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The Musical Shape of the Liturgy by William Peter Mahrt (2012) Hardcover
The Musical Shape of the Liturgy, by William Mahrt, is the first full treatise that maps out -- historically, theologically, musically, and practically -- the musical framework of the Roman Rite in a way that can inform audiences of all types.
Mahrt is professor of music at Stanford University, president of the Church Music Association of America, editor of the journal Sacred Music, and a parish music in Palo Alto, California.
Mahrt demonstrates that the Roman Rite is not only a ritual text of words. It is a complete liturgical experience that embeds within it a precise body of music that is absolutely integral to the rite itself. This integration is not only stylistic. The music is structured to provide a higher-level elucidation of the themes of the Mass ritual itself. In other words, the music at Mass is not arbitrary. It is wedded to the rite as completely as the prayers, rubrics, and the liturgical calendar itself. Everything in the traditional music books has a liturgical purpose. When they are neglected or ignored, the rite is truncated and the experience reduced in splendor.
These claims will amount to a total revelation to most all Catholic musicians working today, most of whom are under the impression that it is merely a matter of personal judgement whether this or that is played or sung. As Mahrt points out, genuine Catholic music for Mass is bound by an ideal embodied in the chant tradition. This tradition is far more rich, varied, and artistically sophisticated that is normally supposed. It is the music that is proper to the Roman Rite.
The opening section of the book provides a four-part course in the musical structure of the liturgy covering the origin, history, and liturgical purpose of the ordinary chants. He covers the propers of the Mass and their meaning, and why they cannot be replaced by something with a completely different text and music without impoverishing the liturgy. He discusses how the Roman Rite is really a sung ritual with parts for the celebrant, the schola, and the people. Everything has a place, purpose, rationale. It’s all part of a prayer. Even the tones for the readings are structured to signal themes and fit into an overall aesthetic and spiritual tableau.
The second section explores the particulars with detailed commentary on particular chants and their meaning. He covers entrance chants, offertory, communions, Psalms, alleluias, and sequences. He helps the reader understand their intricate structure and theological meanings, and provides a commentary that only a musicologist on his level can provide. The reader can appreciate to extent to which chant is far more profound than is usually supposed.
Further commentaries reflect on the polyphonic tradition that became part of the ritual experience of Mass in the middle ages. He explains how this music is an elaboration on the chant tradition and why it is included by the Church as part of the treasury. He writes on all the great composers of this period from Josquin to William Byrd, then covers the issue and question of the Viennese classical Masses, explaining why they continue to be appropriate for liturgy despite their apparent stylistic departure from the pure chant tradition. He covers the use of organ in Mass as well.
The third section turns to the specifics of putting all of this into practice in the contemporary world. He deals with English chant, offers specific commentaries on the case for “praise music,” investigates the meaning of inculturation and musical taste, and tackles problems like what to do when a parish has no budget or singers. This section is the one that is of the highest practical value for pastors and musicians today, so much so that it would be tempting to read it apart from the rest. Yet this would be a what is missing most from today’s Catholic world is the awareness of the the musical shape of the liturgy - that essential structure of what is supposed to take place in the Roman Ritual itself.
Mahrt is professor of music at Stanford University, president of the Church Music Association of America, editor of the journal Sacred Music, and a parish music in Palo Alto, California.
Mahrt demonstrates that the Roman Rite is not only a ritual text of words. It is a complete liturgical experience that embeds within it a precise body of music that is absolutely integral to the rite itself. This integration is not only stylistic. The music is structured to provide a higher-level elucidation of the themes of the Mass ritual itself. In other words, the music at Mass is not arbitrary. It is wedded to the rite as completely as the prayers, rubrics, and the liturgical calendar itself. Everything in the traditional music books has a liturgical purpose. When they are neglected or ignored, the rite is truncated and the experience reduced in splendor.
These claims will amount to a total revelation to most all Catholic musicians working today, most of whom are under the impression that it is merely a matter of personal judgement whether this or that is played or sung. As Mahrt points out, genuine Catholic music for Mass is bound by an ideal embodied in the chant tradition. This tradition is far more rich, varied, and artistically sophisticated that is normally supposed. It is the music that is proper to the Roman Rite.
The opening section of the book provides a four-part course in the musical structure of the liturgy covering the origin, history, and liturgical purpose of the ordinary chants. He covers the propers of the Mass and their meaning, and why they cannot be replaced by something with a completely different text and music without impoverishing the liturgy. He discusses how the Roman Rite is really a sung ritual with parts for the celebrant, the schola, and the people. Everything has a place, purpose, rationale. It’s all part of a prayer. Even the tones for the readings are structured to signal themes and fit into an overall aesthetic and spiritual tableau.
The second section explores the particulars with detailed commentary on particular chants and their meaning. He covers entrance chants, offertory, communions, Psalms, alleluias, and sequences. He helps the reader understand their intricate structure and theological meanings, and provides a commentary that only a musicologist on his level can provide. The reader can appreciate to extent to which chant is far more profound than is usually supposed.
Further commentaries reflect on the polyphonic tradition that became part of the ritual experience of Mass in the middle ages. He explains how this music is an elaboration on the chant tradition and why it is included by the Church as part of the treasury. He writes on all the great composers of this period from Josquin to William Byrd, then covers the issue and question of the Viennese classical Masses, explaining why they continue to be appropriate for liturgy despite their apparent stylistic departure from the pure chant tradition. He covers the use of organ in Mass as well.
The third section turns to the specifics of putting all of this into practice in the contemporary world. He deals with English chant, offers specific commentaries on the case for “praise music,” investigates the meaning of inculturation and musical taste, and tackles problems like what to do when a parish has no budget or singers. This section is the one that is of the highest practical value for pastors and musicians today, so much so that it would be tempting to read it apart from the rest. Yet this would be a what is missing most from today’s Catholic world is the awareness of the the musical shape of the liturgy - that essential structure of what is supposed to take place in the Roman Ritual itself.
467 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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December 6, 2025
As a different reviewer wisely noted, you may want to limit yourself to parts I and IV, as the middle two are very technical. But those other two sections are more than worth the price of admission. I came across this book due to the Square Notes podcast, which I highly recommend. Dr. Mahrt (who passed earlier this year) was exactly the kind of academic one would like to encounter: he knew his subject inside and out, but you can experience his joy in explaining truly basic material.
This particular book is a collection of essays, but they do coalesce around a thesis: music is not incidental to the liturgy, but an integral part of it. Dr. Mahrt referenced a term from Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk, or total art, where the work is derived from a number of mediums (sounds, sights, actions, etc.). The Roman Liturgy and every Eastern Liturgy beat him to the punch by a good baker’s dozen of centuries. We even include the nose (smells and bells!).
But what it isn’t is constantly rushing around and everyone doing and saying something all the time; Dr. Mahrt was clearly frustrated by the implementation of such hectic services after the Second Vatican Council. Silence can be an active moment. I’ll tell you, the silence experienced in the Roman Canon inspires the most actual prayer I have ever actually experienced. Our liturgy expresses the hierarchical nature of the Church and of Nature. The attempt to democratize the worship of God has led to its dumbing down, especially in its music.
The third chapter is perhaps the best, as it explains the musical qualities and roles of each part of the Mass. It lays out the general flow of the service, where each participant contributes and what they contribute. I think I now know why “Gregorian” chant in English sounds horrible: it has no purpose. The chant in Latin follows the structure of the Latin language. In English, those cadences just seem like sound movements for no particular purpose. I actually prefer Anglican chants to shoe-horning English into Gregorian tones.
Liturgical music must be beautiful. Dr. Mahrt actually gives a definition for this. From my notes, I have this
Beauty: the force that compels us to the Good and the True. It unites forms that are importantly different into a unified whole. Praise, thanksgiving, worship, confession, the separate chants, are all united into a beautiful unity.
I regret not understanding music well enough to follow Dr. Mahrt for a large section of this book. But one doesn’t have to have, nor should need, a doctorate to be moved by the worship of God. Properly done, an unlearned but humble soul can “know” in the most important sense how to respond. But I do wish I could see all the connections. Listening to him describe the various modes and how this proper from this feast is a reference to that one over here was incredible. I’ve only scratched the surface of that level of interconnectivity within the Divine Office. I see you, Great Antiphons, which sound like the antiphons for our Doctors!
This is a journey I’m just beginning. Dr. Mahrt, may God rest his soul, is a good conductor for that path.
I'm posting my notes below:
Chap 1
Council requires new music to develop from the old; this essay examines music through its relation to the liturgy. (Gregorian chant as the basis)
Music integral to the liturgy; liturgy is not just a script to be read.
As with the text, “antiquarianism” wants to go back to early music, so early we have almost no record of it (and hence substitute its own compositions, claiming an antiquity they do not possess, while jettisoning ages of beautiful music). He explicitly calls this a ruse.
Silence, such as the Canon, as part of the music, not a defect.
Different parts more or less ornate depending on the action (communion simple and moving, as we physically do, similar with introit, gradual and alleluia most melismatic with little physical motion). A crescendo to the Gospel.
Not necessary for everyone to sing every part; let the choir sing the elaborate parts while we witness the beauty of the ceremony in front of us. An order, not an equality.
The Ordinary better for the laity to sing; both because we can memorize it and because it is the action in and of itself (not an accompaniment to something the priest is doing). Praise, adoration, petition, contrition, profession of faith in the Ordinary.
Appropriate balance; no need for anyone to constantly sing, simple and ornate in proper places, sound and silence.
Chap 2
Polyphonic music as an example of organic change: derives from source material (Gregorian chant), shapes the liturgy (as in not a formless blob), used beautiful techniques of its age.
Notre Dame: alternation of chant and polyphony
Gothic ordering: hierarchy, rational, elaborate (think cathedrals and summas)
Gregorian chant as cantus firmus, the authority source of the music that elaborate melodies was added to.
Cyclic Masses: setting the propers to the same music. Present in original chant, expanded here. Renaissance focused on proportions and harmony. Cyclic masses used cantus firmus, a commonplace the listener would already know, as a base.
Chap 3
Gradual, Alleluia, Tract- deserving of special attention as they far exceed the action occurring during the music.
N.O. replaces these with “responsorial psalms.” Author quite clear that historical documentation is fragmentary and often abused.
Very good point: we have texts from early liturgies but not their music. We cannot just pretend that second part doesn’t matter or that we can just make something up and shoehorn it in.
First service books around 800ish; chants already present. No clear connection between supposed responsorial psalms and the known chants.
A great footnote: the intrinsic beauty of the music is what counts, not whether the people sing it or not. The people singing garbage is…still garbage. Insane practice of assigning texts and hoping some sort of music arises from it.
Epistle reading: the cadence adds a rhetorical quality (in Latin). Nature of a Latin sentence places emphasis on its end, as does its cadence.
Gospel chant: simplest.
Psalm propers the role of deacons from ancient times (St. Gregory the Great indicates as such by “releasing” the deacons from the role, indicating it was theirs, and that the deacons had been chosen for their singing skills, indicating the difficulty of the psalm chants. Hardly mass movement sing!)
Sub deacon sings epistle, deacon the gospel, priest confects the consecration: a proper ordering. The higher attended by the others, not vice versa.
Chap 4 (organ music)
Chap5
Culture: common beliefs and values. Common expression of those values. Excellence commonly held (not necessary that we all do the thing, but that we can all appreciate it, know it.) It has passed the test of time, surviving multiple generations.
Culture as the expression of our intellectual sense, then religion the highest form of culture.
Bottom of pg 101 pdf- worship as the highest form of religion; must be traditional. Dealing with mysteries, requires the input of ages upon ages of saints to even begin to express.
Traditional art of the East: the icon. Not personalized art, but a tradition. A spiritualized image of an individual that anyone familiar with the tradition can instantly grasp. In the west, that tradition is music. Pg 101-2 on the pdf is very insightful
Music, in order to facilitate worship, must be already known. Otherwise our attention is drawn to it and distracting. Changes have to be slow and in the tradition, much like the icons.
Pg 103: he hits it on the head. Man of genius myth who can dispense with tradition quickly followed by the democratic notion that we can all do that. The results are horrid and we have a crisis in that the tradition has been disrupted, no common measure anymore.
Constant interaction between tradition and development in western music, but we have a cantus firmus to measure it by: the Gregorian chant.
Gregorian chant the basis of western music for centuries; the Psalms the heart of that chant. Praying the entire psalter weekly key to understanding the psalms used in the Mass.
Many Mass chants are ancient; music set to a text that is pre-Vulgate and has commonalities to ancient Jewish music.
Interesting: propers have but one tune, even if used elsewhere; ordinary has dozens.
Expansion into polyphony similar to medieval concept of a gloss: have a set text and extended commentary upon it.
Chap 6
Liturgical music needs to be holy, beautiful, and universal (St. Pius X)
Sacred: set apart. Elevated tone. Not common, not banal.
Universality: both across borders and across time.
Beauty: the force that compels us to the Good and the True. It unites forms that are importantly different into a unified whole. Praise, thanksgiving, worship, confession, the separate chants, are all united into a beautiful unity.
I like this definition; it has played a large role in my faith
The setting matters: more direct when the text is the purpose, more elaborate when it is meant to be meditative or serve a function in the liturgy.
The melismatic character of gradual/alleluia gains full attention of the laity, perfect to receive the Gospel. Almost a glimpse of time ceasing.
Chap 7
Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner’s blending of the arts) already present ages before in the liturgy: poetry, music, architecture, artwork, stories.
Otherwise repetitive chapter.
Chap 8
Active participation does not mean we all have to sing or be equals. We have our part to play, even if it is quietly appreciating the whole ceremony and praying. What pride we have to demand more!
The theme of this book: order. Music requires it, the liturgy requires it, the Church requires it, Nature requires it. The dread flattening of this in our world is having horrible consequences.
The liturgy cannot be separated from its music. It is integral, just like the text. A huge part of why the English translation fall flat; it is not Gregorian or anything else. Those end cadences make sense in Latin, just mimicking in English.
PART II- Chants
Part II very technical
Part III- Polyphony
Pg 298: 15th cent masses based on hierarchy to reflect order of Creation. 16th Cent humanism focuses on affective impact of the music, more subjective than 15th cent objective.
Beautiful reflection on Byrd; inherited tradition of 16th Cent, but not merely affective for its own sake. Lamenting the Protestant Revolt, texts meant to reflect that. He only wrote 3 Masses (Palestrina 100 or so). 1st Mass setting in England in 30 years. Despite only writing three, they hold up very well; meant to be sung often and repeatedly.
Pg 303: a good analysis of his Gloria’s. Mahrt knew his stuff in a way I could never.
Cantantiones Sacrae not liturgical, no church to perform them in. Not “motets” for the same reason. Intensely personal, 1st book on the state of the soul, second on the persecution in England.
PART IV
Distinction of sacred (which can be put to serve religious ends) and holy (which is intrinsic property). The sacred can be always sacred or something that became so. Chant always so (its properties unsuitable to any secular uses), but polyphonic an example of the latter.
Pg 369: very good point about the sacred being everything in a sense as coming from God, but some things more than others. Music can be incorporated into liturgy, but it has to take on that transcendent tone, otherwise we risk turning the liturgy into the secular.
This particular book is a collection of essays, but they do coalesce around a thesis: music is not incidental to the liturgy, but an integral part of it. Dr. Mahrt referenced a term from Richard Wagner, Gesamtkunstwerk, or total art, where the work is derived from a number of mediums (sounds, sights, actions, etc.). The Roman Liturgy and every Eastern Liturgy beat him to the punch by a good baker’s dozen of centuries. We even include the nose (smells and bells!).
But what it isn’t is constantly rushing around and everyone doing and saying something all the time; Dr. Mahrt was clearly frustrated by the implementation of such hectic services after the Second Vatican Council. Silence can be an active moment. I’ll tell you, the silence experienced in the Roman Canon inspires the most actual prayer I have ever actually experienced. Our liturgy expresses the hierarchical nature of the Church and of Nature. The attempt to democratize the worship of God has led to its dumbing down, especially in its music.
The third chapter is perhaps the best, as it explains the musical qualities and roles of each part of the Mass. It lays out the general flow of the service, where each participant contributes and what they contribute. I think I now know why “Gregorian” chant in English sounds horrible: it has no purpose. The chant in Latin follows the structure of the Latin language. In English, those cadences just seem like sound movements for no particular purpose. I actually prefer Anglican chants to shoe-horning English into Gregorian tones.
Liturgical music must be beautiful. Dr. Mahrt actually gives a definition for this. From my notes, I have this
Beauty: the force that compels us to the Good and the True. It unites forms that are importantly different into a unified whole. Praise, thanksgiving, worship, confession, the separate chants, are all united into a beautiful unity.
I regret not understanding music well enough to follow Dr. Mahrt for a large section of this book. But one doesn’t have to have, nor should need, a doctorate to be moved by the worship of God. Properly done, an unlearned but humble soul can “know” in the most important sense how to respond. But I do wish I could see all the connections. Listening to him describe the various modes and how this proper from this feast is a reference to that one over here was incredible. I’ve only scratched the surface of that level of interconnectivity within the Divine Office. I see you, Great Antiphons, which sound like the antiphons for our Doctors!
This is a journey I’m just beginning. Dr. Mahrt, may God rest his soul, is a good conductor for that path.
I'm posting my notes below:
Chap 1
Council requires new music to develop from the old; this essay examines music through its relation to the liturgy. (Gregorian chant as the basis)
Music integral to the liturgy; liturgy is not just a script to be read.
As with the text, “antiquarianism” wants to go back to early music, so early we have almost no record of it (and hence substitute its own compositions, claiming an antiquity they do not possess, while jettisoning ages of beautiful music). He explicitly calls this a ruse.
Silence, such as the Canon, as part of the music, not a defect.
Different parts more or less ornate depending on the action (communion simple and moving, as we physically do, similar with introit, gradual and alleluia most melismatic with little physical motion). A crescendo to the Gospel.
Not necessary for everyone to sing every part; let the choir sing the elaborate parts while we witness the beauty of the ceremony in front of us. An order, not an equality.
The Ordinary better for the laity to sing; both because we can memorize it and because it is the action in and of itself (not an accompaniment to something the priest is doing). Praise, adoration, petition, contrition, profession of faith in the Ordinary.
Appropriate balance; no need for anyone to constantly sing, simple and ornate in proper places, sound and silence.
Chap 2
Polyphonic music as an example of organic change: derives from source material (Gregorian chant), shapes the liturgy (as in not a formless blob), used beautiful techniques of its age.
Notre Dame: alternation of chant and polyphony
Gothic ordering: hierarchy, rational, elaborate (think cathedrals and summas)
Gregorian chant as cantus firmus, the authority source of the music that elaborate melodies was added to.
Cyclic Masses: setting the propers to the same music. Present in original chant, expanded here. Renaissance focused on proportions and harmony. Cyclic masses used cantus firmus, a commonplace the listener would already know, as a base.
Chap 3
Gradual, Alleluia, Tract- deserving of special attention as they far exceed the action occurring during the music.
N.O. replaces these with “responsorial psalms.” Author quite clear that historical documentation is fragmentary and often abused.
Very good point: we have texts from early liturgies but not their music. We cannot just pretend that second part doesn’t matter or that we can just make something up and shoehorn it in.
First service books around 800ish; chants already present. No clear connection between supposed responsorial psalms and the known chants.
A great footnote: the intrinsic beauty of the music is what counts, not whether the people sing it or not. The people singing garbage is…still garbage. Insane practice of assigning texts and hoping some sort of music arises from it.
Epistle reading: the cadence adds a rhetorical quality (in Latin). Nature of a Latin sentence places emphasis on its end, as does its cadence.
Gospel chant: simplest.
Psalm propers the role of deacons from ancient times (St. Gregory the Great indicates as such by “releasing” the deacons from the role, indicating it was theirs, and that the deacons had been chosen for their singing skills, indicating the difficulty of the psalm chants. Hardly mass movement sing!)
Sub deacon sings epistle, deacon the gospel, priest confects the consecration: a proper ordering. The higher attended by the others, not vice versa.
Chap 4 (organ music)
Chap5
Culture: common beliefs and values. Common expression of those values. Excellence commonly held (not necessary that we all do the thing, but that we can all appreciate it, know it.) It has passed the test of time, surviving multiple generations.
Culture as the expression of our intellectual sense, then religion the highest form of culture.
Bottom of pg 101 pdf- worship as the highest form of religion; must be traditional. Dealing with mysteries, requires the input of ages upon ages of saints to even begin to express.
Traditional art of the East: the icon. Not personalized art, but a tradition. A spiritualized image of an individual that anyone familiar with the tradition can instantly grasp. In the west, that tradition is music. Pg 101-2 on the pdf is very insightful
Music, in order to facilitate worship, must be already known. Otherwise our attention is drawn to it and distracting. Changes have to be slow and in the tradition, much like the icons.
Pg 103: he hits it on the head. Man of genius myth who can dispense with tradition quickly followed by the democratic notion that we can all do that. The results are horrid and we have a crisis in that the tradition has been disrupted, no common measure anymore.
Constant interaction between tradition and development in western music, but we have a cantus firmus to measure it by: the Gregorian chant.
Gregorian chant the basis of western music for centuries; the Psalms the heart of that chant. Praying the entire psalter weekly key to understanding the psalms used in the Mass.
Many Mass chants are ancient; music set to a text that is pre-Vulgate and has commonalities to ancient Jewish music.
Interesting: propers have but one tune, even if used elsewhere; ordinary has dozens.
Expansion into polyphony similar to medieval concept of a gloss: have a set text and extended commentary upon it.
Chap 6
Liturgical music needs to be holy, beautiful, and universal (St. Pius X)
Sacred: set apart. Elevated tone. Not common, not banal.
Universality: both across borders and across time.
Beauty: the force that compels us to the Good and the True. It unites forms that are importantly different into a unified whole. Praise, thanksgiving, worship, confession, the separate chants, are all united into a beautiful unity.
I like this definition; it has played a large role in my faith
The setting matters: more direct when the text is the purpose, more elaborate when it is meant to be meditative or serve a function in the liturgy.
The melismatic character of gradual/alleluia gains full attention of the laity, perfect to receive the Gospel. Almost a glimpse of time ceasing.
Chap 7
Gesamtkunstwerk (Wagner’s blending of the arts) already present ages before in the liturgy: poetry, music, architecture, artwork, stories.
Otherwise repetitive chapter.
Chap 8
Active participation does not mean we all have to sing or be equals. We have our part to play, even if it is quietly appreciating the whole ceremony and praying. What pride we have to demand more!
The theme of this book: order. Music requires it, the liturgy requires it, the Church requires it, Nature requires it. The dread flattening of this in our world is having horrible consequences.
The liturgy cannot be separated from its music. It is integral, just like the text. A huge part of why the English translation fall flat; it is not Gregorian or anything else. Those end cadences make sense in Latin, just mimicking in English.
PART II- Chants
Part II very technical
Part III- Polyphony
Pg 298: 15th cent masses based on hierarchy to reflect order of Creation. 16th Cent humanism focuses on affective impact of the music, more subjective than 15th cent objective.
Beautiful reflection on Byrd; inherited tradition of 16th Cent, but not merely affective for its own sake. Lamenting the Protestant Revolt, texts meant to reflect that. He only wrote 3 Masses (Palestrina 100 or so). 1st Mass setting in England in 30 years. Despite only writing three, they hold up very well; meant to be sung often and repeatedly.
Pg 303: a good analysis of his Gloria’s. Mahrt knew his stuff in a way I could never.
Cantantiones Sacrae not liturgical, no church to perform them in. Not “motets” for the same reason. Intensely personal, 1st book on the state of the soul, second on the persecution in England.
PART IV
Distinction of sacred (which can be put to serve religious ends) and holy (which is intrinsic property). The sacred can be always sacred or something that became so. Chant always so (its properties unsuitable to any secular uses), but polyphonic an example of the latter.
Pg 369: very good point about the sacred being everything in a sense as coming from God, but some things more than others. Music can be incorporated into liturgy, but it has to take on that transcendent tone, otherwise we risk turning the liturgy into the secular.
November 8, 2024
A truly excellent set of commentaries on Gregorian Chant. I learned 10x more than I had previously known about this liturgical art just through the background information presented in these essays. The book slows down and gets technical towards the middle, but the first and last parts are essential reading.
May 21, 2020
Excellent exposition of liturgical music
The author expounds on the theory behind liturgical music his well-formed knowledge. His use of shape to describe music is truly beautiful and profound
The author expounds on the theory behind liturgical music his well-formed knowledge. His use of shape to describe music is truly beautiful and profound
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews