Portland & Seattle

Late Saturday evening I returned from a trip to the Pacific Northwest: the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir went on tour, and I joined them. (My instinct, before we left, was that spending a week with a crowd of undergraduates would be insufferable, but it turned out to be quite enjoyable. One is always pleasantly surprised with Notre Dame students.)

In Portland I got so far as writing the first draft of an entry (dated 12 January), which I present here.

I suppose I might as well send you, dear reader, greetings from Portland, Oregon, where I am currently on tour with the Notre Dame Liturgical Choir. In many ways it is a pleasant city. The climate is at least comfortable: today a dusting of sleet was considered sufficient cause to shut schools down early. (The day we left South Bend, two feet of snow had fallen, with talk of more to come.) I spent several hours at Powell's Books, and suspect that I could've been there considerably longer. (Among the eleven books I purchased were the Bainton biography of Luther, a memoir of Antarctic exploration, a book about Prester John.... I suppose I shall have sufficient reading material for a while, now.)

I'm not sure I saw enough of Seattle to judge it properly, but from what I saw it seems a beautiful city (near-constant rain notwithstanding). Both cities are replete with two extremes of people: hipsters and yuppies on one end, and the homeless on t'other. (A more waggish observer than myself might observe that the only difference in attire between hipsters and the homeless is that hipsters choose to dress that way.) In both cities an awful lot of the people are from Somewhere Else.

There is an undercurrent of desperation in the major cities of the Northwest. For a century-and-a-half now, these cities have been the final destination in that great exodus from points eastward (Europe, New York, Iowa): all those people, leaving home in hopes of a new and better life in the West, find themselves facing the open Pacific, with nowhere else to run to. What is the end result of an incurably mobile society? We might observe it first in the cities of the West.

And yet Portland and Seattle are in several ways quite pleasant. People there are at least aware that recycling and public transit are Good Ideas. The seafood is excellent (a welcome consolation for one who views red meat with increasing — though not yet total — distaste). Though chain restaurants and cafés are ubiquitous, there are also some very good local places to be found nearly everywhere. There are some simply excellent organs to be found in that part of the country: we visited Paul Fritts's workshop and he took us on a tour of several important instruments in the area. (Fritts has the beady eyes and quiet demeanor that are apparently required for organ-builders, but he seems a nice fellow.) All in all, I can't say I've firmly made up my mind about either Portland or Seattle. While there is much to criticize, there's much to admire as well. I hope to travel to both cities again.

A Tolerable Punch Recipe

For a family gathering yesterday we attempted a punch recipe (found in what appears to be a local hippie magazine), with some success. Here is the recipe:

2 cups boiling water
3/4 cup honey
4 cups cranberry juice
2 cups orange juice
1 cup lemon juice
4 cups ginger ale
Ice, preferably in cubes
(Optional:) sliced lemons, limes, oranges, or strawberries

Mix boiling water & honey, stirring to dissolve; chill. Mix juices, then add honey-water. Just before serving, add ginger ale, ice, and those optional fruits. (A quantity of vodka may also be added.)

Puer natus est nobis

It has been my experience that every Christmas season is more miserable than the previous one. This impression may indeed be borne out by objective facts: each year the world is generally a worse place. The great mass of people are more acquisitive, not less; they are more ignorant, not less. I find television more and more insufferable each year. (A notable exception to this was the airing of the Chuck Jones version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! that I caught the other day. It still holds up. The irony, of course, is that a story about Christmas being worth more than mere presents is punctuated by commercials exhorting us to spend more than we can afford for things we do not need.)

Oh, but let us set aside such complaints. The Feast of the Incarnation is as good an occasion as any to be joyful. I find that I am at least happy when working — that is, when playing the organ. The Lutherans last night sang lustily, and the instrument was a fine Casavant (out-of-tune krummhorn notwithstanding). Why, some brave members of the congregation even attempted the high descant at the end of "The First Nowell". The important thing about congregational singing is not that it be particularly beautiful to listen to, but that it be enthusiastic and sincere. These Lutherans passed the test.

For the season, I offer a brief (minute-long) setting of what is perhaps my favorite carol, performed by The King's Singers:
J.S. Bach: In dulci jubilo

The O Antiphons

I had, for some time now, been planning to do a series of posts on the O Antiphons, which are sung at vespers on the seven evenings before Christmas Eve. (The Sarum usage — leave it to the English to be peculiar — is to begin one day earlier, and thus add an eighth text on the last day before Christmas Eve, O virgo virginum.) But — curses! — I already missed the first one, which was yesterday, and besides, A.C.A. Hall, the (Anglican) Bishop of Vermont, already wrote a fine explanation of the antiphons around 1914.

Lovers of good music ought to acquaint themselves with a (German) setting of the antiphons by Arvo Pärt. I suspect Pärt envisioned them to be sung as a set, and thus not liturgically, but I daresay they are still spiritually edifying. You may download the .mp4 files below; they are from a recording by Tõnu Kaljuste and the (excellent) Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, found on this disc.

Arvo Pärt, 7 Magnificat-Antiphonen:
1. O Weisheit
2. O Adonai
3. O Sproß aus Isais Wurzel
4. O Schlüssel Davids
5. O Morgenstern
6. O König aller Völker
7. O Immanuel

Gaudete Sunday

To my list of many weaknesses we may add "middle-aged ladies giving out free samples at grocery stores". I am entirely unable to refuse a kindly-offered free sample, even if I am quite sure I don't want it. I then feel obligated to buy whatever the product is. Today I purchased some peanut brittle. I don't really care for peanut brittle, but being unable to resist this particular sort of sales pitch, here we are: now I have a package of peanut brittle. I suppose the best thing to do now is to bring it to this evening's annual Basilica Schola Gaudete Sunday party. (Yes, it is already Gaudete Sunday! Did you wear pink today? I could not summon the courage to buy a pink shirt, but I got a pink tie on sale.)

Tropes, and Praetorius Again

It is curious how, just around the time that final exams come around, every other intellectual endeavor that is not especially related to the finals becomes far more interesting. I have observed this effect many times now. This time I have become distracted by thoughts of 11th-century troped Masses from Aquitaine (we're considering a festive one for Christmas with the Papists), and by the vocal settings of Praetorius I have already mentioned. It is worth noting that for nearly his whole career long Praetorius was employed at Wolfenbüttel, out in the sticks, yet he was terrifically well-informed about the musical developments (esp. Italian) of his day. He gives me hope that a musician committed to a particular community need not resign himself to a life of musical mediocrity.

If you get a chance, there's a 13-part version of Wie schön leuchtet from his collection Puericinium that is very fine indeed. If you are feeling more triumphal, there are three impressive settings of In dulci jubilo from his Polyhymnia Caduceatrix et Panegyrica, for twelve, sixteen, and twenty(!) parts. One of these days, when I am an established and successful Kantor, I shall do an all-Praetorius Mass, like the Christmas Mass CD I just ordered. (Back in those days, Lutherans were not afraid of the word "Mass"; I propose we bring it back into use. I'm tired of omitting things for fear of being perceived as "too Catholic". The ordinaries of Praetorius's liturgy were done in Latin; Article XXIV §3 of the Apology of the Augsburg Confession notes,
"We retain the Latin language on account of those who are learning and understand Latin, and we mingle with it German hymns, in order that the people also may have something to learn, and by which faith and fear may be called forth. This custom has always existed in the churches." We might try that, as well.)

The Vertigo of Lists

Lists are interesting things, don't you agree? All sorts of things can be listed; it appeals to our sense of order and completeness. Anywho, I recently got another Umberto Eco book, The Infinity of Lists. (The Italian title is La Vertigine della Lista, which sounds much more like a title Eco would come up with. Why the translator changed it I do not know.) It's just the sort of book any list-lover will appreciate. Included are various and sundry lists: of rivers mentioned in Joyce, of pulp novels in Don Quijote's library, of saints, of the conquests of Don Giovanni (enumerated in Leporello's famous "catalogue aria"), of Borges' seres imaginarios, of the ancestors of Jesus, of gemstones, of things Rabelais discusses as substitutes for toilet paper. Indeed, these and many more things. The book is rather dizzying in its variety and erudition. But don't take *my* word for it!

Musical Context; Praetorius

The best moments in a student's life are those in which one becomes aware of connections, I think. We may experience months of ingesting raw information without being able to synthesize it, and then we are suddenly aware that there are links to be made — and, indeed, that these links have already been made by older and wiser minds than ours.

Musicians require a certain tunnel-vision, without which it is impossible to put so much time and effort into the methodical practicing of repertoire. But this narrow lens, this focus, also can make it more difficult to see the connections between our music and the context into which it must inevitably be placed. It is encouraging, therefore, to observe examples of men (and, why not, women) who successfully manage to be both serious musicians (who are, because of their craft, inclined towards solitary practice and its attendant antisocial behaviors) and serious theologians, or even philosophers. Such people put music in the larger context of things, giving it an order and meaning beyond the mere notes on a page.

Anyone who knows anything about Bach would surely put him among such musician-theologians; it is beyond question that many of his compositions were both intellectual exercise, theological treatise, and aesthetic masterpiece. (Consider, for example, the Clavierübung Book III.) Likewise Michael Praetorius, whose choral music I have recently become acquainted with. It's very practical stuff (some settings are for as few as two voices; many parts can be performed by either vocalists or instrumentalists) that is at the same time theologically sound and quite wonderful to listen to. Praetorius shared Luther's (correct) view of music as Gottesdienst, divine service. Those chorale tunes are more than just window-dressing, you know.

For Advent (next week!):


Michael Praetorius sheet music: Werner Icking Music Archive | Choral Public Domain Library

Organists: Consider the Seamstress

Kierkegaard, in one paragraph, makes a convincing case for the proper production and understanding of all sacred art:

When a woman makes an altar cloth, so far as she is able, she makes every flower as lovely as the graceful flowers of the field, as far as she is able, every star as sparkling as the glistening stars of the night. She withholds nothing, but uses the most precious things she possesses. She sells off every other claim upon her life that she may purchase the most uninterrupted and favorable time of the day and night for her one and only, for her beloved work. But when the cloth is finished and put to its sacred use: then she is deeply distressed if someone should make the mistake of looking at her art, instead of at the meaning of the cloth; or make the mistake of looking at a defect, instead of at the meaning of the cloth. For she could not work the sacred meaning into the cloth itself, nor could she sew it on the cloth as though it were one more ornament. This meaning really lies in the beholder and in the beholder’s understanding, if he, in the endless distance of the separation, above himself and above his own self, has completely forgotten the needlewoman and what was hers to do. It was allowable, it was proper, it was duty, it was a precious duty, it was the highest happiness of all for the needlewoman to do everything in order to accomplish what was hers to do; but it was a trespass against God, an insulting misunderstanding of the poor needle-woman, when someone looked wrongly and saw what was only there, not to attract attention to itself, but rather so that its omission would not distract by drawing attention to itself.

— Preface to Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing, trans. Douglas V. Steere

Flurries; Pandora

It's the first snowfall today, here in South Bend. I, for one, welcome the change: there's nothing like snow to clear out the melancholia of autumn. Freezing temperatures focus the mind, giving one a sense of renewed purpose and direction. Oh, that it were Advent already! But we must wait nearly a month 'til then; November is liturgically the least satisfying month. Had I the power to unilaterally revise the calendar, I would return us to the ancient practice of beginning Advent on the Feast of St. Martin of Tours, 11 November (which, as it so happens, is also the commemoration of Søren Kierkegaard, whose writings make for good Advent reading).

I've been listening to Pandora Radio of late. It's useful for learning about artists or songs similar to those I already prefer. It is less far useful for discovering new composers, as the format is so heavily dependent on instrumentation: thus, most recommendations based on Poulenc are short piano pieces, most recommendations based on Hindemith are chamber music for winds, and most recommendations based on Pärt are choral works; you get the idea. (What of Poulenc's choral stuff, or Hindemith's organ works, or Pärt's chamber music?) The algorithms and fractals and whatnot used are not yet ideal for discerning similar tonal language. Pandora nonetheless is an interesting service; at least it's free. You may observe, if you like, my selections on my profile page there.