In dulci jubilo

In dulci jubilo,
Nun singet und seid froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne liegt
in praesepio,
Und leuchtet als die Sonne
Matris in gremio,
Alpha es et O!

O Jesu parvule
Nach dir ist mir so weh!
Tröst' mir mein Gemüte
O puer optime
Durch alle deine Güte
O princeps gloriae.
Trahe me post te!

O Patris caritas!
O Nati lenitas!
Wir wären all verdorben
Per nostra crimina
So hat er uns erworben
Coelorum gaudia
Eia, wären wir da!

Ubi sunt gaudia
Nirgend mehr denn da!
Da die Engel singen
Nova cantica,
Und die Schellen klingen
In regis curia.
Eia, wären wir da!

"The Blessed Son of God"

Listen: Ralph Vaughan Williams — "The Blessed Son of God",
Being the fifth movement from his Christmas cantata Hodie
Performed by The Tudor Choir on this CD.
Or, if you are averse to downloading, listen to a fine performance here.

The blessed Sonne of God onely
In a crybbe full poore dyd lye:
With oure poore flesh and oure poore bloude
Was clothed that everlastynge good.
Kirieleyson.

The Lorde Christ Jesu, God’s Sonne deare,
Was a gest and a straunger here;
Us for to brynge from mysery,
That we might lyve eternally.
Kirieleyson.

All this dyd He for us frely,
For to declare His great mercy:
All Christendome be mery therfore,
And geve Hym thankes evermore.
Kirieleyson.

— Myles Coverdale, after Martin Luther (a loose translation of selected verses of "Gelobet seist du, Jesu Christ")

St. Lucy's Day

The best method of getting into the mind of prehistoric man is to spend more time outdoors. Perhaps the first thing one notices, upon doing so, is that one becomes far more aware of natural cycles: the phase of the moon, the barometric pressure, the time the sun sets (or, if you are un buen madrugador, the time it rises). Around this time of year it is quite possible to believe that the days will continue to get shorter and shorter until some scientist finally notices that the Earth's axis has somehow started tipping and our hemisphere will never see light again. This is, of course, implausible, though stranger things have happened elsewhere in the galaxy. The worst-case scenario would be a tidally-locked planet, with constant light in one hemisphere and constant darkness in t'other. Another possibility is a fate like that of the planet Uranus, the axis of which is so tilted that each pole is in complete darkness for forty-two years; of course, its orbital period is also much longer than Earth's. Whatever our axial tilt is, for those of us sensitive to a lack of sunlight the solstice can't come too soon.

Coïncidentally or not, today is the feast of Saint Lucy, long thought to be the shortest day of the year. ("'Tis the year's midnight", as Donne says.) The saint's connection with light needs little explanation.

There are, as it happens, quite a few hymns appropriate for this time of year. Many are used at compline. Perhaps the best is Christe, qui lux es et dies. (If you ever get a chance to hear Robert White's four polyphonic settings, do so. Here are the first and last; I can't readily find the other two.) This hymn was, in turn, adapted into two German chorales: Christe, der du bist Tag und Licht and Christe, der du bist der helle Tag. Another compline hymn is Te lucis ante terminum; my favorite version is the mode VIII melody used on ordinary Sundays and minor feasts. Other hymns include Conditor alme siderum and Lucis creator optime.

Some might complain that we've become too accustomed to the dichotomy between light and darkness, with its implication that light is to be preferred. This does not bother me. As anyone who has woken before the dawn can tell you, it is natural for man to want light. Consider Psalm 130:

I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, and in his word do I hope.
My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.

Peace, Goodwill, Christmas Hymns

I was once on the verge of becoming a Christmas fundamentalist. So obsessed was I with the idea of reclaiming Advent (which is, after all, a wonderful season that is overlooked by far too many) that I became a bit angry at the thought of putting up Christmas decorations before The Day Itself. Christmas music pumped out over the loud speakers at sundry public places was cause to avoid going anywhere. The Feast of the Incarnation, I was at pains to remind everybody, is properly speaking the start of the Christmas season, which lasts until Epiphany (though one could leave up Christmas decorations until the Feast of the Purification of Mary, Candlemas, on the second of February).

Whether it is a sign of the abandonment of principle or merely the mellowing of age, I am no longer quite so angry to see people celebrating Christmas weeks before the Holiday itself. Advent, after all, is only one of the casualties of liturgical ignorance. (I don't think I'll ever understand Christians whose only vestiges of the church year are Christmas and Easter. But then, they are no doubt bewildered by the sort of High Church pageantry that I enjoy.)

I appreciate, at least, that some people are more pleasant during the Christmas season; there is a general feeling of goodwill that makes it more difficult to be purposefully unpleasant. I suspect this is due, in part, to the music. This is the only time of year when we are permitted to like music written before we were born. This should only be encouraged: Christmas music is perhaps the last widely-known musical repertory that links us to a bygone age. Incidentally, this is also the best model for a body of hymnody: people should be taught all the good old hymns. Anyone advocating all new music in church should observe the emotional connection people have to all their favorite Christmas hymns, and ponder this in their hearts.

This is not to say that all old music, or all music that induces nostalgia, is good music. Consider "The Little Drummer Boy", written in 1941: it is one of the perversely worst-written songs ever made, from a compositional standpoint. But then, nostalgia is not a particularly logical impulse.

Rite, Meaning, Continuity

Mr Dreher has some good points about the power — and importance — of good ritual:

There is something enchanting, in the literal sense of the word, about having the reality of the Divine encompass one through one's senses. It is possible, of course, to be present in such a place and to shut oneself off from the presence of the Holy Spirit. But for me, I find it much more difficult to resist entering into a state of openness when there are so many sensual reminders — the incense, the vivid icons, the ritual motions — of the unseen reality around us, and within us.

If you read Bellah's book, "Religion in Human Evolution," you understand why ritual is more important than theology. No doubt that ritual completely disconnected from theology is empty. But humans never outgrow the deep need for ritual. It's built into the biological fabric of our being. You mess with that, you're messing with things you ought not touch.

Yes. We must, of course, address the the danger of rite displacing God from the center of worship. But this is only a danger because ritual is so important; it does serve such a important function in our lives. To devalue meaningful ritual (which is, by its nature, something inherited, something that has been a part of a given community for a significant amount of time) is to deprive ourselves of a powerful means of communion.

Perhaps the most common argument at any church is "But we've always done it that way!" This is not, in and of itself, a good argument. (It is, however, far preferable to that other common argument: "We need to change x to get new members!" These words portend doom.) We shouldn't appeal to tradition simply because it is tradition. We appeal to tradition because we trust that our forebears did things for good reason, because tradition acquires richer meanings with time, because tradition connects us to believers dead and yet unborn.

Augustana, Revisited

This evening I attended the Augustana Choirs and Orchestra Christmas concert. What's that, you well may ask, a Christmas concert in the first week of Advent? Madness! you may correctly observe. But it was an enjoyable concert, for the most part, nonetheless. There's a certain percentage of Christmas schlock that is required to satiate the blue-haired little old ladies, but fortunately there was some real repertoire as well. My favorite was Respighi's L'adorazione dei magi, part of his triptych on Botticelli themes. I do believe the more I hear Respighi the more I like him.

Returning to Augustana, whatever the circumstances, has always been pleasant for me: I feel at home there in a way I never will feel anywhere else. Notre Dame had its benefits, of course, but I never felt like a part of that community (if such a large school can be called a "community" at all). The arguments I heard — and took part in — there could interest me intellectually, but there was ultimately a disconnect somewhere: what is it to me, if the Basilica uses chant or guitars? It's not my Basilica. It was easier to take a step back and observe the pettiness and uncharity at Notre Dame. There's no less pettiness and uncharity at Augustana, of course — indeed, there may be more, per capita — but it is somehow more tolerable because it is a place I think worth fighting for; it is home. And home, for all its frustrations, is still preferable to anyplace else.

Rowan Williams: "Advent Calendar"

He will come like last leaf's fall.
One night when the November wind
has flayed the trees to bone, and earth
wakes choking on the mould,
the soft shroud's folding.

He will come like frost.
One morning when the shrinking earth
opens on mist, to find itself
arrested in the net
of alien, sword-set beauty.

He will come like dark.
One evening when the bursting red
December sun draws up the sheet
and penny-masks its eye to yield
the star-snowed fields of sky.

He will come, will come,
will come like crying in the night,
like blood, like breaking,
as the earth writhes to toss him free.
He will come like child.

—from The Poems of Rowan Williams

Dominus Regnavit

Days like today are cause for optimism: both of my church services went well, and there are so many good hymn tunes for Christ the King Sunday. (Diademata is a particular favorite; everybody likes "Crown Him with Many Crowns".) I am becoming more and more fond of this part of November, when the fields are cleared and nearly all the trees are bare, before it snows; it's not desolate but rather clean-looking. Perhaps it's just this year in the three-year lectionary cycle, but the readings — with their apocalyptic imagery — lead nicely into Advent. Comparing different hymnals, there is even overlap between end-of-the-church-year hymns and Advent hymns: Helmsley ("Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending"), for example.

The notion, particularly relevant today, of the kingship of God is an interesting one. Perhaps the most common conception of God in the psalms is as awesome King; another, nearly as common, is as just Judge. Indeed, the two concepts seem closely linked in ancient Jewry. Other psalms (cf. esp. 45, 72, 89) describe God's covenant with mortal kings, who are expected to carry out God's justice. Some sections read as little more than monarchist propaganda; the Bible is not a book for republicans. In any case, it appears that legitimate, God-pleasing government has an obligation to the poor, a fact lost on a great many people nowadays.

There is one issue I've always wondered about: if earthly kings derive their legitimacy from God, what meaning does the title "King" have for God himself? There is — we presume! — no higher power to grant God the title. It seems that God is King simply by virtue of being God.

* * *
Next week is the start of Advent. I have resolved that I should start posting — here, if there is no more suitable place — music selections from the liturgies at my churches, like some do. So: here is some of the upcoming music at St. Paul Lutheran and St. Luke's Episcopal.

Organ preludes and postludes for Advent and Christmas, 2011:
27 November (Advent I):
J.S. Bach: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645
W.F. Bach: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, F.38, No. 1
4 December (Advent II):
Jeanne Demessieux: Rorate caeli, Op. 8, No. 1
Michael Praetorius: Alvus tumescit virginis
11 December (Advent III, Gaudete):
Healey Willan: Prelude on Richmond
Gerald Near: Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam
18 December (Advent IV):
J.S. Bach: Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659
Paul Manz: Toccata on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, Op. 5, No. 10
24 December (Christmas Eve):
Claude-Bénigne Balbastre: Quand Jésus naquit à Noël
Dieterich Buxtehude: In dulci jubilo, BuxWV 197
25 December (Christmas Day):
Louis-Claude Daquin: Noël X (Grand jeu et Duo)
Georg Böhm: Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her

The American Guild of Organists

This evening I attended my first AGO meeting. I am pleased to report that it went reasonably well. The theme for pieces was "things based on hymn-tunes"; I performed that bombastic Karg-Elert Nun danket alle Gott setting, and, to atone for that, also BWV 645. The membership of the local chapter is quite tolerable: the only instances in which I found it necessary to bite my tongue were when I heard praise of Allen instruments. (One must bear in mind that many — far too many — organists out here in the provinces have never played a tracker, and thus may be forgiven for their misguided tastes.)

Being away from school, even for only these few months, has taught me how important the company of one's peers is. It is, of course, a bit of a stretch to call my fellow AGO members peers — they are, after all, predominantly women who could charitably be called "post-middle-aged" — but it is nice to have people who understand the vicissitudes of a career in church music. In every profession one needs people to whom one can complain about one's job; I suspect this is the true origin of the great medieval guilds.

Wolf Hall

Finished, at last, with my slog through Tolkien, I turned immediately to Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's been a bit of an adjustment, going from Tolkien (who, though a worthwhile read, has too many adverbs and all the humor of the Heimskringla) to Mantel, whose wit could be metaphorically compared to something that is very sharp.

The hero (or antihero, if you must) of the book is Thomas Cromwell (who was indeed related to Oliver, though we mustn't hold that against him). History, for the most part, has not been kind to Cromwell: the impression one often gets is that he was an amoral schemer, who, in the end, reaped the whirlwind after several years of attempting to manipulate the king's favor. If you've seen A Man for All Seasons you've probably got a much more charitable opinion of Cromwell's rival Thomas More, whom Roman Catholics now call a saint; he's held in high esteem at Notre Dame, certainly. But Mantel deconstructs this beatific image we have of More: as she sees it, he was little more than a religious zealot.

[Cromwell] never sees More — a star in another firmament, who acknowledges him with a grim nod — without wanting to ask him, what's wrong with you? Or what's wrong with me? Why does everything you know, and everything you've learned, confirm you in what you believed before?

It's worth remembering that More was not some selfless defender of personal conscience to be compared to Cromwell's unprincipled henchman of royal prerogative. More merely preferred Papal tyranny to royal tyranny. The question, perhaps, is: which should one prefer in Henry VIII's England? Despite my fondness for Anglicanism, I still have this image of the king as this horrible sort of Bluebeard character, ruled by his appetites, quite probably more beast than man. I don't know if Mantel means to dispel this characterization further on in the book; after all, I've only read about a hundred of its six-hundred-odd pages. But I recommend it highly, so far.

Faust (1926)

Sort-of-but-not-really because it's Halloween I finally sat down and watched the 1926 silent film Faust, which I had never heard of but just read about over at the A.V. Club. (That web-site has some good things, but its advertising is consistently obnoxious.) If you haven't seen it and fancy yourself a film-lover, you should see it. The modern moviegoer is perhaps reluctant to take silent films seriously — so conditioned are we by the special effects and other conventions of movies these days — but once one discards certain expectations and assumptions it becomes clear how original and effective the best silent movies are. To employ an inadequate metaphor, it's like drawing a circle: sure, it's quite easy to open MS Paint and make a perfect circle, but it takes real practice and dedication to actually draw a circle, with a pencil, on paper. Faust passes the test of all real art: it's still worth experiencing today.

It occurred to me that Faust can be understood as symbolic of 20th-century German history: Faust renounces God to reshape the world according to his own ideas, with disastrous consequences. It then occurred to me that Thomas Mann already noted the Faustian resonances in the Third Reich. It then occurred to me that I really ought to begin reading Mann's Doktor Faustus: presently all my knowledge about it is secondhand, by way of The Rest Is Noise, which you really should read.

Quam dilecta!

You'll pardon, I hope, my low output as of late. (I won't apologize for it, anyway.) I have been thinking about several things — Montaigne and friendship, the pleasures of Indian summer, the nature of consciousness (with a nod to Andrew Bird) — but am not yet prepared to expatiate upon any of these themes. I shall, however, refer you to several other things worth reading.

• Philip Larkin: "An Arundel Tomb"
  
• Jason Peters: Curiosity Killed the Keg: A Tribute
  One can read lots of tiresome articles of socio-political claptrap by conservative Christians; sometimes that sort of thing shews up on FPR. But Peters, though he could quite fairly be called "conservative" and "Christian", manages again and again to write things that are actually worthwhile. In this particular treatise — O Theophilus — he makes several very good and entirely accurate points, among them observations about booze, O'Connor, and contemporary Protestant hymnody.
  
• I have had Coverdale's version of Psalm 84 in my head for a while, now. (I suppose this is mostly due to the Vaughan Williams setting.) Its palpable desire for God is quite arresting, I think.
  

  O how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of hosts! My soul hath a desire and longing to enter into the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh rejoice in the living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, and the swallow a nest where she may lay her young, even thy altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be alway praising thee.

  
  

Thoughts from Concordia

Thoughts that have occurred to me whilst attending the 2011 Lectures in Church Music Conference (at Concordia University, Chicago):

• Good music is, inevitably, about addressing issues, solving problems. The issue/problem may be one about musical form, or color (e.g. instrumentation, texture), or compositional process (canons, fugues), or, in vocal music, text, or other things. Bad music, when it refuses to acknowledge a problem, is saccharine; when it fails to adequately address a problem, it is unsatisfying.
  
• Most defects of musicianship can be fixed, but I suspect that a poor interior sense of rhythm is irremediable. How can you learn something that ought to be inborn? (Well, technically, a sense of rhythm is acquired, but this takes place so early in childhood that it's like original sin: probably not inborn, but as good as.)
  
• Fr Anthony Ruff, whom I admire more and more, gave a presentation on the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal, with special emphasis on ecumenism (since this is, after all, a mostly-Lutheran conference). It is hard not to be disgusted with how Rome has bungled the new translation. It's not only that it is fundamentally flawed — after all, the current translation is deeply flawed, albeit in a different way — but far worse is the autocratic way Rome has handled things. From time to time, when utterly frustrated with the follies of Protestants, I find solace in the fact that at least we don't have to put up with the Roman Catholic hierarchy. If "by their fruits shall ye know them", then I fear we know the hierarchy all too well.
  
• Last night we had a concert of seventeenth-century Lutheran music (mostly Schütz, Schein, and Scheidt; no Praetorius, unfortunately). I've said it before: it's too bad that we hear this repertoire so rarely nowadays. One of these days, when I've got an early music consort at my disposal, I shall endeavor to do some of it.
  

Oh, and today is St. Luke's Day, the titular feast (heh) at my Episcopal parish in Dixon. We shall have some good hymns, I think. (I've had the tune Westminster Abbey stuck in my head for several days, now; I'm planning a rather grandiose introduction with the chamades, which should wake people up, if nothing else.)

Admirable Words, Vol. III

1. Avuncular
   
2. Braggadocio
   
3. Drupe
   
4. Embrasure
   
5. Harangue
   
6. Knish
   
7. Obstreperous
   
8. Persiflage
   
9. Phylactery
   
10. Wallop

The 2011 American Alain Festival

Greetings, dear reader, from Lawrence, Kansas, where I am staying the night after two-and-a-half days in Wichita at the 2011 American Alain Festival. Jehan Alain, for those of you with limited knowledge of 20th-century French organ composers, was quite possibly the most original voice of his generation, with a prodigious output (considering his brief twenty-nine years on this earth). Moreover he had a generous soul and a fervid imagination. This year marks Alain's hundredth birthday, and we celebrated his life and work with a series of lectures and performances. Our guest of honor was Aurélie Decourt, the composer's niece (and daughter of Marie-Claire Alain, who during her career was unquestionably the foremost expert on her brother's works). Other guests included many of Marie-Claire's American students (of whom many are bigwigs at various universities and larger churches). All in all it's been quite worthwhile. The world of professional organists is a relatively small one, and it has been interesting to observe professional organists en masse: though some are prone to cattiness (a common trait in all of academe, I fear), many are agreeable enough. Most could fairly be called eccentric, in one way or another.

I fear it may not interest you for me to go into much detail about what we covered at the conference. Suffice it to say we examined Alain's biography, instruments, and influences. There is also the issue of the various editions of Alain's works, which have differed in many registrations and other markings. Indeed, there was a major controversy about twenty years ago when a musicologist raised questions about the integrity of Marie-Claire's work. This led to much bickering back-and-forth, and it was quite obvious that there is still much bitterness over the whole episode. Such are the petty affairs of academia, I suppose.

See also:
Alain's Postlude for the Office of Compline
(a past entry on this-a-here web-log)

The Inauguration of the Organ at Gröningen, 1596

In 1596 Heinrich Julius (1564-1613), the Most Reverend Bishop of Halberstadt and Serene Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, celebrated the completion of the pipe organ he had ordered four years earlier from the organ-builder David Beck. To inaugurate the instrument, located in the Schloßkirche at Gröningen, he hosted fifty-three organists and church musicians from across Germany, among them the renowned Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629) and Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612). Heinrich Julius's own music director at the time may have already been the young Michael Praetorius (1572-1621), who would go on to have a remarkable career as composer (of more than 1,200 chorale arrangements), consultant, and music theorist (his Syntagma Musicum is doubtless our most important source for music practice of the early seventeenth century).

Heinrich Julius himself was one of those colorful characters who abound in the first century of the Reformation: a Lutheran, elected bishop at the age of two, patron of the arts, witch-hunter, alcoholic, kabbalist, and polymath (or, perhaps more accurately, dilettante): he was trained in ancient and modern languages, philosophy, law, and theology, and fancied himself a playwright, architect, and musician. His learned tastes — though they fostered much great art that has survived to this day — proved financially ruinous, alienating both the nobility and the burghers of his realm.

We can only speculate about the goings-on at the conference at Gröningen. It is certain that the gathered organists took full advantage of the opportunity to observe the variety of compositions, styles, and performance practices assembled from across the Holy Roman Empire. It is almost equally certain that demand for liquor far exceeded the capacities of the city of Gröningen during the conference.

Unfortunately, of the fifty-three organists who were in attendance, very few left music that has survived to this day. What is still extant is very impressive, at least when performed on an appropriate instrument. I am fortunate to have an organist friend who visited Germany this past summer and purchased for me a number of very fine organ CDs, among them one featuring works of H. Praetorius, Hassler, and M. Praetorius, played on the Fritzsche/Treutmann organ at the Church of St. Levin in Harbke.

Listen: Michael Praetorius - Wir gläuben all an einen Gott
(11min, 20.66MB)
performed by Jean-Charles Ablitzer

Contra Keillor

My chief pleasure for the past, oh, eighteen years, or so, was being a good student. (Like many people at institutes of "higher" "education", I suspect I am better suited to be a student than to go into any sort of useful career. But I am attempting to correct this by means of honest employment, if music can be called honest employment.) Now that this is no longer an option, I find one must savor life's little pleasures, like discovering a new, good, artist while listening to Pandora. Or the lime yogurt, served in a waffle cone, at Arthur's. Or the luxury of an off switch when I hear Garrison Keillor, that old windbag, on the radio.

Do not misunderstand me: I think Minnesotans and Lutherans owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Keillor for all those years of good PR. I was once a great fan of A Prairie Home Companion, and I still tune in to it regularly. But invariably I will turn it off within a few minutes. Sometimes there may be good musical guests on the program, but the rest is quite dispensable. Oh! Another quaint anecdote about Wobegonians! Oh! Another sketch based on puns! Oh! He's singing again. Really it is Keillor's singing that is the worst. It is emblematic of the sort of sentimental self-indulgence that has come to define the program, which has been coasting — I think — for years, now. I rather hope they don't find a new host to replace Keillor when he finally quits milking the cash-cow that is public radio in a few years.

Chicago, Briefly

I am just returned from a brief trip to Chicago. The traffic was pritnear unbearable, but was, I hope, justified by my destinations. Besides attending a quite tolerable concert (the rather-unfortunately-named band Balmorhea), I was fortunate enough to visit Powell's Bookstore (which, indeed, is a sister store of the venerable Portland institution I visited in January); I purchased Mann's Doctor Faustus and an old edition of Chesterton's biography of St. Francis, which I think will someday make a fine gift. (Yes, I have begun to buy second copies of some books, the mark of an irredeemable bibliophile. But my excuse is that I do intend to give them away, eventually.) Best of all I went to a Meinl Kaffeehaus, where I had the first proper Eiskaffee and Palatschinken since I returned from Vienna (now several years ago). "O Memory, hope, love of finished years!" The great pleasure of such fare was counterbalanced by the reminder that I will likely not be able to visit Vienna for some time still. Nevertheless I recommend the place highly.

The Lord of the Rings, Considered

You know, late August is actually very pleasant. This had never occurred to me before, as for the past twenty years I had always been distracted at this time of year by the beginning of school. I must say, I do not particularly miss being so busy that I have no time to devote to worthwhile things beyond the scope of my studies. For the first time in many years I am re-reading The Lord of the Rings. I must say, it is a different experience reading the book when one is finally past adolescence. One never steps in the same river twice; nor does he read the same novel, apparently.

Tolkien's two deep and abiding passions, it seems, are nature and words. The strengths and weaknesses of his writing reflect these. He is fond of writing about landscapes — trees and hills and valleys and such — and I think he is quite good at this: certainly his descriptions of places are strong enough that I have always found the movies rather disappointing on that front. (New Zealand looks like a pleasant enough place, but it lacks the grand scope of Middle-earth. They are little islands, after all.) The other thing Tolkien clearly enjoys is poetry, and the books are littered with songs. Some of these are effective, and many are not. (One presumes that they all might be better with music, but then, that is a limitation of the medium.)

Tolkien's greatest strength as an author is his capacity for depth: as in a Netherlandish painting, the background (the histories, the geography, the languages of Middle-earth) is just as interesting as the foreground (the main characters and their travails). Indeed, the background is often more interesting. Tolkien's chief defect, I think, is a general lack of humor; even his intended levity (mostly hobbit matters) comes across as rather strained. Nor is he particularly good at writing about action — but then, few writers really are. The characters are best read as archetypes, as in myth, for in most cases there is little evidence of compelling underlying psychology. These faults — and all those songs! — aside, I'd still say The Lord of the Rings is not so easily dismissed as some literature snobs would have it. It is more than the sum of its parts.

Eucharistic Distraction

The first thing anybody must come to terms with, regarding any sort of understanding of the Eucharist that is not strictly memorialist, is that it doesn't make any sense. Whether you're for transubstantiation, consubstantiation, or the sacramental union, there remains that moment — that crucial moment — when the Body and Blood of Christ becomes present where once was only bread and wine. Ultimately the only justification for such a belief is Scriptural: if the Eucharistic narratives in three of the Gospels and Paul's first letter to the Corinthians are to be taken as true — and indeed, what is Christianity if they are not? — then we have some license to believe that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. (The question, then, is whether Jesus was speaking literally. This is another topic of debate that is better discussed elsewhere.)

This is all to say that there is justification for a belief in the Real Presence, if one is willing to accept a number of things as a matter of faith. What I'm actually wondering about, today, is whether the Eucharist should ever feel different. What faith I have in the Real Presence is, apparently, quite fragile, for I find that the feeling of receiving Communion varies drastically, depending on the situation. We know, if Augustine is to be trusted, that the worthiness (or, as the case usually is, unworthiness) of the priest does not effect the efficacy of the Sacrament: ex opere operato, and all that. This I can believe, readily enough. The problem is that I find it difficult to take the Eucharist as seriously as I should when I am the only one attempting to do so. My experience of the Real Presence depends very much upon external factors: is the Host treated in a manner befitting the very Body of Christ? Do my fellow congregants approach it as the Body of Christ? Do the non-essentials — the aesthetic considerations, from the music to the architecture to the altar-cloth — serve to enhance or distract from the experience of partaking in the Body of Christ? None of these things, so far as I can tell, should change the efficacy of the Sacrament, and yet they all affect me an awful lot. I find this troubling. I must ask myself the question all those of a high-church persuasion must ask themselves: am I merely a shallow aesthete? Why am I so distracted by those things that are, after all, of little importance when compared to the awesome (and I use the word in its older, better sense) mystery of the Sacrament?

I don't know. If, dear reader, such questions do not interest you, I apologize for all this, which must seem like so much theological wankery. Here is something that everyone ought to appreciate, whatever their view of the Sacrament:

Thomas Tallis: Verily, Verily I Say Unto You (John 6:53-56)

St. Mary the Virgin (Observed)

Today the Episcopalians of Dixon, Illinois — whose organist I now, er, am — celebrated the feast day of St. Mary the Virgin. We did some fine hymns (including that versification of the Magnificat, set to "Woodlands", which is an eminently singable tune), and the assigned readings are also very good. Father's sermon addressed the place of Mary in the Christian tradition; in true High-Church Anglican fashion, he said enough things to alienate both Roman Catholics and Protestants. But I happen to think that in this issue — as in many others — the via media is the via optima. Taking into account Mary's special place in God's redemption narrative, one may reasonably consider her the greatest of the saints. Some Lutherans, and most other Protestants, forget this. (Recall, though, that there have always been Lutherans who have relied on the intercession of saints, with the proper understanding that God alone is the source of all grace.) But, on the other hand, not even the Theotokos is worthy of worship. Miffed Roman Catholics will insist that they do not worship but rather venerate her (a fine distinction, to be sure), but certain Romish ideas — such as the understanding of Mary as Co-Redemptrix — seem to me quite certainly idolatrous.

But enough of argumentative things. I'll refer you to the post I wrote at Annunciation, with a Pärt setting of the Magnificat and excerpts from a rather good sermon. And here is Mary's song (Luke 1:46-55), for your dose of sweet sweet Book of Common Prayer:

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him, throughout all generations.
He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek.
He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.

Speak, Euterpe

(An aside: I always thought it unfortunate that the muse of music should have such an ungainly name. Somebody should look into it.)

As a result, chiefly, of several nights of poor or insufficient sleep, I am in no state to do any serious thinking. (I would like to believe that some thought goes into posts on this-a-here web-log, though perhaps some readers may wish to correct that particular misapprehension of mine.) However, I would like to present two examples of admirable music, of divers and sundry kinds. Both are indisputably good, though the question of what makes music good will have to wait for another time.

Fretwork: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582:


Art Tatum: "Night and Day":

Religion Beyond Cliché

Clichés, as insufferable as they are, exist because they generally express things that are true. The most unfortunate thing about clichés is that, with prolonged exposure, they lose their effectiveness: we not only take the truth for granted, but begin to doubt its accuracy to begin with. This, as I see it, is one of the chief weaknesses of religion. Revolutionary ideas become Sunday-school platitudes, first disdained and then ignored entirely. (This goes some way towards explaining why, in a society permeated with Christian symbolism and mores, Christianity itself is not taken the least bit seriously. Granted, we've mostly ignored the teachings of Christ — "love thy neighbor", hmm? — for the last two thousand years, but at least there was a time when the religion itself was taken seriously.)

Occasionally we encounter situations that expose to us the very real truth behind the cliché: like a character in a Flannery O'Connor story, we are shocked into seeing the true nature of things, if only for a moment. Let us assume that it is better to seek unpleasant truth than to be contented with comfortable falsehood. (Only a hedonist could prefer the latter.) It is therefore beneficial to seek situations that lead to those experiences that make us more aware of reality, and likewise to avoid those things that keep us comfortably oblivious.

What is reality? From a Christian perspective, the ultimate — and indeed, the only — reality is that of God's love for us. (Come to think of it, this may apply to some other religions as well. But I won't make claims on behalf of other belief systems.) How, then, are we to become more aware of this? There are many arguments to be made for asceticism, for conscious renunciation of worldly pleasures. I suggest that the ascetic life, if it is one's vocation, is a good and noble calling; certainly we all "must achieve the character, and acquire the skills, to live much poorer than we do", as Mr Berry so admirably puts it. But it is clearly not the case that every man should flee to the monastery, or to the hermitage. What, then, is the course of action for he who is not called to seek God by himself? I hope to think about this further.

Washington, D.C.

Greetings, dear reader, from Our Nation's Capital. Though this is apparently the very worst time of year, weather-wise, to be here, I have found it a pleasant-enough place during this past week's vacation. Well, it is not technically a vacation, as I have been put to work: this morning I served as organist at Luther Place Memorial Church, which is on Thomas Circle, in what is a nice — if terribly gentrified — part of the city. The organ is a 4-manual Möller that has undergone several renovations, but it's not as bad as I feared. The reeds are surprisingly robust, but the mixtures emit a rather awful shriek, like some examples of less-fortuitous Orgelbewegung design.

The more places in this world I visit, the less inclined am I to see the sights everyone is enjoined to see. This is chiefly because one is always surrounded by tourists in such places, and tourists — especially, I have noted, American tourists — are almost always insufferable. (Perhaps this amounts to a measure of self-loathing on my part?) At the National Gallery of Art — which is a fine museum, though rather disappointing compared to my beloved Art Institute of Chicago — my experience was severely hampered by obnoxious tourists talking loudly and ignorantly, with art-school-reject tour guides shouting to be heard over them ("Now, the art in this room is a style known as Byzantine!"). Despite the ambiance, the collection is a good one. I find I am drawn the most to late medieval painting (Giotto is a particular favorite, and he has a wonderful Madonna and Child there) and to early Renaissance Netherlandish paintings: there's a spiritual richness there that one doesn't see in many other times and genres. Some things (e.g. American colonial art) leave me entirely cold.

Whilst in the city I have availed myself of various things one cannot do (not well, anyway) at home. I have discovered several excellent restaurants: perhaps the nicest surprise has been Julia's Empanadas, on Connecticut Avenue between M and N. (An empanada is, apparently, the Hispanic equivalent of the Cornish pasty: it is very tasty, indeed, at least at Julia's, and they are quite reasonably priced.) Today I took a yoga class: it was at a level a bit above my current skills (that is, none), but enjoyable nonetheless. And I have been wandering around various parts of the city. From what I have seen D.C. resembles far more closely a European city than its American counterparts: there's a sort of Hausmanesque plan to the streets, and indeed some impressive Second Empire architecture down closer to the Mall. The strict guidelines for building height make it a cozier — if more congested, traffic-wise — place to live. The metro and other mass transit services are not nearly as convenient or ubiquitous as those of Vienna, but one mustn't complain about such things.

All in all, it's not a bad city. No, indeed.

Admirable Words, Vol. II

1. Brume
   
2. Catarrh
   
3. Embroglio (a better spelling than the more common Imbroglio)
   
4. Ibex
   
5. Plinth
   
6. Poltroon
   
7. Pottage
   
8. Reprobate
   
9. Sentinel
   
10. Tin

Ars Itineris?

Seneca, Ad Lucilium epistulae morales, XXVIII. "On Travel as a Cure for Discontent":

Do you suppose that you alone have had this experience? Are you surprised, as if it were a novelty, that after such long travel and so many changes of scene you have not been able to shake off the gloom and heaviness of your mind? You need a change of soul rather than a change of climate. Though you may cross vast spaces of sea, and though, as our Virgil remarks: "Lands and cities are left astern," your faults will follow you wherever you travel. Socrates made the same remark to one who complained: he said, "Why do you wonder that globetrotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels." What pleasure is there in seeing new lands? Or in surveying cities and spots of interest? All your bustle is useless. Do you ask why such flight does not help you? It is because you flee along with yourself. You must lay aside the burdens of the mind; until you do this, no place will satisfy you.

Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to his nephew Peter Carr, 10 August 1787:

[Traveling] makes men wiser, but less happy. When men of sober age travel, they gather knowledge, which they may apply usefully for their country, but they are subject ever after to recollections mixed with regret — their affections are weakened by being extended over more objects, and they learn new habits which cannot be gratified when they return home. Young men who travel are exposed to all these inconveniences in a higher degree, to others still more serious, and do not acquire that wisdom for which a previous foundation is requisite, by repeated and just observations at home. The glare of pomp and pleasure is analogous to the motion of the blood — it absorbs all their affection and attention, they are torn from it as from the only good in this world, and return to their home as to a place of exile and condemnation. Their eyes are forever turned back to the object they have lost, and its recollection poisons the residue of their lives. Their first and most delicate passions are hackneyed on unworthy objects here, and they carry home the dregs, insufficient to make themselves or anybody else happy. Add to this that a habit of idleness — an inability to apply themselves to business — is acquired and renders them useless to themselves and their country. These observations are founded in experience. There is no place where your pursuit of knowledge will be so little obstructed by foreign objects, as in your own country, nor any, wherein the virtues of the heart will be less exposed to be weakened. Be good, be learned, and be industrious, and you will not want the aid of traveling, to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself.

Wendell Berry, The Unforeseen Wilderness, p. 43:

[T]he world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles, no matter how long, but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home."

Adventures in Openmindedness, Part II

Well, I finished that Murdoch book. It was, at least, more satisfying than A Severed Head, though I suspect the discrepancy owes much to the different circumstances in which I read each: one was drudgery — and, as it seemed, not morally or intellectually profitable drudgery — while the other was my own choice to read, upon the recommendation of (relatively trustworthy) counsel.

A Fairly Honourable Defeat belongs in that class of books, along with The Picture of Dorian Gray and Lolita, in which people do wicked things — things which lead readers to denounce the books as immoral — but eventually receive their comeuppance — a fact that is often ignored by the outraged sort of reader. Such books have, as Wilde observed of his book, "a terrible moral". (This is, of course, the older and more etymologically correct meaning of terrible: "causing terror", not "very bad".) Murdoch's work differs from those two books, however, in that justice is not visited upon all transgressors equally. Indeed, the peccadilloes of relatively good characters result in harsh consequences, while far worse offenders go, for the most part, unpunished.

If a morality can be gleaned from this book, it is a decidedly anti-consequentialist one. We've all discussed the hypothetical scenario: it's 1941 and you're hiding Jews in your attic: when the Gestapo officer asks you whether you're hiding anyone, is it immoral to lie? If it is always immoral to lie, then the moral thing to do is to tell him, "why yes, they're in the attic." However, if morality is determined by the consequences of one's actions, and the result of honesty in this case would be the death of innocents, then the consequentialist would lie (normally a moral evil) to effect the saving of lives (considered — we must assume! — a good). But in Murdoch's world, even the best-intentioned lies lead to disaster and despair. It is, perhaps, a reminder that we are ultimately ignorant creatures, quite unable to judge the consequences of our actions, regardless of our intentions. It is not a reässuring moral.

In any case, I have reconsidered my opinion of Dame Iris. I don't believe I'd get along with her very well if we were to meet, but then, that is rarely the case with authors and composers and artists I admire. (Dürer or Mahler would probably be rather irritating in person, I suspect.) Hers is not a world I wish to inhabit, but it is an acceptable one — perhaps even a necessary one — to visit.

Adventures in Openmindedness, Part I

It is important to examine one's prejudices. This is not to say that all prejudice is bad; no, indeed! We need prejudice to adequately function in the world: without prejudice we'd have to impartially examine each and every person and situation we meet, and there simply isn't time for that. But we must, when we have time, reässess certain things, in case we have judged them unfairly.

The particular thing I wish to examine, in this instance, is the work of Iris Murdoch, which (and whom) I took a dislike to during my years of undergraduate study. My distaste was fortified by the opinion of one of my favorite writers, Flannery O'Connor, who said Murdoch's works are "completely hollow". Thus summarily dismissed, I was content to leave it at that. But considering the advice of a friend, who gave me a copy of A Fairly Honorable Defeat, I am prepared to give Dame Iris another chance.

I am now two chapters into that book. Almost immediately I noticed a similarity between it and A Severed Head, my other foray into Murdochiana. The chief characteristic of Murdoch's characters — at least, all those I've encountered so far — is that they are all terribly bored, and it is this boredom that leads them to do various wicked things. (I do not mean to say that the characters are boring; Murdoch is a good enough writer that she can at least keep our interest. And besides, I am not yet of the opinion that only virtuous people are genuinely interesting; there are enough books with bad sorts that are still compelling.)

Existential boredom — which we must differentiate from incidental boredom, the sort even the sanest man might sometimes have, as when waiting for a bus or discussing politics with a libertarian — is indicative of spiritual malaise. It is the result of a lack of joy in one's life. It is probably the same thing as acedia, which the desert fathers were right to consider the worst of sins. What is one to make of a writer whose every last character is existentially bored? May we fairly assume that Murdoch herself felt this way? I'm not sure. Further reading should prove useful; I shall continue my (re)evaluation.

Fructus Laborum

It is important to have things to do. A day or two of bone-idleness is enough: any more than that and you'll probably end up sitting on the sofa eating bon-bons and watching soap opera (which, it should be observed, is not nearly as interesting as real opera. When's the last time a soap opera character rode her horse onto a funeral pyre, immolating herself and destroying the world?).

My recently-concluded project, with which I occupied myself after the end of classes, was to transcribe about two-dozen Michael Praetorius scores. (I had access to both Praetorius and Finale — the score-writing program — at Notre Dame's library. It is now a four-hour commute away, which is a bit too far to justify further such endeavors there.) I did this because I someday hope to avail myself of the pieces: they're terribly practical, being based on chorales, and he wrote them for all sorts of combinations of voice parts. For the benefit of others (oh, how generous, I!) I put the scores up on the Choral Public Domain Library.

Iconophilia

There is a tension inherent in the Christian tradition between the urge to glorify the Divine through art and the temptation for that same art to serve as a sort of substitute for the Divine. All too often we have put aesthetic concerns above truly spiritual ones. (Church musicians, I feel compelled to add, are far more susceptible to this sort of error, whatever our personal tastes.) Of course, the reason this mistake is so commonly made is because aesthetic experience is so easily mistaken for spiritual experience. It is the natural impulse of the artist to create beautiful things, and these beautiful things can effect a sort of transcendence within us. The problem begins when this aesthetic transcendence is mistaken for that different sort of transcendence which is truly spiritual.

Paul, preaching in Athens, touches upon this point:

For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.

(That's Acts 17:28-29 (NRSV). Paul is quoting Epimenides's Cretica — which he cites also in his letter to Titus — and Aratus's Phaenomena; we see already the appropriation of Greek pagan imagery and language for the Christian God.)

As early as Paul, then, we see the impulse for iconoclasm, the reluctance to make physical objects that might take God's rightful place in the center of worship. (Indeed, this impulse is far older than Paul, dating back at least to those graven images Moses warned us against.) The easiest way to avoid the pitfall of worshipping the aesthetically beautiful is to destroy it. This explains why some Byzantines broke their icons and why Calvinists dismantled pipe organs.

But orthodox thought, in both the East and West, came to the conclusion that images aren't so bad: after all, God created the physical world and pronounced it good (whatever the Gnostics might tell you), and thought it so good that He took physical form. If Divinity itself might assume our mortal flesh, who's to say that we cannot appreciate the visible as signifier for the (invisible) Divine? Music, too, can remind us of the beauty of God.

The problem, of course, is when we forget that there is anything beyond mere art. This happens when we make the concert hall our temple, or — if we're at least so correct as to know what a proper temple is — when we put the quality of the Offertory anthem above the quality of our service to the poor. Both are offerings, of course: the sacrifice of praise is no less fitting than the succour of the needy. Both should proceed in equal measure from the well-formed soul. For further thoughts on "Art and the Motion of the Soul", I'll refer you to Peters.

Regarding Children

Do you recall the accompanist job at an elementary school I mentioned a few months ago? This week I concluded my duties there. I must say it has been a surprisingly good experience.

Chief among its benefits is that I no longer view children as an annoyance. They can be annoying, to be sure, but I now realize that this is not their default state. C.S.L. observes that it is the stupidest children who are most childish, just as it is the stupidest grown-ups who are the most grown-up. I am inclined to agree. Childish children can at least be improved; there is little hope for the incorrigibly adult. The best thing about working with the young is that it keeps one honest. (Or, at least it should.) Children are like animals in that they are acutely sensitive to — though not, usually, consciously aware of — a person's mood. They recognize mendacity, unlike so many adults, because they have not yet become inured to it. They almost always respond to kindness and enthusiasm.

For any of my readers who dislike children, I'll say this: you probably don't dislike them as much as you think. They're not all so irritating as those you see in public. (Young children are worst-behaved when with their parents, and adolescents are worst-behaved when with their peers. These are exactly the people one generally sees them with in public.)

I can say without exaggeration that this job has been a blessing. Of course, it's easy for me to say that: I experienced all the best things about teaching (seeing progress, nurturing what will become life-long interests, receiving the guileless admiration of children) without any of the bad things (disciplining children, dealing with ignorant or unreasonable parents). But in any case, I can now understand why people get such satisfaction from teaching young children.

Knoxville: Summer of 1915

In this time of leaving, becoming aware of all the places and things and people at Notre Dame I will see no more, I have spent some time thinking about those other times that are now lost to me: my undergraduate years, high school (however unpleasant), even my childhood. In a short while my years at Notre Dame will join those others, to add to the pain of recollection (which, happy or not, is painful; that is the nature of nostalgia).

Ah, but now it is nearly summer, the part of the year I remember best from my childhood. (For all my love of Rilke and autumn and that sort of Sehnsucht, there is something more personal about the memories of summer.) I suspect it was the same for James Agee, who wrote about his own childhood in Knoxville, Tennessee:

It has become that time of evening when people sit on their porches, rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street and the standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees, of birds' hung havens, hangars. People go by; things go by.
...
On the rough wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there. They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine... with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. One is an artist, he is living at home. One is a musician, she is living at home. One is my mother who is good to me. One is my father who is good to me. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth, and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.

May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my good father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble, and in the hour of their taking away.

After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her: and those receive me, who quietly treat me, as one familiar and well-beloved in that home: but will not, oh, will not, not now, not ever; but will not ever tell me who I am.

That is from Agee's essay, "Knoxville: Summer of 1915", which was later selected to serve as the introduction to his semi-autobiographical (posthumous) novel, A Death in the Family.

Samuel Barber set much of Agee's essay to music in his Knoxville: Summer of 1915. I am not sure which is my favorite recording of this admirable work (it is probably either that of Eleanor Steber or Leontyne Price). But in any case I will refer you here, where you can listen to it. (That particular recording is not special, but is the most convenient and legal to come by.)

I have been listening to the piece many times in the last few weeks. It resonates with the sense of loss I already have begun to feel about this particular place, these particular people. Oh, the terrible sweetness of nostalgia! — nostalgia, even, as in this prose poem and this composition, for a time I myself have never known and will never know. Discussing the piece in a 1949 radio interview, Barber noted its expression of "a child's feeling of loneliness, wonder, and lack of identity in that marginal world between twilight and sleep." Do you recall these feelings? I do. Sometimes I wonder whether there's much difference at all between the insecurities of childhood and the insecurities of the present.

Graduate Transience

As for the graduate student, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.

In these last few weeks at Notre Dame, now that my recital is over and I have only seven more pages to write about Sarum chant and its influence on English polyphony, things have turned bittersweet. ("Bittersweet": another overused word. Oh well.) One becomes aware of how brief two years actually is. Yesterday I had my last class; today I had my last lesson and cantored for the last time at the Basilica. Wandering around before Mass, I saw some saints in the windows I hadn't noticed before: Margaret (with snake), Mechtilde, Jerome. At lunch I happened to run into some fellow sacred music students, and afterwards we basked in the sun and shot the breeze, enjoying some Gemütlichkeit. (An aside: the first recorded use of "shoot the breeze" is from 1941, but beyond that nobody is quite sure where the expression comes from. How many other etymologies have we lost?) This is exactly the sort of thing one can do in a community, and it is exactly the sort of thing that is cut short when graduate study concludes and we scatter to the ends of the earth. How can we hope to have real community without some semblance of rootedness? The Benedictine vows of stability, conversion of manners, and obedience are much better things than we give them credit for.

G.M. Hopkins, "Spring"

Nothing is so beautiful as Spring —
         When weeds in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
         Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
         The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
         The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
         A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. — Have, get, before it cloy,
         Before it cloud, Christ, lord and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
         Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

Christ ist erstanden

"The Resurrection", from Matthias Grünewald's stunning Isenheim Altarpiece. This is the primary reason I want to visit Alsace.

Lutheran Worship, the old blue hymnal we used to use, had its flaws — and they were numerous — but one thing I liked very much about it was its pairing of two particular Easter hymns, Christ lag in Todesbanden (#123) and Christ ist erstanden (#124), on facing pages: it's a grand thing to go from one great melody to another. (They're both based on everyone's favorite sequence, Victimae paschali laudes, anyway.) For your paschal edification, here are settings of each hymn:

J.S. Bach: Christ lag in Todesbanden, chorale, the second movement of BWV 4.


Michael Praetorius: Christ ist erstanden, from Polyhymnia Caduceatrix et Panegyrica (1619).

Media vita in morte sumus

In the midst of life we are in death:
of whom may we seek for succour, but of thee, O Lord?

Recently I've been looking into Tudor church music, especially the sort written during the reign of Mary I. (Foxe's Book of Martyrs notes that "Mary, having succeeded by false promises in obtaining the crown, speedily commenced the execution of her avowed intention of extirpating and burning every Protestant." So you see, children, propaganda is not so modern an invention as we sometimes think.)

The casual listener of classical music may know the name Thomas Tallis, but it is far less likely he knows that of John Sheppard (c.1515-1558), who also wrote music at about the same time. (Oh, the vicissitudes of musical popularity!) Sheppard's work is every bit as impressive as that of his better-known contemporary. Chief among his compositions is a remarkable six-voice setting of the text Media vita, the antiphon for the Nunc Dimittis at Compline on major feast days in the two weeks before Passion Sunday. Though in the one surviving source for this motet (Oxford: Christ Church Library, Mus. 979-983) the tenor partbook is missing, there are several reconstructions, including one by the Tallis Scholars.

Listen: John Sheppard - Media vita,
performed by the Tallis Scholars (dir. Peter Phillips), available here

The word "poignant", like the word "unique", is terribly overused these days, but I daresay that this motet is poignant; in any case it is well-suited for Lent. It may not even be hyperbole to say that Sheppard's Media vita is one of the most important works of English polyphony.

Music Links Round-up

• Click the squares: Wondering why there are no dissonances? 'Cause it's a pentatonic scale!
  
• Nokia fugue: Not bad fugal writing, really. The motivic derivations are not quite as tight as Bach (cf. BWV 547), but there are nice little surprises. (Look for the inversion, for example.)
  
• Compleat organ works of Bach, available for free download
  
• Arvo Pärt Information Archive
  
• Bizarre Musical Deaths
  
• Our Polyphony Class Web-site: with recordings of Renaissance polyphony by our professor's (pretty good) ensemble, Pomerium
  

And, for good measure, some web-logs concerning matters musical:
Chantblog
Magister Perotinus
Pipe Organs (dormant, but its archives are worth giving a look-see)

Humor and Religion

It has been a general guideline of mine, for years, now, not to trust anyone without a sense of humor. Humor is a good and worthwhile thing, and I will have no truck with anyone who insists on doing without it. (Perhaps there are some people who never acquired a proper sense of humor; if so, these are wretches to be pitied. What I am chiefly concerned with, here, is the sort of person who has a sense of humor and seeks to stifle it.) The particular misconception of the humorless is that lightheartedness somehow contradicts the effort to take things seriously, that humor is somehow the opposite of earnestness.

I am sorry to say that there are a great many religious people who feel (and act) this way. Many of them are convinced that religion is A Very Serious Thing Indeed, and that any attempt to acknowledge the inherent humor of certain things (dropped thuribles, outlandish lectors, ridiculous vestments) would be to detract from the dignity and reverence and decorum due to the Mass.

(An aside: it's always about the dignity and reverence and decorum of the Mass, in some Roman Catholic circles. What is dignity and reverence and decorum, anyway? Is it a Mass where nobody smiles, or acknowledges the presence of others? Is proper reverence so easily confused with catatonic rigidity? Mind you, I shudder as much as the next person at the thought of those horror stories of post-Vatican II liturgies — beach balls at Mass, rainbow vestments — but one can acknowledge the human dimension of the liturgy without resorting to such excesses. In any case, it might be worth pointing out that regrettably varicolored vestments are not the sole province of hippies and Franciscans.)

But where was I? Oh, yes, humor. Would you believe, like St. John Chrysostom — or Jorge the monk in Eco's The Name of the Rose — that Christ never laughed? I certainly hope not; there's enough to be construed as humor in the Gospels to suggest that he did. (Roman Catholics may take particular satisfaction in that the Church was founded on a pun.)

In any case, if you would associate with religious types at all, I would suggest the sort with a sense of humor: most Anglicans, for example. Avoid the dire sort of fundamentalists (of both Protestant and Papist persuasions). As for me, I shall be having a Life of Brian viewing party next Sunday.

Miscellaneous Links:
A Joking Matter: And Jesus Laughed
On the Second Book of Aristotle's Poetics (his lost treatise on Comedy)
Umberto Eco web-site

The Venice Baroque Orchestra

This evening I attended a performance by the Venice Baroque Orchestra. It was quite good. The program included concerti by Albinoni (yes, he of the famous Adagio. Except that that particular Adagio was not actually written by him), Galuppi, Tartini, and of course Vivaldi. The popular insult for Vivaldi is that he wrote the same concerto five hundred times; indeed, in mediocre performances this often comes across as accurate. But in a really good performance — like the one I heard tonight, fortunately — the music sounds much more inspired. (The key for the performer, I suspect, is to become aware of the improvisatory nature of the music. Paradoxically, one must work far harder to make music sound as though it were improvised.) When it is performed well, one can understand why Bach thought so highly of the music of his contemporary.

Incidentally, I think I might look into becoming a theorbist. Surely the demand for skilled players of the theorbo is great, is it not? (Not every over-eager high schooler with some slight skill at playing the theorbo is deciding to do it for a living — now is he? — unlike the case in certain other instruments, the blogger added, insultingly.) And the fellow who played it tonight looked to be having an awful lot of fun.

Mark Your Calendars:

An ORGAN RECITAL
Reyes Organ & Choral Hall, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center, Notre Dame
7:00pm, 30 April 2011
The program will feature both the Paul Fritts Opus 24 and our 17th-century Neapolitan instrument (by an anonymous builder, restored by Martin Pasi). A small schola will perform a chorale as well as plainchant from the office of compline.

Program:
1. J.S. Bach (1685-1750): Prelude & Fugue in G Major, BWV 541
   
2. Paul Hindemith (1895-1963): Organ Sonata No. 2
   
3. Domenico Zipoli (1688-1726): selections from Intavolatura per Organo e Cimbalo, Part I
   
4. Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722): Chorale Fantasia on An Wasserflüssen Babylon
   
5. J.S. Bach: Prelude & Fugue in A Major, BWV 536
   
6. Jehan Alain (1911-1940): Postlude pour l'Office des Complies, AWV 13

Annunciation

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation. For my part, I will be playing for a service with the (precipitously high-church, Deo gratias) Lutherans over at Emmaus.

Shortly after the account of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-38) comes the greatest of the Biblical canticles, the Magnificat. For your edification, I offer an excellent recording of Arvo Pärt's setting of this song, as well as two excerpts of a sermon Luther gave on the Magnificat.

Listen: Arvo Pärt, Magnificat
(Performed by the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, dir. Tõnu Kaljuste, found on this CD.)
Luke 1:46-47 (Authorised Version): And Mary said, "My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."

For God is not magnified by us so far as His nature is concerned — He is unchangeable — but He is magnified in our knowledge and experience, when we greatly esteem Him and highly regard Him, especially as to his grace and goodness. Therefore the holy Mother does not say, “My voice or my mouth, my hand or my thoughts, my reason or my will, doth magnify the Lord.” For there be many who praise God with a loud voice, preach about Him with high sounding words, speak much of Him, dispute and write about Him and paint His image; whose thoughts dwell often upon Him, and who reach out after Him and speculate about Him with their reason; there are also many who exalt Him with false devotion and a false will. But Mary says, “My soul doth magnify Him” — that is, my whole life and being, mind and strength, esteem Him highly.

Luke 1:48-49: "For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name."

The "great things" are nothing less than that she became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed upon her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among whom she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in Heaven, and such a child. She herself is unable to find a name for this work, it is too exceedingly great; all she can do is break out in the fervent cry: "They are great things", impossible to describe or define. Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God. No one can say anything greater of her or to her, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart, what it means to be the Mother of God.

Detachment

We've all had one of those days, wherein it becomes exceedingly obvious that most people are knaves, louts, and fools. Today the world conspired to give me one of those days. (I shan't bore you with the details.) I am pleased to report, however, that for some reason the parade of asinine behavior did not manage to put me in a bad mood. I suspect that working with children has done me good: if nothing else, it has convinced me that people are not created as bad as they become, and indeed, with a proper education, most can be quite tolerable.

Is this, perhaps, the secret to avoiding irritation (which provokes a host of vices): to simply remove oneself from a situation and observe it as a third party might? It certainly doesn't hurt. I must endeavor to try this in future occasions of unpleasantness.

Angelus Silesius writes,

Niemand hat seinen Stand so hoch und groß gemacht
Als eine Seel die ihr Gemüth in Ruh gebracht.

Acedia

Occasionally when I am in a fit of melancholy it leads to acedia, as has happened these past few days. I would describe acedia, but I find that the fourth-century monk Evagrius Ponticus did so far better in his Praktikos:

The demon of acedia, which is also called the noonday demon, is the most burdensome of all the demons. It besets the monk at about the fourth hour (10 am) of the morning, encircling his soul until about the eighth hour (2 pm). First it makes the sun seem to slow down or stop moving, so that the day appears to be fifty hours long. Then it makes the monk keep looking out of his window and forces him to go bounding out of his cell to examine the sun to see how much longer it is to 3 o’clock, and to look round in all directions in case any of the brethren is there. Then it makes him hate the place and his way of life and his manual work. It makes him think that there is no charity left among the brethren; no one is going to come and visit him. If anyone has upset the monk recently, the demon throws this in too to increase his hatred. It makes him desire other places where he can easily find all that he needs and practice an easier, more convenient craft. After all, pleasing the Lord is not dependent on geography, the demon adds; God is to be worshipped everywhere. It joins to this the remembrance of the monk’s family and his previous way of life, and suggests to him that he still has a long time to live, raising up before his eyes a vision of how burdensome the ascetic life is.

While we are perhaps not monastics, the affliction is much the same.

Ash Wednesday

Both the Old Testament and Epistle readings for today (in the Papist lectionary, anyway) emphasize that now is actually a pretty good time to start being good. Joel 2:12-13, in Coverdale's translation, reads:

¹²Now therfore saieth the LORDE: Turne you vnto me with all youre hertes, with fastinge, wepynge and mournynge: ¹³rente youre hertes, & not youre clothes. Turne you vnto the LORDE youre God, for he is gracious & mercifull, longe sufferynge & of greate compassion: & redy to pardone wickednes.

(Who says centuries-old translations aren't acceptable? With the possible exceptions of "rend" and "long-suffering", I daresay the passage is perfectly understandable, even to the average American. Bible translations that dumb-down the language — viz., the NIV, the NAB, et alia, ad nauseam — are only greasing the slippery slope towards illiteracy.) Consider also part of today's Epistle, from 2 Corinthians 6:1-2:

¹We as helpers therfore exhorte you, that ye receaue not ye grace of God in vayne. ²For he sayeth: I haue herde the in the tyme accepted, and in the daye of saluacion haue I succoured the. Beholde, now is the accepted tyme, now is the daye of saluacion.

(Again, no problems with the language except perhaps "exhort" and "succored", but certainly every college graduate should know these words.)

To these exhortations let us add that of John Donne. They don't make many Anglicans like John Donne anymore; this is a pity. In a sermon preached to Queen Anne (James I's consort, not the later queen regnant), he echoes a passage from Augustine's Confessions:

Yet if we have omitted our first early, our youth, there is one early left for us; this minute; seek Christ early, now, now, as soon as his Spirit begins to shine upon your hearts. Now as soon as you begin your day of Regeneration, seek him the first minute of this day, for you know not whether this day shall have two minutes or no, that is, whether his Spirit, that descends upon you now, will tarry and rest upon you or not, as it did upon Christ at his baptisme.

Therefore shall every one that is godlie make his Prayer unto thee O God, in a time when thou may'st be found: we acknowledg this to be that time, and we come to thee now early, with the confession of thy servant Augustine, sero te amavi pulchritudo tam antiqua, tam nova; O glorious beauty, infinitely reverend, infinitely fresh and young, we come late to thy love, if we consider the past daies of our lives, but early if thou beest pleased to reckon with us from this houre of the shining of thy grace upon us; and therefore O God, as thou hast brought us safely to the beginning of this day, as thou hast not given us over to a finall perishing in the works of night and darkness, as thou hast brought us to the beginning of this day of grace, so defend us in the same with thy mighty power, and grant that this day, this day of thy visitation, we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger, no such sinne, no such danger as may separate us from thee, or frustrate us of our hopes in that eternall kingdom which thy Sonne our saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood.