News
Music in the Milwaukee Archdiocese:
The Cathedral and the School Sisters of St. Francis

---

St. John Cathedral Presentation for National Meeting of Cathedral Musicians
by Sister Marion Verhaalen, SSSF

Good evening and a warm welcome to this concert from the Milwaukee Choral Artists who will perform this evening, the School Sisters  of St. Francis whose musical heritage will be shared, and the Cathedral parish community which is hosting this national meeting of Cathedral Musicians. I am Sister Marion Verhaalen, a SSSF, and I would like to create a context for this evening’s listening experience.

Milwaukee has had a long and exciting history and this Cathedral parish has been central to its life and growth. We know that French missionaries set foot in Wisconsin near Green Bay in 1643 and possibly visited this site in 1674. Solomon Juneau established a trading post a few blocks south of here in 1818. He offered his home for the celebration of Mass in 1837, and shortly after donated two lots just two blocks north of here on Jackson and State for the construction of Milwaukee’s first Catholic Church - St. Peter’s. This little white frame building now stands at Old World Wisconsin in Eagle some 35 west of Milwaukee. It began to be used in 1839 and was consecrated on March 15, 1841, serving for nine years as the “Cathedral of the great Northwest!” Thus established, Milwaukee became Wisconsin’s Cathedral city and Bishop Martin Henni was appointed to lead it.

Cathedral

The rapidly expanding Catholic community soon outgrew small St. Peter’s Church. Within just a few years, in 1847, Milwaukee had over 4000 Catholics, over half of whom were children in need of schooling. Sisters of Charity from Emmitsburg, MD, Sinsinawa Dominicans, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, and Holy Cross Brothers were all called to serve the growing education needs. The work of these religious congregations cannot be underestimated when considering the growth of the Church in Milwaukee. The exciting story of Cathedral’s excellence and leadership in Catholic education can be perused in our most recent history of the parish, A Journey in Faith. written for its sesquicentennial in 1997, available in the vestibule.    Two of Cathedral’s most famous graduates were the French chanteuse, the Incomparable Hildegard and clarinetist Woody Herman who helped raise money for the new Cathedral High School gym.

By mid 1840s, plans were being made to build a new, larger Cathedral. This site was purchased and in 1853, a new larger stone structure began functioning as Milwaukee’s Cathedral. A devastating fire in 1935, however, completely destroyed it and rebuilding it was planned. On Christmas Eve, 1942, parishioners again celebrated in this enlarged nave. The most recent renovation of this “sacred space” according to current liturgical norms, was completed in 2002.

The strong European heritage brought by immigrants to Milwaukee has been illustrated during past few months in the wonderful exhibit at our Calatrava Art Museum here in Milwaukee. The exhibit was titled: Beidermeier - the Search for Simplicity. This exhibit displayed the efforts of Germany’s middle class to achieve simplicity and beauty in their daily lives, decor, dress and furniture designs. It also proved a fertile ground for development of  strong music and liturgical music traditions here in this community.

Quoting from A Journey in Faith:

“ The quality of its liturgical music and prayer tradition had always been a vital concern at the Cathedral. The beauty of the building itself and the great care given to its design and upkeep provided an aesthetic and prayerful environment for people. An organ was installed in 1853  and an organist/choir director from Kentucky was hired. There was a Palestrina choir functioning in 1876, and women were periodically listed as substitute organists - a rarity in the 19th C. A mixed voice choir was organized in 1886 by Elizabeth Black. Masses by Rossini and Mozart were part of the repertoire. At the Golden jubilee of the parish in 1897, the choir sang Haydn’s Imperial Mass. ”    

Thus we can see the Catholics of Milwaukee as carving out a new way of being Church and living the faith in this new land.

School Sisters of St. Francis

At this point I want to pick up another musical thread, that is the establishment of my Community, the SSSF, here in Milwaukee. Germany struggled as 19 separate duchies through most of the 19th century.  Its unification as a Republic finally in 1872 brought many political changes to the country. Some changes were also triggered by the First Vatican Council in 1869. The Council’s  pronouncements of papal infallibility and centralized authority created confrontational relationships with European countries.

The three women who came to America to found my community were caught in some of this upheaval and decided to leave Germany to follow the immigrants and serve their needs in this new land. They had been called together by a priest in Baden to take care of orphans. The restrictions both he and the government placed upon religious ministry did not easily fit the world view possessed by one of the women, Alexia. Thus in 1874, they began their ministry here in Wisconsin, first in Campbellsport, 50 miles to the north, and then here in Milwaukee on South Layton Boulevard.  

The leader of this group, Alexia, was a firebrand. She saw needs and immediately responded. Alfons, was a contemplative and a great lover of the arts. Clara was a quiet woman who died a few years after they arrived here. The combination of Alexia’s and Alfons’ personal gifts have nurtured and formed thousands of women in the 133 years since they sank roots here. It was Alfons’ love of beauty that created our marvelous motherhouse chapel which in turn called forth the flood of liturgical music which we have created. This chapel is on the city’s list of historic buildings and its gracious beauty was well-known by architects throughout the country when it was built in the early 1900s. It is truly a very “sacred space,” as is this Cathedral.

Singenberger

Enter center stage, early 1870s: a figure who was to influence both of the above musical threads in this archdiocese and the School Sisters of St. Francis. This figure was  John Singenberger. Church music in Europe had thrived for almost a century on the extended orchestrated Masses of Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven where the orchestral development was more important than the text. Just as the Biedermeier movement of the first half of the 19th century sought simplicity in architecture, decor, and life, this same desire for simplicity became evident in liturgical music where a reaction arose against the heavily orchestrated works. Thus in 1868, right in the midst of the political and cultural ferment, a new musical movement was launched to renew the quality of church music, more in the manner of Palestrina’s flowing, contrapuntal vocal style which gave prominence to the text. It was called the Caecilien Verein or Cecilia Society. It is amazing that all these things happened within a concentrated period of about five years at the turn of the decade of the 1870s.

Milwaukee’s St. Francis Seminary was able to convince the German musician, John Singenberger, to come to Milwaukee to introduce this style at the seminary and to teach music, harmony, chant, and organ. He arrived in 1871, accompanied by his organist brother Otto.   Within two years he had established the American Cecilian Society in St. Francis, Wisconsin. It is known also that Otto frequently played the organ and sang here at St. John’s Cathedral. John Singenberger’s presence and activity would forever mark liturgical music in this progressive diocese.

Just three years later, 1 8 74, Sisters Alexia, Alfons, and Clara arrived and within five years, in 1879, they were able to hire John Singenberger to come to our motherhouse to teach our sisters and to conduct the Chapel Choir. In the 1890s he also began to serve as director of our newly established St. Joseph Academy of Music!   Two gifted young sisters, Sisters, Casimir and Seraphim, were among his students and they subsequently trained many younger sisters.   Despite a strong Church disapproval of having women in musical leadership positions in parishes, hundreds of choirs were being led by competent, gifted women, both religious and lay. My community had approximately 90 missions throughout the Midwest by the early 1900s, and every one of them had a sister-musician. This tradition has continued and many young students have grown up with the best of musical educations. One of our sisters who had a very progressive pastor in Dorchester, a little town in northern Wisconsin, even had her elementary school children singing the full Gregorian chant propers every morning!

Thus, Singenberger’s influence was great. He began publishing a liturgical music magazine, the Caecilian, which had profound effects on the lay people and many sisters who began functioning as organists and school music teachers in the diocese. His goal was to promote high quality music for the liturgy.   

Singenberger & the SSSF

One of the most gifted sisters Singenberger worked with in our community was a young woman who entered the community in 1903. Sister Cherubim was from the Schafer family of organ builders in Slinger, Wisconsin. He recognized her abilities and with him she studied organ, harmony, Gregorian Chant, counterpoint, composition, music form, history of Church music and choral conducting. We will be hearing several of Sister Cherubim’s compositions this evening. In 1908 she succeeded Singenberger as head of the Convent Music Department and served it till the 1930s. She was a lively, loving presence at our motherhouse and was responsible for its wonderful choir and well-known orchestra. The August, 1935 issue of the Cecilian magazine was completely devoted to her life and music.

The Convent Music Department went through a number of name changes over the years and in 1937 was named Alverno College of Music. It merged with educational and nursing schools in 1950 to become the liberal arts college, Alverno,  that we now know on S. 39th Street in Milwaukee.   When you hear the ads on WUWM that say “We have been educating women since 1887,”  know that this is where it all began.

SSSF Leadership

Thus the School Sister community has been a leader for over 100 years in the area of liturgical music, thanks to Mother Alfons who supported all the arts within our lives.

These are some of the ways in which we have been able to serve:

• Our sisters have been leaders in many national organizations and educational      ventures. The National Catholic Music Educators Association began through our urging and support and held its first meeting at our convent.
• We offered Liturgical Study Days at the motherhouse in the 1940s.
• Sister Theophane Hytrek was active in the American Hymn Society, and many of our sisters were integral to the National Pastoral Musicians Conference.
• Sister Theophane was also a concert organist of national and international repute and was a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists.
• In addition to Sister Theophane, our community has a number of superb organists, among them Sisters Mary Hueller, Presentia Steffen and Mary Jane Wagner who gave a concert here at this Cathedral this afternoon.
• Along with Father Elmer Pfeil, Sister Theophane offered all kinds of support and programs to our diocesan musicians through the Pius Xth Society here.
• For decades, Alverno College was the premier place to study liturgical music in the Midwest. Our graduates included some men and priests.
• Right after Vatican II, we sponsored a full day symposium for Alverno College students on the new liturgy and its musical implications.
• Alverno College was one of the first three schools to offer a Music Therapy degree in the 1940s as our military personnel came home with wounds in body and soul.
• When the 1964 degree on use of the vernacular was announced, we began to create new music in English for each week’s liturgies.
• The archdiocesan liturgical musicians’ organization here in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee (ALMA), has been supported by our members.
• At the instigation of Sister Theophane, she and Archbishop Weakland offer a series of seven Church Music Symposia between 1982 and 1992 in which the top Church music composers from various denominations were brought together for a week with liturgists, theologians and text writers to share new ideas and new music. Bernadette Farrell was here from London along with Marty Haugen, David Haas, Dan Schutte and many more. A Festival of New Music was held each time here in our Cathedral with the participation of choirs from around the archdiocese.
• I often reflect on the fact that major events do not just erupt into being. Vatican II didn’t just happen; the ground was bubbling with new energy for some time before its visible eruption was realized. For example, I remember writing my first new hymns in 1954, ten years before Vatican II, in an effort to express an evolving faith, changing theology, and new musical style. This effort grew and was picked up by others of our sisters and even students at Alverno College and resulted in the publication in the early 1960s by The Gregorian Institute of America of our Alverno Sacred Music Series, edited by Sister Theophane.

(Through these years at Alverno College, we were blessed with a chaplain who was far ahead of his time. Fr. Raymond A. Parr constantly challenged our understanding of what it was to “be Church” and his ruminating mind nurtured our own searches for a renewed spiritual life and how this could be expressed in song. ) 

• Finally, the musical threads of our School Sister community and this Cathedral were woven together even more intricately when Sister Mary Jane Wagner became music director here in 1979, a position she held until 1994. She made the decision that the choir would be a parish choir rather than a paid group -- a decision which has enhanced the parish spirit. She began a Fine Arts Series which for several years produced “The Play of Daniel” which Archbishop Weakland had transcribed from the ancient Medieval manuscripts. That was a wonderful event to present here during several Christmas seasons. The Fine Arts continues to offer regular sacred music events, such as the one on which she performed here today. Sister Mary Jane also started having the Morning Prayer of the Church here each morning, and she initiated Sunday Advent and Lenten Vesper Services in which parishes from around the archdiocese were invited to provide the sung prayer.    

Thus you can see that this vibrant and progressive archdiocese has had a long, rich, and active history of leadership in music for the Church. It reflects the lives of many gifted people through the past 160 years. Our current music director, Michael Batcho, is filling some rather large shoes and is doing it imminently well.

Music

Now for the music we will be hearing this evening , all of it composed by School Sisters of St. Francis and John Singenberger. Sections of choral music will be set off by selected organ pieces form Sister Theophane’s extensive list of works. The first choral piece is her setting of St. Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures. Several of her shorter motets will also be included.

You will hear three pieces from the teacher himself - John Singenberger. Remember that these were written over 100 ago to express a new simplicity and prayerfulness. Contrapuntal textures also mark many of the works you will hear.

Sister Clarissima Neumann is represented in this program by an Ave Maria. She was not a prolific composer but was our choir director for decades. To sing the full Gregorian chant propers and other music under her direction each day was to know the glory of Church music at its best. Sister Gilana Halac had an extensive output of liturgical music and we will hear just one of her works also.

Two of my compositions will be heard. First a Hymn of Praise from 1964, a piece I had completely forgotten about until Sharon said the group would be singing it this evening. The final piece is not a liturgical work but rather a meditative setting of a Negro spiritual, Wade in the Water. The familiar refrain was supposedly sung by a group of people who waded into the Caribbean to escape their slavery. The three verses are original.

This program is a shorter version of a more extensive program the Milwaukee Choral Artists presented in our motherhouse chapel in October, 2004. If you would like to purchase a copy of the CD of that program, EXULTATE, it is available in the rear vestibule of the Cathedral as are a pamphlet of the Musical Tradition of the School Sisters of St.Francis and the handsome little volume, A Journey in Faith, which is the sesquicentennial history of this magnificent Cathedral and the story of its people. With that I invite you to enjoy one of the finest choral groups in this country.

The Milwaukee Choral Artists has developed an enviable reputation for their exciting and exceptional presentations of choral music. We are indeed fortunate and grateful for their performance this evening. To all of you, thank you for coming.

S. Marion Verhaalen, SSSF
January 10, 2007