by Luigi Giussani
Reprinted from the introduction to the Communion and Liberation Songbook for Great Britain
“There is no greater expression of human feeling than music. Who is not moved by a string concert, or who can be insensitive to the variations of a piano sonata? Can you imagine anything greater? And yet when I hear the human voice … I don’t know if this happens to you, but I feel the human voice is even greater. Truly there is no service to the community comparable to singing.” With these words Fr. Giussani welcomes a large group of people for whom music is a major part of life. Some are music professors, others are amateur singers, but all lend their breath, their voices and passion to the choirs of Communion and Liberation.
In this occasion there were nearly 30 people gathered around the dinner table. Piecing together various sets of notes, we have assembled the questions posed from one end of the giant table to the other and the answers or counter-questions raised by Fr. Giussani. The theme of the discussion? Music, of course, or more precisely, song.
Fr. Giussani repeats himself, “Yes, singing is the highest expression of the human heart. I’m not saying this just because you are all singers. I am saying what I have always said.”
An observation: few people sing nowadays, yet tunes are always escaping from headphones or blasting out of speakers. A soundtrack, that we haven’t chosen, follows us wherever we go. The latest fashion calls for mobs of people at karaoke shows or gathered around some singer-songwriter.
“And yet,” Fr. Giussani interrupts, “These types of exhibitions and songs might very well be the signs of the unspeakable corruption of an era. Instead of being the expression of a people, song becomes an obsessive, sentimentalized repetition of the fears and whims of the individual. Perhaps many listen to and recognize themselves in the melody and the lyrics, but they remain fragmented, collectively alone.”
A little unease is felt around the table. Is popular (i.e. of the people) song really impossible today? One of the music professions poses the question in this way: how can we grow and be missionaries in music?
“The biggest aid from the point of view of expressivity comes from singing for the community. And I underline the word for. You don’t sing a solo at the Fraternity retreat in front of sixteen thousand people, you sing it for them! This is the difference between Vasco Rossi [a rock singer], talented though he may be, and you who sing in the choir for sixteen thousand people. You express these sixteen thousand, you express their awareness, you are the voice of a body, of a people, of a destiny. In front of sixteen thousand people, Vasco Rossi expresses himself; he confirms those who adore him in their solitude and emptiness. When you sing at the retreat, you express us, you are us and your voice rises and touches us like a gift. For this reason song is freely given, singing is charity. Song is pure charity. If I can make a suggestion: don’t be overly worried about yourselves and your ability to express yourselves. The reason for your worries cannot be the expression of self, but rather the expression of the consciousness of this people. This is why the choir, why singing, is the most useful and charitable service given to the community. A community without a choir is a community without passion, something is already beginning to come undone.”
Question: How can we be sure that we aren’t following our own expressive whims? Answer: “Certainty comes from belonging. And this is something very natural. A child who hasn’t experienced belonging to his mother and father grows up psychopathic. You sing, and this song, which is emitted from the chest and the throat, expresses a consciousness if you belong. Have you ever gone into the house of a young affectionate mother? It is almost impossible not to find her child singing. At four years old he is singing or humming melodies – and who knows where they came from. This is the expression of gladness and peace that comes from being loved, that comes from belonging.”
Someone throws out this question, “Fr. Giussani, is this why in many places around the movement people sing poorly?”
“It is a symptom that the community is falling apart,” says Fr. Giussani calmly. He then goes on to explain “The more the word companionship rolls off the tongue, the more our communion is dissolved. Belonging to the companionship, communion, is substituted by the affective bond with someone who may even be a fascinating personality. In the end, it is merely a psychological bond. The community, instead, arises from the participation in Being, an ontological bond. If the companionship doesn’t descend from the Mystery, it isn’t a community. Furthermore, there must be the awareness of an event that takes place here and now. And as for singing, singing is generally lacking in the movement, due to the fact that the leaders understand little about what man is, what Christianity is. This carelessness and lack of love for music and song is a symptom of a grave decline. Because I know what man is, I demand singing.”
Fr. Giussani’s is an old love. He tells how in 1932-33, when he was 9 or 10 years old, his father would read the paper to decide to which Sunday Mass he would accompany his son. He would search the whole region of Lombardy to find a polyphonic Mass. They were hard times, but music was more important than bread. There was no money to waste at his house in Desio, and yet on Sunday evenings they would have a trio or quartet come to play Schubert. Someone remarks, “You either have music in your blood or you don’t. So what do we do? Send out the order to form choirs and sing, is that it?”
Fr. Giussani replies, “Nobody responds to mere words. Those who belong want to learn.”
At this point, the discussion turns to the history of song in the movement. The birth of singing in the movement was contemporaneous to the birth of the movement itself, it didn’t evolve at some later date with Adriana Mascagni and the others. Can we say, then, that the movement and song are one and the same, that song is the charism of the movement?
Giussani recalls the beginning: “Singing in the movement was born at the very first Mass we celebrated together in the church of San Gottardo al Palazzo in Milan. Ten minutes before the Mass, I started to teach Vero Amore e Gesu and O Cor Soave. I started waving my hands as I had seen my music teacher do in the seminary [and he repeats the motion]. I sang and they followed. Singing in the movement started five minutes before the first Mass; it began when the movement began. There was no difference. As the movement comes to life, so does singing. Just like the child and his mother. You belong and a song arises. There can be no choir without belonging. Choirs are not imposed by decree, they arise as the movement arises – even today.”
And the songs that came out of GS? “They were beautiful even from the very beginning and everyone sang them. Then years and years went by and no one sang them anymore. The beautiful songs of Adriana Mascagni fell by the wayside. Even the most beautiful Chieffo songs fell into disuse (The War, The Ballad of the Old Man…). When something is authentic, it must be passed on. Now those songs have returned.”
Someone reopens the wound: “And yet, it is almost as if these things fall on deaf ears in the movement.”
Fr. Giussani responds: “Laziness, inertia, and above all, aridity have spread. Aridity dominates the society today. But it is precisely with song that we can break this dry ground. We lament and beat our breast whenever we realize that aridity has found space in us, and rightly so. But just think that nine out of ten people who come to our meetings for the first time go away saying: ‘What beautiful songs you sing.’ We learn all the strongest human feelings – the meaning of sin, fear, mercy – much more through song than through reading. I myself learned them when I was small not through sermons but through song. Even the reform of the Church needed song to express itself – the reform was expressed through the songs of St. Philip Neri. The most beautiful of these songs are sung by us today.” Fr. Giussani concludes: “Singing is the most authentic expression of man if man is man, and he is a man if he belongs. If his mother is in the vicinity, the child will sing. And just as soon as a fragment of the movement exists, so does song.
“There is no greater expression of human feeling than music. Who is not moved by a string concert, or who can be insensitive to the variations of a piano sonata? Can you imagine anything greater? And yet when I hear the human voice … I don’t know if this happens to you, but I feel the human voice is even greater. Truly there is no service to the community comparable to singing.” With these words Fr. Giussani welcomes a large group of people for whom music is a major part of life. Some are music professors, others are amateur singers, but all lend their breath, their voices and passion to the choirs of Communion and Liberation.
In this occasion there were nearly 30 people gathered around the dinner table. Piecing together various sets of notes, we have assembled the questions posed from one end of the giant table to the other and the answers or counter-questions raised by Fr. Giussani. The theme of the discussion? Music, of course, or more precisely, song.
Fr. Giussani repeats himself, “Yes, singing is the highest expression of the human heart. I’m not saying this just because you are all singers. I am saying what I have always said.”
An observation: few people sing nowadays, yet tunes are always escaping from headphones or blasting out of speakers. A soundtrack, that we haven’t chosen, follows us wherever we go. The latest fashion calls for mobs of people at karaoke shows or gathered around some singer-songwriter.
“And yet,” Fr. Giussani interrupts, “These types of exhibitions and songs might very well be the signs of the unspeakable corruption of an era. Instead of being the expression of a people, song becomes an obsessive, sentimentalized repetition of the fears and whims of the individual. Perhaps many listen to and recognize themselves in the melody and the lyrics, but they remain fragmented, collectively alone.”
A little unease is felt around the table. Is popular (i.e. of the people) song really impossible today? One of the music professions poses the question in this way: how can we grow and be missionaries in music?
“The biggest aid from the point of view of expressivity comes from singing for the community. And I underline the word for. You don’t sing a solo at the Fraternity retreat in front of sixteen thousand people, you sing it for them! This is the difference between Vasco Rossi [a rock singer], talented though he may be, and you who sing in the choir for sixteen thousand people. You express these sixteen thousand, you express their awareness, you are the voice of a body, of a people, of a destiny. In front of sixteen thousand people, Vasco Rossi expresses himself; he confirms those who adore him in their solitude and emptiness. When you sing at the retreat, you express us, you are us and your voice rises and touches us like a gift. For this reason song is freely given, singing is charity. Song is pure charity. If I can make a suggestion: don’t be overly worried about yourselves and your ability to express yourselves. The reason for your worries cannot be the expression of self, but rather the expression of the consciousness of this people. This is why the choir, why singing, is the most useful and charitable service given to the community. A community without a choir is a community without passion, something is already beginning to come undone.”
Question: How can we be sure that we aren’t following our own expressive whims? Answer: “Certainty comes from belonging. And this is something very natural. A child who hasn’t experienced belonging to his mother and father grows up psychopathic. You sing, and this song, which is emitted from the chest and the throat, expresses a consciousness if you belong. Have you ever gone into the house of a young affectionate mother? It is almost impossible not to find her child singing. At four years old he is singing or humming melodies – and who knows where they came from. This is the expression of gladness and peace that comes from being loved, that comes from belonging.”
Someone throws out this question, “Fr. Giussani, is this why in many places around the movement people sing poorly?”
“It is a symptom that the community is falling apart,” says Fr. Giussani calmly. He then goes on to explain “The more the word companionship rolls off the tongue, the more our communion is dissolved. Belonging to the companionship, communion, is substituted by the affective bond with someone who may even be a fascinating personality. In the end, it is merely a psychological bond. The community, instead, arises from the participation in Being, an ontological bond. If the companionship doesn’t descend from the Mystery, it isn’t a community. Furthermore, there must be the awareness of an event that takes place here and now. And as for singing, singing is generally lacking in the movement, due to the fact that the leaders understand little about what man is, what Christianity is. This carelessness and lack of love for music and song is a symptom of a grave decline. Because I know what man is, I demand singing.”
Fr. Giussani’s is an old love. He tells how in 1932-33, when he was 9 or 10 years old, his father would read the paper to decide to which Sunday Mass he would accompany his son. He would search the whole region of Lombardy to find a polyphonic Mass. They were hard times, but music was more important than bread. There was no money to waste at his house in Desio, and yet on Sunday evenings they would have a trio or quartet come to play Schubert. Someone remarks, “You either have music in your blood or you don’t. So what do we do? Send out the order to form choirs and sing, is that it?”
Fr. Giussani replies, “Nobody responds to mere words. Those who belong want to learn.”
At this point, the discussion turns to the history of song in the movement. The birth of singing in the movement was contemporaneous to the birth of the movement itself, it didn’t evolve at some later date with Adriana Mascagni and the others. Can we say, then, that the movement and song are one and the same, that song is the charism of the movement?
Giussani recalls the beginning: “Singing in the movement was born at the very first Mass we celebrated together in the church of San Gottardo al Palazzo in Milan. Ten minutes before the Mass, I started to teach Vero Amore e Gesu and O Cor Soave. I started waving my hands as I had seen my music teacher do in the seminary [and he repeats the motion]. I sang and they followed. Singing in the movement started five minutes before the first Mass; it began when the movement began. There was no difference. As the movement comes to life, so does singing. Just like the child and his mother. You belong and a song arises. There can be no choir without belonging. Choirs are not imposed by decree, they arise as the movement arises – even today.”
And the songs that came out of GS? “They were beautiful even from the very beginning and everyone sang them. Then years and years went by and no one sang them anymore. The beautiful songs of Adriana Mascagni fell by the wayside. Even the most beautiful Chieffo songs fell into disuse (The War, The Ballad of the Old Man…). When something is authentic, it must be passed on. Now those songs have returned.”
Someone reopens the wound: “And yet, it is almost as if these things fall on deaf ears in the movement.”
Fr. Giussani responds: “Laziness, inertia, and above all, aridity have spread. Aridity dominates the society today. But it is precisely with song that we can break this dry ground. We lament and beat our breast whenever we realize that aridity has found space in us, and rightly so. But just think that nine out of ten people who come to our meetings for the first time go away saying: ‘What beautiful songs you sing.’ We learn all the strongest human feelings – the meaning of sin, fear, mercy – much more through song than through reading. I myself learned them when I was small not through sermons but through song. Even the reform of the Church needed song to express itself – the reform was expressed through the songs of St. Philip Neri. The most beautiful of these songs are sung by us today.” Fr. Giussani concludes: “Singing is the most authentic expression of man if man is man, and he is a man if he belongs. If his mother is in the vicinity, the child will sing. And just as soon as a fragment of the movement exists, so does song.”