I posted over on my facebook account that I was enjoying the music of Schütz' Christmas Vespers. The more I have come to learn and love the music of our Church from the days of Orthodoxy, the more I amazed I am at what we have "settled" for. Richard Schneider noted that this is a problem of support for full-time Church musicians, and I certainly concur. But I think the problem is ultimately a deep, spiritual one. I quoted from Koenker below that our glorification of God mirrors exactly what we think about Him. Do we suppose He has little glory? Expect then the mediocre and half-hearted. But if we can believe as our spiritual forebears in the days of Lutheran Orthodoxy believed, then the glorification of God will assume enormous proportions for us and we as Lutheran Christians and Lutheran parishes will expect and give more of ourselves toward that end. In fact, it just may become by God's unspeakable grace the very end and purpose of our existence, which is as it should be. A little further taste of the music of Lutheran Orthodoxy for you. This is a portion of Psalm 119 as it would have been offered at Lutheran Vespers (held on Saturdays and Sundays and the day before any major Feast) by Heinrich Schütz:
Pr. Weedon,
ReplyDeleteI think it's because today we're uncomfortable saying that Christ is not only the ultimate Truth and the ultimate Good, but also the ultimate Beauty.
We are uncomfortable because we aren't certain that we can say that some things are beautiful and other things are ugly, and we're uneasy because we think ultimate Beauty can exist apart from goodness and truth (for example, in heterodox communions). We have a hard time saying that this is beautiful and that that is not.
As the Estonian composer Arvo Part said, "You can kill people with sound, and if you can kill, then maybe there is also this sound that is [the] opposite of killing, and the distance between these two points is very big... In art, everything is possible, but not everything [that is] made is not necessary."
Are we capable of criticizing someone for writing sacred music that is not beautiful? Probably not. Yet I think there's hope, because we still would oppose someone who would deliberately set out to write ugly sacred music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pDjT1UNT3s
Do you know his Te Deum? Sublime!
ReplyDeleteFather,
ReplyDeleteI have several things by Schutz, his funeral music, his Psalmen Davids (complete) and his Christmas Story, but I do not have his Christmas Vespers. Can you provide me and anyone else for that matter a CD reference which I can get? Thanks.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI found it on Pr. Webber's helpful list (and then hunted the album down in iTunes):
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/R3S7ZYNQDFWRZ/
Fr. Weedon,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link. Already added to my wish list!
As to the question you ask, I think it comes down to two things:
1) Just as many Lutherans (not to mention Orthodox) are poorly catechized so they are poorly liturgicalized meaning that they don't understand the connection between the liturgy and theology. Too many people believe that the two are separate entities from each other.
2) Too many people just do not have a talent for music; they know nothing about music. Far too many people listen to rap and hip-hop and that's all they know. This type of music requires an ear, a talent and, above all, work to execute. How many times I am told that people like my chanting but then scold me because I don't make it singable. I then respond that the should learn to chant, to which they always reply that they don't have the time or discipline for such a commitment.
Years ago, at a Lutheran church in Omaha, the organist was playing Schutz for the postlude. It was magnificent. Most people simply filed out of church to get out and get on with their Sunday rituals but I stayed in the church to listen and appreciate this beauty. Fact is most people (not just Lutherans) don't know good music when they hear it and that's why they prefer happy-clappy songs because that is the only way they can relate to it.
Schutz, Schein, Praetorius, Hassler, Telemann, Handel, and above all J.S. Bach must be brought back in daily use for Lutherans. But that will only happen when you have a liturgical reformation and purge the Kieschniks from the Synod! I will gladly help you with that.
Chris,
ReplyDeleteAmen to both points. But I don't think it's merely a matter of education; I do think it's a matter of whether our faith is such that we are content to toss God a little left-over time for music that glorifies Him and extols His Gospel, or whether we can again recapture this as the very center of our life here on earth as we anticipate in our liturgy the Feast that is to come and mystically participate in it even now.
We have the "dumbing-down" of Christianity in general to thank for the current state of affairs. It kind of started with the Catholics in the 60's and spilled over into the Lutherans. I was shocked and appalled to discover our congregation, which I generally consider to be very musically literate, singing "On Eagle's Wings" for the early service last week. Gag me with a spoon!! People seem to think that they "need to reach the young people"! Really? Turns-out that most young people that I know are much MORE taken with music that reflects the majesty of God, rather than "Jesus the good buddy" Were the truth be told, you would find that most folks who like this stuff are the aging "hippy-boomers" who refuse to grow-up and and think that hippie music is just fine, so long as the words are changed to protect the guilty.
ReplyDeleteArpschneider is exactly correct. why is it that whenever the Catholics leap, the Lutherans leap right along with them? The liturgy is scrapped by Vatican II, the Lutherans follow right along, the 3 year lectionary is introduced and the Lutherans with obsequiously go along with it, etc. Following the Catholics and their disintegration is not the way for a return to confessional Lutheranism in worship to happen.
ReplyDeleteI posed a similar question to an artist/musician friend of mine some years ago. How is it, I asked, that the church that produced so much beautiful art and music in the past now seems to put out only kitsch. He replied (and this is from a man who is an agnostic at best), "Because today we don't really believe any more; we only kinda believe." I agree, it has less to do with taste than faith.
ReplyDeleteBut even Tchaikovsky, a self-admitted athiest composed a Liturgy for St. John Chrysostom which is among the most beautiful works I have ever heard. Even with those who don't believe, God can still produce great works of beauty. Plus, I really think a lot of this happens to be the fact that kids are not musically well educated.
ReplyDeleteIn my (admittedly far off) youth, our elementary teachers included music and art in the curriculum. If one teacher was more skilled, they would trade classes to let her have at us. But we sang. Nobody ever told us we couldn't.
ReplyDeleteThen came the days of "specialists". Music and art teachers were hired who did nothing else. Still good.
Then came the days of tight budgets, and what is first to go? The specialist music and art teachers (along with P.E. which used to be recess, supervised by classroom teachers).
If your schools still have these people, fight to keep them. If they haven't, figure out a way to get them back.
(I learned most of my Christmas carols in school. Fancy that in the 21st century!)
--helen
Chris,
ReplyDeleteI agree it can happen with an unbeliever - what in another context Pieper called a "felicitous inconsistency." But for faith as THE grounding, the desire to extol and sing forth the praises of the One who has done such marvelous things for us - well, for that there really can be no replacement.
Helen,
Yes, I remember singing much in school. Though by the time I was in Junior High (long ago, too), we were singing Hanukkah songs as well as Christmas carols... :)
Well Amen arpschneider and Chris!
ReplyDeleteThere was a Reformation, you know.
The RCC is just furthering its descent into the abyss with Vatican II. Totally irrelevant to us at this point. Totally.
And if I see one more guy about my vintage (59) carrying on like it's still 1968 and he's still 18 and it's still a "coffee" house, I'll heave in the aisle, wretch in the vestibule, barf on the steps, collapse in the parking lot (or car park as my long lost relatives in Mother England would say), only to rise and commence the cycle again!!
ReplyDeleteGratefully, there ARE places where quality music is performed by the Romans! I was in Columbus, OH this past October and was treated to Duruflé's Requiem OP 9 performed at the Cathedral. I have a recording of it and would post some of it to listen to if I can figure out how that is done. Help someone?
ReplyDeletede gustibus non disputatum est
ReplyDelete