“Buried Treasure – Can the Church recover her musical heritage?” in the online version of the Adoremus Bulliten
This includes such favorites as Tra le Sollicitudini by Pope St. Pius X and Mediator Dei and Musicae Sacrae Disciplina by Pope Pius XII.
An excellent article! Especially the conclusion which I have copied below.
The Council fathers, like the popes both before them and since, intended to praise this treasure, not to bury it. Pope John Paul II, himself a father of the Second Vatican Council, recently told a Vatican conference on the implementation of Vatican II:
[T]he genuine intention of the Council Fathers must not be lost: indeed, it must be recovered by overcoming biased and partial interpretations…. To interpret the Council on the supposition that it marks a break with the past, when in reality it stands in continuity with the faith of all times, is a definite mistake.21
Pope John Paul II finds this continuity also in the Church’s liturgy and sacred music. He stressed this in his address to the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in January 2001.22 The Institute, founded by Saint Pius X, was the most important result of his 1903 directive on Church music, Tra le Sollecitudini.
In his address to the musicians, Pope John Paul II spoke of the Second Vatican Council as “continuing the rich liturgical tradition of previous centuries”. The Council, he said, affirmed the necessity of beauty:
The criterion that must inspire every composition and performance of songs and sacred music is the beauty that invites prayer…. “Singing in the liturgy” must flow from “sentire cum Ecclesia”.23 Only in this way do union with God and artistic ability blend in a happy synthesis in which the two elements — song and praise — pervade the entire liturgy.
Far from rejecting the heritage of Catholic music, the Holy Father believes it must be recovered, revitalized. In order to recover this great treasure of the Church, he told the musicians,
You, teachers and students, are asked to make the most of your artistic gifts, maintaining and furthering the study and practice of music and song in the forms and with the instruments privileged by the Second Vatican Council: Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony and the organ. Only in this way will liturgical music worthily fulfill its function during the celebration of the sacraments and, especially, of Holy Mass.
Amen. Let us begin.