Forbidden songs: what do some religious people think?
Eminence Caiazzo banned playing themes from movies such as those from “Beauty and the Beast,” “Gladiator” and “New Cinema Paradiso” during ceremonies in his diocese. Falling under the priests’ censure are some of songs that every girl wants to hear on her wedding day, starting with Gounod’s Ave Maria.
The bishops call both Gounod’s Ave Maria and Schubert’s Ave Maria prohibited songs. The latter is considered by some to be a ‘secular’ and not a religious song.” The authors, the composer Schubert and the author of the music Schelling, do not mention Our Lady at all.
“Let’s analyze the forbidden songs,” explains Monsignor Antonio Parisi, head of the sacred music office of the Archdiocese of Bari, “Franz Schubert composed Opus 52, a group of seven songs from the epic poem ‘The Lady of the Lake’ by Scottish writer Walter Scott. No history of lovers. It is a girl’s plea for her father’s salvation.”
Ludovico Trimeloni’s “Compendium of Practical Liturgy.”
He explains that “religious music has religious and pious content and purpose, but with a freer style, lacking the gravity that distinguishes and marks sacred music. So it is absolutely excluded from liturgical services. Here we painfully point out how there is a tendency to perform secular and even theatrical music in church, especially for the Mass of the bride and groom.”
Among the prohibited songs Trimeloni also mentions the wedding marches of Mendelsshon and Wagner. In addition, Chopin’s nocturnes. According to some authors, even Frank’s Panis Angelicus and Bizet’s Agnus Dei should be avoided.
Aurelio Porfiri, composer, choir director and writer, among the most highly regarded experts on liturgical music in Italy, recounts his experience. “Over the years I have been asked to play everything at weddings, from Andrea Bocelli to Eros Ramazzotti to Antonello Venditti. Of course, I have always refused. The introduction into the mass of these musics is to tickle people’s sentimentality. The problem is that in the vast majority of cases, spouses do not participate in the life of the Church. So they do not have a culture of the Mass and liturgy. It also becomes complicated to deny what is required, especially when there are those who say that without Schubert’s Ave Maria, marriage would not be the same. “
