Good Christian Artists

Heretofore, chief among my failures as a church musician has been the failure to communicate why good church music is just so important. (I harp on such thoughts on this-a-here web-log perhaps because I find myself unable to express them effectively to the people whom I serve as organist and/or choir director.) My mind returns again and again to Ratzinger's notion of the best apologia for Christianity being its art and its saints. The best Christian art is that which is both unequivocally Christian and unequivocally art. There is much that is undoubtedly Christian but lacking artistic merit, and there is much that is artistically powerful but of questionable Christianity, and there is far too much posing as Christian art that is neither distinctly Christian nor of any artistic value. I shall leave these three unfortunate categories for my reader to populate, but I would laud artists like Bach, or Giotto, or Flannery O'Connor, who have produced works of the highest quality and theological truth.

Consider the Pange lingua of Thomas Aquinas, one of the greatest hymns of the Church: it not only clearly sets forth complicated theological claims, but also does so in quite excellent poetry (in Latin, anyway; I've never been satisfied with any metrical English translation). And these words are coupled with a chant melody both memorable and beautiful. That would be enough (and indeed, has been enough). But I'll refer you, finally, to an organ composition by Nicolas de Grigny (1672-1703). Non-organists may be forgiven for not knowing that, in French classical organ music, verses chanted by a choir were performed alternatim with verses played on the organ. (By this time, apparently, everyone knew the text so well that it made little difference whether the actual words were sung or not.)

Nicolas de Grigny: Pange lingua gloriosi
performed by Sven-Ingvart Mikkelsen (on the Isnard organ at Saint-Maximin)
and the Ensemble Vox Gregoriana

1. Pange lingua; Nobis datus
   
2. In supremae nocte; Verbum caro
   
3. Tantum ergo; Genitori, genitoque; Amen

(I purchased this particular CD in Hillerød from Mr Mikkelsen himself; he's an excellent player, and seems a very nice fellow to boot. He was kind enough to let us play the 1610 Compenius, which I still dream about.)

Such art has sustained me many times when my soul was disquieted within me; it is sometimes my primary reminder of the mercy and goodness of God. It is to my great distress that the quality of such art is not self-evident to all Christians, for it is so closely bound to my faith. Indeed, my reader may not understand why on earth this music would inspire such feelings. Perhaps I must resort to Kierkegaard's notion of the subjectivity of faith. Some wag may rightly point out that Kierkegaard and Aquinas make strange bedfellows. The same wag may also note that I misconstrue Kierkegaard to claim, as I might like to, that aesthetic experience can be related to actual religious experience. Søren was quite clear — well, as clear as he gets — that the aesthetic and the religious are nowhere near each other. I shall let this thought trouble my sleep tonight.