Commencement exercises are tomorrow (my least, least, least favorite part of the year).
It’s my least favorite time because of the repertoire. I enjoy Elgar, especially Enigma, Gerontius, and the other marches besides the ubiquitous one. I enjoy other English marches, too, particularly Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre, but we have to use the Elgar. It annoys me when people say, “It’s Traditional.” No, it isn’t. I don’t think Americans have very much of an understanding of what constitutes a tradition, not to mention what is worthy of tradition. Which march is co-opted for a procession at a high-school graduation IS NOT WORTH CRYING OVER. It’s JUST A MARCH. I would love a moratorium on its use until we’ve all forgotten about the diaper ads, the puppy-chow commercials, and the sundry high-school-band butcherings we’ve all seen and heard.
(None of the above argument applies to chant, by the way, for the following reasons:
1. Chant is sanctioned by the Magisterium. There’s no such thing in American academia.
2. Graduations are traditions of men, undoubtedly; the Mass isn’t.)
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I feel your pain. Same pain I feel when people want the Pachelbel Canon played at their wedding.
OK, you win! That’s worse!
One thing I’ve noticed is how some commencement exercises and other secular ceremonies resemble the parts of the Mass. For example, some have all the speeches in the first half (Liturgy of the Word), and then everyone receives their diplomas after the principal or president says a couple of final words (Eucharistic Prayer and Communion Rite).
And of course there is the Big Quasi-Sacramental Moment when the authorized school official pronounces the words conferring the degrees upon the recipients. It’s a bit like a mass confirmation.
It’s funny how Americans come to strongly associate certain pieces of music with certain events, for no apparent purpose except maybe aesthetics or custom. Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance #2 is a tasteful, elegant piece of music well-fitted to graduation ceremonies. But other pieces of music fit that bill too.
Please forgive my provincialness, but it’s not clear to me why Pachelbel’s Canon would be “painful” at a wedding. It’s not a piece I would choose; others are much higher on the list. But considering the contemporary howlers that less-Catholic minded Catholics choose these days (Celine Dion, etc., yikes), it’s not clear to me why a tasteful classical piece would be so bad.
Americans have developed a mass culture, so we seem to want mass rituals as well–things agreed upon by all, despite our religious plurality. Also, a graduation is ostensibly a great milestone in one’s life (especially if one has undertaken education for intellectual formation and inquiry, not just as a career tool) and a ritualistic quality is appropriate.
All I ask is that the keynote speaker, no matter how good, not talk all afternoon. I was recently at a graduation in the un-airconditioned main room of a college, where an excellent speaker went on way too long. I kept nodding off in a humid fog.
The Canon in D is painful because of overexposure. I’m just tired of hearing it. It works, though, in that it does what it’s supposed to do, musically speaking.
To quote from Monty Python’s “The Life of Brian,”
“Yes, we are all individuals…”
Pomp and Circumstance is nice, Pachelbel’s Canon in D is lovely, but I agree – why is it that we cling to options as though they were long-standing immovable traditions at the same time that we are discarding the real anchors of society left and right?
I’ve come to sigh at ‘normal’ wedding music. Then again, we chose Pange Lingua as our communion hymn for ours. (And we had ‘all hail blessed trinity in there too, because we like it and because a lot of my wife’s family is Mormon).
As far as Pomp & Circumstance goes, I’m just happy that I didn’t have to listen to it played a dozen times through, as my wife’s department was smallish.