NPM Toujours

During the week of the Fourth of July, the National Association of Pastoral Musicians gathered in Washington, DC, for their national convention. Way over four thousand members came together to sing and play their heads off, to renew old friendships and make new ones, and to mark twenty-five years as an organization. They also heard a new speaker or two and had the opportunity to hear yet once again some very familiar voices and see some very familiar faces and sing some very familiar songs.

It was a double solemnity. It was at that time that the founder, Father Virgil Funk, retired as the leader of the group and Dr. J. Michael McMahon assumed the mantle and pallium. It was a bloodless coup. For many years now, Michael was seen as the heir apparent. From the infancy of the NPM, Michael has been active in many projects and activities of the organization, so his ascendancy came as no surprise. To make it even better, he is actually a breathing, practicing church musician, and he still remains pleasant and engaging.

The NPM is not the first organization in the American church made up of Catholic musicians. Little more than a century ago there existed an offspring of a German reform organization of church musicians known as the St. Cecilia Society-"C�cilien Verein," if you prefer the German. It has its roots in the Bavarian church and its parenthood from Franz Witt, who in 1869 rallied the south German Catholics to abolish operatic music from the choir lofts and return to the sixteenth-century polyphonic school of sacred music.

The American branch of the organization took on great strength in the German parishes, who brought the tradition of SATB choirs and the capability of singing-even in the pews. From this seed came the St. Gregory Society, the St. Gregory Hymnal, and the dreaded black list of condemned music.

In their zeal to purge the unwanted repertory from American churches (European churches, too, for that matter), they waged a campaign not too dissimilar from book-burning vigilante committees of pre-Reformation Europe. Only their choices were permitted. Only their principles were to be followed. Only Cecilian composers and sixteenth-century composers were to be used.

Unfortunately, so much of the Cecilian repertory was mediocre. It was a limp imitation of the Renaissance style cast in Romantic Harmony 101. It was a style most of my contemporaries and I heard when we attended the high Mass at our parish churches. Hardly a sacred treasury.

Fortunately for all of us, the NPM never set out to establish a set of rules and guidelines on what music was good church music and what music was not. Thanks to the vision of Virgil Funk, the association simply sought to organize, to educate, to broaden style choices, and to create a spirit of friends. One could even call the organization a "Circle of Friends."

Thanks to Virgil. Good luck to Michael. And God bless the NPM-toujours.

You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net