It’s unusual for most colleges to have even one full-time faculty member specializing in medieval church music, but the University of Notre Dame has two of the nation’s best-known scholars in that field. A few years ago, the university attracted Peter Jeffery and Margot Fassler, husband and wife, from Princeton and Yale Universities, respectively.
The couple say their love of early liturgical music not only brought them together but continues to form the backbone of their relationship. And the pair study more than just the Middle Ages. Ms. Fassler and Mr. Jeffery also consider how music serves worship in the modern church and, in particular, the changes in liturgical music ushered in to the Roman Catholic Mass by the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s. An edited version of their conversation with The Chronicle follows.
Q. Has a misunderstanding of Vatican II led to a decline in the quality of liturgical music in the Catholic Church?
A. Mr. Jeffery: It’s a very one-sided understanding. The council did say the church valued all true art from any culture. However, what we’ve had is not so much the adoption of real traditions of music but the assumption that the only way to have congregational singing is to have pop songs written by amateurs. That has not produced a healthy tradition of congregational singing.
Q. How does your scholarship help to improve contemporary liturgical practice?
A. Ms. Fassler: We have a real interest in ethnomusicology in the Catholic Church worldwide. That’s a dynamic and interesting world. I’m also a documentarian, and I make films on worship practice. I’m now making one on Coptic chant in liturgy.
A. Mr. Jeffery: The United States is a very diverse and varied place, and Christian worship in the U.S. is always going to be diverse and varied. Arguably, one of the things that’s wrong with Catholic worship is that it’s too much the same thing.
Q. If the two of you could design a program for all leaders of church music, what would it include?
A. Ms. Fassler: One component would have them study with a great master musician in their concentration. Then they would also be trained as scholars to know musical history, and in ethnomusicology. And they would be trained in the liturgical arts so that they understand and can learn to read congregations and be sensitive to the working of their partners, who are the priests and ministers.
Q. Does being at Notre Dame give your work a practical significance that was less possible at other institutions?
A. Mr. Jeffery: When the dean of arts and letters called me at Princeton and said: “What could get you to come to Notre Dame?” I said the one thing that I feel I can’t do here is have an impact on the liturgical process. If I could do that at Notre Dame, then I would be interested in coming.
A. Ms. Fassler: Yale University was very supportive of sacred music. But I feel the entire administration of Notre Dame is completely behind making sacred music a major part of the mission, because, you know, it’s right in Our Lady’s wheelhouse to try to strengthen the life of the church through worship and music.
