In Pursuit of “Churchliness” in Liturgical Singing — Vladimir Morosan
What constitutes “churchly” music in the context of Orthodox worship? This is a complex question that every leader of singing in an Orthodox parish has likely grappled with at one point or another. The answer may appear to be simple on the surface: “Churchly” music is, well, whatever we hear when we enter an Orthodox church, particularly a church where one may have grown up or been received into Orthodoxy as a convert. It “sounds like church”!
In reality, however, the matter is not so simple. If, indeed, we have ever visited another church besides our own, particularly if it is of another jurisdiction that has roots in a different ethnic tradition, be it Slavic or Byzantine, the sound of what we are likely to hear may be quite different from what we are accustomed to. Even within a church of the same ethnic background, if one pays closer attention, the repertoire that is sung and the manner in which it is rendered by the choir or chanter may be very different.
One may charitably assume that whoever made the choices of what music to sing and how to interpret it was acting in good faith, motivated by a desire to select “churchly” music and perform it in a “churchly” manner. Yet experience shows that the results of those choices affecting what one hears can vary greatly.
The question thus arises: Are there objective criteria for selecting and interpreting liturgical music, and if so, what are these criteria and by whom are they determined? The hierarchy or synod of a particular jurisdiction? A central repertoire committee of composers and scholars? Or are these choices made subjectively on the basis of personal taste and preference, and if that is the case, whose? The choir director’s? The parish priest’s? The collective mind of a given congregation? Are they dictated simply by habit and tradition, as in, “This is the way it’s ‘always’ been done”?
Questions such as these were easier to answer in earlier times, in countries and societies where Orthodox Christianity was the prevailing faith and where musical and aesthetic norms were relatively homogenous across the culture. Today, complex issues and choices arise that have barely begun to be explored and processed. This is particularly acute in the West—that is to say, in pluralistic cultures where the Orthodox are a minority comprising multiple national and ethnic musical traditions—where, by means of recordings and various internet resources, one has access to an enormous variety of repertoire and musical styles.
However interesting and intriguing a quest to define “churchliness” might be, it is not one that could possibly be fully explored, much less resolved, within a single or even many issues of our journal. Nevertheless, it is a topic that happens to be a common thread running through most if not all of the articles in the present issue.
