Normally, I might have posted this in NOTABLES, but since I am not translating the entire interview but using the pertinent excerpt lifted by Sandro Magister for his blog, it does belong here - sort of a companion piece to the Catholic Herald item in the preceding page on various UK-based artists speaking out on the Vatican initiative to enlist contemporary artists 'ad majorem Dei gloriam', as in pre-modern times.
Ennio Morricone speaks out
on music and liturgy
Translated from
November 14, 2009
"The history of music sprang from liturgical experiences. Opera came from sacred representations at Mass. Let us just think of most of the great composers, and the chapel choirmasters - all came from experience with sacred music and Gregorian chant.
"But the Church, after Vatican-II, has been losing the great tradition of the Gregorian chant. It's similar to what it was like just before the Council of Trent, when profane elements had been introduced to Church music.
"Benedict XVI is right to devote attention to this. Today, in churches, we are subjected to a mishmash in which for instance, the text of the Ave Maria is composed into country music".
Thus speaks Ennio Morricone, 81, Italy's great contemporary composer, with more than 50 million records sold from the 400 soundtracks to his name, many of them genuine masterpieces.
Someone who reveals that, in order to compose the soundtrack for the film 'Mission" about 18th century Jesuit missionaries in South America, he was inspired by "three widely diverse sources, such as the instrumental music of the Renaissance, the melodies of the reform period following the Council of Trent, and native American music - I worked very hard, but at the end, something like a miracle emerged that almost did not depend on me".
Morricone was interviewed for the 11/14/09 issue of
Avvenire, from which the above excerpts come. He will be among the 262 artists who have accepted the Vatican invitation to meet Benedict XVI at the Sistine Chapel on Nov. 21.
And it is striking how much of what he says about sacred music coincides with the appeal for a rebirth of Christian arts recently addressed to the Pope by a group of artists and intellectuals.
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[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 15/11/2009 22:15]