MacMillan’s loyalty

In the first week of September, the Scottish composer James MacMillan sat in the ‘composition hut’ in the backyard of his Glasgow house, finishing the music he’d been commissioned to write for the Pope’s Mass at Westminster Cathedral.

In the first week of September, the Scottish composer James MacMillan sat in the ‘composition hut’ in the backyard of his Glasgow house, finishing the music he’d been commissioned to write for the Pope’s Mass at Westminster Cathedral. ‘I’m enjoying it — oh, the triumphalism!’ he wrote on his blog.

He wasn’t kidding. Two weeks later, as the small, frail figure of Benedict XVI processed into the cathedral, a fanfare sounded over his head. ‘Tu Es Petrus,’ sang the choir, proclaiming the papal authority in giant Brucknerian chords. The organ roared at full throttle and cymbals clashed, visibly startling members of the congregation. Benedict’s eyes lit up. The faces of liberal bishops — who had wanted the Pope to be greeted by hippie songs — hardened into scowls. MacMillan was a few rows in front of me and when he turned round the glint of mischief was unmistakable.

Tu Es Petrus is more than an occasional piece: it’s a declaration of loyalty to Joseph Ratzinger by a Catholic composer who knows from experience that elements in the hierarchy are sabotaging the Pope’s liturgical reforms, which seek to restore grandeur to worship. MacMillan was also commissioned to write a congregational setting of the Mass for Newman’s beatification and the Pope’s Mass in Glasgow. It’s catchy, accessible, but its classical harmonies offended the ‘liturgists’ who control Church music in Scotland. Led by one Mgr Gerry Fitzpatrick — himself a composer of hilariously bad folk-style antiphons — they lobbied for it to be scrapped.