Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence

Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life

By Peter A. Kwasniewski

Foreword by Fr. John A. Perricone

TAN Books, Gastonia, NC, 2023

The indefatigable Peter Kwasniewski has given us yet another book relating to Catholic liturgy and culture. Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence, however, differs in certain important respects from Kwasniewski’s other recent works. It deals with music and especially sacred music. It arises out of the author’s own experience as a music director and as a composer. Kwasniewski’s other books testify eloquently to his warm admiration for the traditional Roman Rite. While his love for the Latin mass is evident in this book as well, Kwasniewski reaches out here to a “broader” audience. He discusses how good music has a role to play in the home and in the Novus Ordo mass as well.

The style of this book is concrete and often colorful. Throughout the book,   Kwasniewski offers specific suggestions and recommendations. Although this work at various points does address theological and theoretical issues, Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence never loses its character as a practical handbook for recovering the role of music in the world and in the Church.

Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence, as the title indicates, is divided into three major themes. The first, good music, discusses how to develop or rediscover good taste in music.  The second, sacred music, deals with the music that is appropriate in the sacred liturgy of the Catholic Church and how to enable its performance. Finally, and to some perhaps enigmatically,  Kwasniewski argues for the place of silence in the liturgy.

Kwasniewski starts with the need to break away from today’s popular music in order to develop one’s own ability to appreciate great music. The author offers concrete recommendations as to what media to use and what composers to listen to. This part of the book is particularly intriguing. For how can someone appreciate the role of music in the liturgy, for example, if he has never internalized the basic structures of western music? For, as the author states, “the prevailing western popular culture is impervious to and, at times, subversive of, the process of Christian inculturation.” I myself have often reflected on how in earlier years a child would have heard classical music or music derived from it in cartoons, film scores and pop and band concerts. Today, where this is lacking, it is much more difficult to appreciate more demanding and elaborate art forms like opera which are  totally alien in the current musical context. No wonder the audience for opera in the United States continues to diminish.

Kwasniewski next turns to the role of music in the liturgy. Not unexpectedly, our author argues strongly for the preeminent role of Gregorian Chant in the liturgy of the Church. He makes ample reference to the statements of the magisterium over the years in support of Chant up to and including Vatican II. I only have  this reservation, however – the entire culture of the Catholic Church is currently governed by the repudiation  of all such authority-  including, in this instance, that of the supposedly sacrosanct Council! 

Consistent with the style of this book, the author discusses in detail what Chant exactly is in relation to other kinds of music, and how to establish the performance of chant at the parish level. He demonstrates that this is completely feasible – rebutting claims that such music is too demanding or unintelligible for parish use. Kwasniewski is a harsh critic of the “Contemporary Worship Music” that has dominated celebrations in the Novus Ordo for decades. And he gives good reasons for banishing guitars and pianos from the church.

Regardless of this book’s practical focus, Kwasniewski does not necessarily neglect theory. For example, he shows that bad music has a deleterious effect on the souls of those who hear it relentlessly. Thus, establishing a high mutual culture is not a luxury, but a necessity for the restoration of a truly Catholic spirituality. Of course, this is entirely in accord with the considerations of Plato and Aristotle regarding the effect of music on the soul of man.

Finally, we come to the role of silence. An aspect of a fine music culture is the necessity at times to be silent. For example, in the Western liturgy even in elaborate musical settings silence prevails at the most sacred moment,  that of the consecration. 1) And from an early stage both in the West and in the East large portions of the liturgy –  like the Western canon –  began to be said silently. Indeed, recurring moments of silence in the liturgy are actually most conducive to participation by the congregation. Obviously a particular target of these reflections is the Novus Ordo liturgy which fills every moment with readings, responses, or music.

This thesis of the  book, moreover, is most consistent with the recent experience of the traditionalist movement in the United States. I am perhaps not as confident as Kwasniewski that immediately before the last Council a high level of music performance could be frequently found. But clearly in much more recent times, St. Mary’s parish in Norwalk,  or the Saint Gregory Society in New Haven  (to name just two institutions) have achieved an extraordinary level of musical perfection. At these places which celebrate the Traditional mass,  inspiring music is not a show, but an an integral part of the parish worship. Here, Chant, polyphony and more recent sacred music may be performed by professional singers, parish choirs and children’s groups – sometimes all together. The wonderful musical culture found in these fortunate locations has contributed greatly to the success of these apostolates and has radiated outwards. The value of good music is of course not only its pragmatic effectiveness. But these few examples powerfully support Peter Kwasniewski’s arguments that great music is necessary and can and should become a part of ordinary Catholic life.

1. I know there have been and are exceptions…..