The greatest and most influential church document ever written on sacred music appeared this day 111 years ago, from the hand of Pope St. Pius X. So very much has been written about this document’s general principles, its advocacy of Gregorian chant and polyphony, the checkered history of its implementation, and the tragic triumph of the incorporation of the Pope’s teaching into Vatican II’s
Sacrosanctum Concilium followed by an almost total contradiction in practice, that it seemed to me more interesting today to recall a certain paragraph that seldom receives the attention it deserves:
19. The employment of the piano is forbidden in church, as is also that of noisy or frivolous instruments such as drums, cymbals, bells, and the like.
Unlike the same document’s prohibition of female singers (n. 13), which was later lifted under Pius XII, the official ban on pianos in church has never been lifted. And how seriously ought we to take this fact? St. Pius X states at the start of Tra le sollecitudini:
