 Print

Ecclesiastical efforts to promote chant and polyphony in wedding music in 19th- and 20th-century America

By Sharon Kabel

The musical crimes of modern Catholic weddings have been thoroughly discussed in recent years: poor music selection, overdramatic soloists, emphasis on the social rather than the sacramental. However, decades before the Second Vatican Council, in a firmly traditional landscape, those exact same complaints were leveled at wedding music.

In the mid-twentieth century, American choir directors insisted that “the greatest blemish contributing to the general disfigurement of the face of the Liturgy”¹ was “requests for bad wedding music.”² Catholic newspapers and etiquette books from the 1880s-onward excoriated the trend of bad and secular music in Catholic weddings.

One can argue that the Catholic Church has been in a constant state of reforming, pruning, and beautifying the music for the Mass. Every era contends with its unique secular influences and excesses. In the nineteenth century, less than a hundred years after the death of Mozart, Catholic priests and artists in Germany rallied together to raise the standards of liturgical music—specifically, to champion Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.³ Their efforts fell under the umbrella of the Caecilian Movement or Caecilianism. Caecilian societies and choirs sprung up all over Europe to educate people about the music most suited to the liturgy.

In 1870, the movement leaped across the ocean. Johann Singenberger founded the American Caecilian Society in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Four years later would see the first issue of the (then German-only) music journal, The Caecilia. The Caecilia ran until the 1960s and continues today under the name The Catholic Choirmaster. Wedding music was a frequent and passionate topic in the Caecilia’s columns.

Catholic weddings in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America have a unique array of liturgical and social factors to consider.

Before the Second Vatican Council, American Catholic weddings tended to be on a weekday morning, generally on Tuesday or Wednesday, at 8am or 9am. As recently as 1942, an afternoon wedding was considered so notable that it got photo coverage in the newspaper.

Some of these wedding trends were based on official rules; for example, the Third Council of Baltimore in 1884 forbade evening weddings. However, less “official” (but perhaps more widely read) outlets like etiquette books and newspapers did not hesitate to weigh in on the subject of the ideal Catholic wedding Mass:

In 1871: “It is greatly to be desired that all marriages were celebrated in the morning and at Mass.”⁴

In 1880: “It is greatly to be regretted that in this country so few marriages are contracted with the accompaniment of a Nuptial Mass…⁵

In 1891: “It is Not the Correct Thing…To omit the nuptial Mass without some grave reason. To be married in the evening if it can be avoided…To introduce favorite secular songs or secularized religious music into the service. This is exceedingly bad form.”⁶

In 1963: “Secular music may not be played in a Catholic church. There is no sensible reason for objecting to this, even though it means that one must forgo the playing of the well-known Mendelssohn and Wagner wedding marches. Excessive familiarity long ago robbed these selections of any appeal they may have had.”⁷

We can infer from these admonitions that it was not standard to have a high or solemn high nuptial Mass. Perhaps the early hour of the wedding, the stricter fasting rules, or the excitement for later festivities meant that couples were more inclined to choose a low wedding Mass. The most likely reason is that a low Mass gave couples more options for music, as they would have been allowed to choose vernacular hymns; a high Mass would have required Latin-only music.

To complicate factors, many brides, grooms, and their families considered weddings an opportunity for self-expression—something no one would consider for any other kind of Mass or sacrament. The average person in the pews may have supported Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony in the Mass—the pillars of the Caecilian movement—but when the wedding bells rang, this average person was in fact ferociously attached to saccharine, secular, even banned music.

In 1936, Archbishop Forbes of Ottawa issued a “black list” of wedding music.⁸ Similar statements would be issued from the bishops of Boston (1953⁹), Buffalo (1954¹⁰), Chicago (1955¹¹), and Norwich (1958¹²). Let’s take a look at the most frequently banned pieces of music:

Of the wedding marches, Wagner’s Lohengrin was Prelate Enemy No. 1. Wagner’s granddaughter allegedly said: “We never heard of it in Europe until we saw it in the movies, and then we thought it was a Hollywood joke.”¹³ Also under castigation was Mendelssohn, whose piece for A Midsummer Night’s Dream inexplicably became a beloved wedding march. Both pieces were repeatedly condemned as inappropriate, both musically and thematically. (This did not deter St. Katherine Drexel’s cousin, Elizabeth, from using Lohengrin at her Catholic wedding in 1899.¹⁴)

Many English hymns came under fire, perhaps none more so than “Mother at Thy Feet Is Kneeling,” deemed “one of the worst hymns in the whole history of hymnody.”¹⁵ While the text is Marian—an appropriate theme for a wedding day—the melody is allegedly an old Civil War tune about a soldier returning to his mother. “O Promise Me,” an immensely popular wedding song, can be traced back to a comic opera for Robin Hood.

Even religious hymns were not spared. Settings of Ave Maria from Gounod and Schubert were frequently banned, the latter of which was described as a

stuttering, stammering, repetitious arrangement…hardly compatible with the spirit of the Liturgy since it places the music first and distorts the sense of the text. Only by an enormous stretch of the imagination could it be called correct, or even slightly satisfactory.¹⁶

Even as recently as 1960, an article in The Caecilia emphatically said, “It should not be left to the bride’s choice what music is to be performed.”¹⁷

Choir directors and priests faced intense, consistent backlash from the pews for any attempt to refine wedding music. A priest in 1958 lamented the “resistance to reform because a number of the hymns objected to have been sung for years by parochial congregations. “The fact that they have been used for a long period doesn’t make them reverent, devotional or proper,” he said.¹⁸

Not only the music, but the way the music was sung, was another issue. Wedding soloists were strongly discouraged. “People are allowed to sing at weddings who aren’t allowed to sing anywhere else,” said one (likely long-suffering) priest in Missouri.¹⁹

As part of the overall efforts to form Catholic church music, several dioceses and organizations published approved lists of music.

The most well-known example is the White List of the Society of Saint Gregory.²⁰ While it contains an impressive selection of papal writings from the past five centuries on sacred music, there is no specific section on weddings. It is still a useful document in other ways, but organists searching for specific alternatives to the dreaded Wagner would leave empty-handed. To complicate matters, while widely recommended, the White List was not universally loved. One musician referred to it as a list “which includes some of the world’s least inspired music.”²¹

In 1954, you could purchase Approved Wedding Music for Catholic Church Services from publishers McLaughlin and Reilly, with a grand total of four organ solos.²²

The last significant contribution (that I have found) is the 1938 Approved List of Church Music for the Archdiocese of Dubuque.²³ Objectionable wedding music comes under fire in Part VIII: Disapproved Music. This booklet reiterates a blanket ban on any music condemned at the 1922 Convention of the Society of St. Gregory of America. Those hunting for recommended pieces are referred to the aforementioned White List.

Curiously absent from many of these screeds and condemnations is mention of settings for the nuptial Propers. Some settings of the Ordinary are forbidden in a general sense, but they do not tend to be mentioned in a nuptial context.

The musical emphasis with Catholic weddings constitutes a keen paradox. Your wedding day, we are assured, is your day. Your most very special day! If you need orchids in January, then you must have them. Nothing shall stand in the way. In a Novus Ordo wedding, your options for music—let alone readings and blessings—are nearly infinite. Even in a low traditional Mass, one can finagle less-than-ideal music options.

However, the traditional wedding rite and a high wedding Mass resist personalization. The rite of marriage has no music within it. The wedding Mass has its music: the ordinary and the propers. Given time and resources, you may have a hymn while giving flowers to Mary, during the Offertory, or during Communion. All other music choices happen outside of the ceremonies proper.

All of this explains the repeated recommendations in Catholic newspapers, pamphlets, and books from bishops, organists, and musicians to have a high wedding Mass. A high wedding Mass completely reorients one’s priorities for the Mass and for wedding Mass music. First and foremost: to choose appropriate settings for the Ordinary and the Propers. (The dearth of polyphonic settings for the nuptial Propers is a separate ax to grind.) By appropriate is meant settings within the abilities of your resources, settings you like, and settings that do not overburden the Mass. Once the Mass has been suitably bedecked, then the couple may consider organ pieces made for the Mass.

For those bursting with nuptial music creativity, there are more options that have been largely neglected or forgotten. In 1953, one parish boasted of a music lending library specifically for wedding music.²⁴ Some couples composed their own music, such as Chris Mueller in 2012.²⁵

A better option may be to focus on extraliturgical practices and customs. Traditional betrothals are once again making a comeback, and afford opportunities for musical customization. Somewhat similar to the betrothal rite, but a practice that I believe has been utterly forgotten, is the crowning of a bride, promoted by Grailville in 1955.²⁶ The all-female ceremony is touching, and includes many opportunities for music.

The great paradox of this subject is that on your wedding day, a day of jubilation and expression, couples interested in a traditional ceremony are met with musical mandates and moratoria. One musician’s reflection is worth quoting at length:

The greatest musical hazard of all is the wedding soloist. Weddings are about the only liturgical function at which soloists are still tolerated, but they have no real place there…[T]he greatest music of the Church is designed with solo work strictly not in mind. The ideal wedding music does not depend on soloists, for the ideal wedding Mass is a High Mass. No one has ever been able to explain to my simple convert’s mind why the most solemn occasion of one’s life should take place with anything less than the most solemn and liturgical ceremony the Church has to offer. The social element of weddings has become so top-heavily important that too often, perhaps, details of the ceremony get squeezed in among instructions to caterer and photographer. Then, too, weddings are great arousers of sentiment, as they should be. But sentiment, when applied to choice of wedding music, sometimes curdles. The first consideration in picking one’s wedding music must be suitability to the occasion. Personal attachment comes second.²⁷

This paradox and self-subjugation may seem painful at first, especially for couples attached to a forbidden piece of music. The Church in her wisdom may have thought it a perfect backdrop for one’s wedding day, as one enters a sacrament not of self-expression and creativity, but of unity, of dying to yourself for your spouse and Christ, and of desire for Heaven—at whose gates, we can only hope to find Bach.

Endnotes

¹ Thomas G. McCarthy, “On Wedding Music,” The Caecilia, Vol. 73, No. 3 (February 1946).

² “Poor Wedding Music Draws Organists’ Ire,” The Catholic Transcript, Vol. LXVI, No. 29 (November 14, 1963).

³ Damian Ronald, “A Historical Study of the Caecilian Movement in the United States,” Dissertation, Catholic University of America (1984).

⁴ The Catholic Telegraph, September 7, 1871.

⁵ “The Nuptial Mass,” The Monitor, Vol. 23, No. 36 (June 17, 1880).

⁶ Lelia Hardin Bugg, The Correct Thing for Catholics, 12th ed. (New York: Benziger, 1891).

⁷ Kay Toy Fenner, American Catholic Etiquette (Westminster, Maryland: Newman Press, 1963).

⁸ “Application of church music law ordered by Archbishop of Ottawa,” Catholic News Service, Newsfeeds, September 28, 1936.

⁹ “Boston Ordinary Rules On Wedding Music,” The St. Louis Review, Vol. 13, No. 9 (February 27, 1953).

¹⁰ “Bishop takes action against abuses in music at weddings,” Catholic News Service, Newsfeeds, January 11, 1954.

¹¹ “Church Music Regulations for the Archdiocese of Chicago,” The Caecilia, Vol. 83, No. 1 (November-December 1955).

¹² “Norwich See Initiates New Worship Rules,” The Catholic Transcript, Vol. LXI, No. 29, (November 20, 1958).

¹³ Paul Hume, Catholic Church Music (New York: Dodd Mead, 1960), 102.

¹⁴ “A Brilliant Wedding,” The Washington Critic, June 29, 1889. Located at Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers, hosted by the Library of Congress.

¹⁵ Hume, Catholic Church Music.

¹⁶ McCarthy, “On Wedding Music,” The Caecilia, Vol. 73, No. 3 (February 1946).

¹⁷ The Caecilia, Vol. 87, No. 2 (Summer 1960).

¹⁸ William F. Judkins Jr., “Choir Guild Meeting to Discuss How to Improve Church Music,” The Catholic Advocate, Vol. 7, No. 7 (February 15, 1958).

¹⁹ “Wedding bells that clank,” The Clarion Herald, May 9, 1963.

²⁰ “The White List of the Society of St. Gregory of America,” (New York: Society of St. Gregory of America, 1954).

²¹ Hume, Catholic Church Music.

²² “Approved wedding music for Catholic Church services. Easy compositions for unison or two voices; 16 pieces with Latin texts, 10 pieces with English texts. Complete setting of the Proper of the Nuptial Mass, plus 4 organ solos,” (Boston: McLaughlin and Reilly, 1954).

²³ “Approved list of church music for the Archdiocese of Dubuque, edited by the Archdiocesan Music Commission. Iowa: Archdiocese of Dubuque, 1938). Located at Curate Notre Dame (CurateND), maintained by the University of Notre Dame.

²⁴ “Music lending library,” The St. Louis Review, Vol. 13, No. 52 (December 25, 1953).

²⁵ http://www.benesonarium.com/catalog#4b

²⁶ https://archive.org/details/grailville-promised-in-christ/

²⁷ Hume, Catholic Church Music.