Thoughts on Sacred Music, Part II

In our first look at sacred music last month we discussed some concrete principals and why they functioned as the essence of good sacred music. It is, however, often said that taste is subjective. This I do concede to a point, and as an experiment I would like to make a less scientific comparison. We may say certainly that people have reactions to music but of course it is something in the music that has generated that reaction. I would like to look at a few incipits from some sacred music and briefly characterize what they suggest. I decided to use the beginnings of these pieces because they invariably receive an enormous amount of attention from the composer and they set the tone of the piece. In short, we can assume them to be the best the composer has to offer and exactly what he wants. Many musical works have weak transitions, lines, and moments, but we tend not to discuss the ones which fall out of the gate.

The incipits should briefly and perfectly capture the essence of the piece, or at least set a clear stage for development. So we may ask, then: first, do they, and second, what do they say?

N.B. I included only pieces using the Latin text of the Gloria from the Ordinary of the mass. I included the intonation of the Gloria de Angelis only once, which naturally excluded many settings which begin with the famous phrase. I have edited the chant and classical examples into the video below. The modern pieces have links to performances next to their descriptions.

Thoughts on Sacred Music, Part I

"In order to write true church music, look to the plainchants of the monks." Ludwig van Beethoven [1]

The problem is clear. Anyone who has long pondered sacred music knows it. Music lovers evade it as long as they can but eventually the rift becomes undeniable. Of sacred music, there is chant and everything else. Foremost this admission seems a blasphemy of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to say nothing of the Renaissance masters. If music is excellent, can it not serve or be adapted to serve a liturgical purpose? One path to answering this question is technical and that is the path we will trod in this series. Today we will look at how the mechanics of chant function as a style. Let us examine what this music does and what effects it brings about.

1) Melodic Intervals

Chants use relatively conjunct motion, that is, they avoid wide intervallic leaps. Wide leaps arrest the attention and tend to segment the line whereas lack thereof permits long, unbroken, unfolding lines. Stepwise motion is the most common, with skips of a third and fourth not unusual.

2) Monophony

The lack of accompaniment focuses attention on the one melody.

3) Rhythm

In chant the rhythms are derived from the text. This has two effects. First, it frees the music from the demands and constrictions of a meter like 3/4 or 4/4. There is no predictable rhythm to "fall into." The music ceases to be "in time" and time itself fades away, leaving only the text. Second, that text is the scripture. It is the words of the sacred texts themselves that direct the music.

4) Anonymity

There is no intrusion of a personality into the music. There is no place in chant to say, "Ahh, this is classic Brahms." The listener won't be enticed to think that a change of register, a change of key, a chromatic line, a chord, a figure, or whatever, is "typical" Handel, Haydn, or whoever."

5) Text

The text is always intelligible, never obscured.


The Meditative Style

These five essential features of chant constitute a "meditative" style of sacred music. Of course not all chant from all times from all places conforms to these practices. There is scholarly debate what the norms were when and where. Nonetheless these features represent compositional practice and a unity of effect that makes them worthy of attention. These practices let the text in every way remain the center of the experience. This gives the text prime place and fosters meditation on it. The way in which any piece of sacred music diverges from these fundamentals is the degree to which something else enters the experience. That something is usually, a 1) stylistic trope of the age, 2) an affectation of the composer, 3) an attempt to dramatize the text.

Chant utilizes the unifying, transporting, and time-defying powers of music, music's most abstract properties, without adopting a discrete musical syntax (a syntax which varies from age to age, culture to culture, and so forth.) I say discrete because there is attention to musical fundamentals like pitch, pitch classes, intervals, cadences, and rhythm. Too there is of course room for composition, i.e. the choice of the composer in deciding on the most appropriate setting. Yet the text (its rhythmic demands and potential) and the text's function in the liturgy always dictate most. The text remains the essence of the musical language. Hence chant is most truly catholic, i.e. universal, and Catholic, i.e. of the Catholic Church, by being of its sacred texts. Music scholar Richard Hoppin described Gregorian Chant best as, "music in its purest state, fashioned with consumate skill, and perfectly adapted to its liturgical function." [2]

Musical fashions and fads, the personalities of composers, and even emotions themselves all constitute additions to the musical experience. In the future we will examine the way such departures affect the experience and consider which, if any, are justifiable or desirable.

–

[1] Beethoven's journal of 1818, quoted in The Creative World of Beethoven, ed. Paul Henry Lang. G. Schirmer Inc. 1970
[2] Hoppin, Richard H. Medieval Music. W. W. Norton. New York. 1978.


N. B. The above points have often been made but never as concisely and transparently as in Robert Greenberg's Great Courses class, "How to Listen to and Understand Great Music," which I highly recommend. See also,  Appel, "Gregorian Chant"  and Hoppin, "Medieval Music" for invaluable scholarship.

Of Smells and Bells

 "A cloud of incense is worth a thousand sermons"
 ---#2,551 of Don Colacho’s Aphorisms.

A Modest Proposal: Bach of a Sunday

"Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful."

--- The Republic of Plato, tr. by Benjamin Jowett

Of all the extraordinary human achievements in the arts, few can compete, in grandeur of conception and perfection of form, with the collected cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach. In the past, it was customary to overlook the cantatas in favor of the Passions and Oratorios, to relegate Bach's work-a-day cantatas to second place. Needless to say, I think that's a forced dichotomy: the cantatas ought to be studied for their own sake, not as also-rans but as integral part of Bach's musical cosmos.

When I lived in New York, I was fortunate enough to hear several cantatas in their proper liturgical context and as prescribed by the Lutheran church year. This fine opportunity was the work of Holy Trinity Lutheran Church (ELCA). (Holy Trinity's Bach Vespers were, incidentally, my conversion, or the beginning of my conversion, to authentic performance.)

As a believing and practicing catholic Christian, I never cease to wonder at the profundity of Bach's Incarnational art: any Christian could profitably meditate on both the libretto and the musical setting. And to do so would be as fine a Christian education as any man could procure today. (I leave to one side the question of how a non-believer could relate to the music, a vexing inquiry that cannot easily be answered either with pious platitudes or secular-aesthetic ratiocination.) In concert with the day's lectionary appointments, Bach's cantatas are a potent reflection on and elaboration of the Christian life. And as such, they might be commended to ordinary believers and clergy alike.

To that end and to show the way, I have vowed to listen, every Sunday and festal day, to one of the appointed cantatas.

It's a project that will take several years to complete. I may not have the opportunity or time to reflect on the experience here, every Sunday, but I will do so as often as I can. And with an eye to elucidating the theological significance of the work in question. Unhappily, I can't boast the theoretical knowledge of my co-blogger.

Today's cantata, appointed for the 17th Sunday after Trinity (lectionary readings are here), is BWV 114 Ach, lieben Christen, seid getrost (Ah, fellow Christians, be consoled). The English translation can be found here. I will be using Alfred Dürr's Cantatas of J.S. Bach as the source for my English translations and textual commentary.

And for the all-important recordings, I will be listening to Ton Koopman's Amsterdam Baroque Choir and Baroque Orchestra. Koopman is a fine and faithful interpreter of Bach's music: I am particularly impressed by the clarity and strength of tone he gets from his instrumentalists. An early (and not entirely unjustified) complaint about authentic practice performers was the weak sound: Koopman's ensemble is entirely innocent of such shortcomings, however. And his own personal enthusiasm for Bach's music is infectious.

An Unscientific Comparison of the Old and New Roman Lectionaries

I randomly selected a day in the Lenten calendar (Friday of the 3rd Week in Lent) to compare the readings in the ancient Roman liturgy and the liturgy of Pope Paul VI (my comments are below the readings):

First, the reading from the liturgy of Paul VI (appointed for last March 12):

"Thus says the LORD:
Return, O Israel, to the LORD, your God;
you have collapsed through your guilt.
Take with you words,
and return to the LORD;
Say to him, “Forgive all iniquity,
and receive what is good, that we may render
as offerings the bullocks from our stalls.
Assyria will not save us,
nor shall we have horses to mount;
We shall say no more, ‘Our god,’
to the work of our hands;
for in you the orphan finds compassion.”

I will heal their defection, says the LORD,
I will love them freely;
for my wrath is turned away from them.
I will be like the dew for Israel:
he shall blossom like the lily;
He shall strike root like the Lebanon cedar,
and put forth his shoots.
His splendor shall be like the olive tree
and his fragrance like the Lebanon cedar.
Again they shall dwell in his shade
and raise grain;
They shall blossom like the vine,
and his fame shall be like the wine of Lebanon.

Ephraim! What more has he to do with idols?
I have humbled him, but I will prosper him.
“I am like a verdant cypress tree”–
Because of me you bear fruit!

Let him who is wise understand these things;
let him who is prudent know them.
Straight are the paths of the LORD,
in them the just walk,
but sinners stumble in them."

Now, for the lesson appointed in the usus antiquior:

"In those days, the children of Israel, and all the multitude came into the desert. And the people wanting water, came together against Moses and Aaron: And making a sedition, they said: "Would God we had perished among our brethren before the Lord." And Moses and Aaron leaving the multitude, went into the tabernacle of the covenant, and fell flat upon the ground, and cried to the Lord, and said. "O Lord God, hear the cry of this people, and open to them thy treasure, a fountain of living water, that being satisfied, they may cease to murmur." And the glory of the Lord appeared over them. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Take the rod, and assemble the people together, thou and Aaron thy brother, and speak to the rock before them, and it shall yield waters. And when thou hast brought forth water out of the rock, all the multitude and their cattle shall drink." Moses therefore took the rod, which was before the Lord, as he had commanded him, And having gathered together the multitude before the rock, he said to them: "Hear, ye rebellious and incredulous: Can we bring you forth water out of this rock?" And when Moses bad lifted up his hand, and struck the rock twice with the rod, there came forth water in great abundance, so that the people and their cattle drank, And the Lord said to Moses and Aaron: "Because you have not believed me, to sanctify me before the children of Israel, you shall not bring these people into the land, which I will give them." This is the Water of contradiction, where the children of Israel strove with words against the Lord, and he was sanctified in them."

The Gospel appointed in the Liturgy of Paul VI:

'One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him,
“Which is the first of all the commandments?”
Jesus replied, “The first is this:
Hear, O Israel!
The Lord our God is Lord alone!
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul,
with all your mind,
and with all your strength.
The second is this:
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
There is no other commandment greater than these.”
The scribe said to him, “Well said, teacher.
You are right in saying,
He is One and there is no other than he.
And to love him with all your heart,
with all your understanding,
with all your strength,
and to love your neighbor as yourself
is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”
And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding,
he said to him,
“You are not far from the Kingdom of God.”
And no one dared to ask him any more questions.'

The Gospel appointed in the usus antiquior:

At that time, Jesus cometh therefore to a city of Samaria, which is called Sichar, near the land which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. Now Jacob's well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well. It was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria, to draw water. Jesus saith to her: "Give me to drink." For his disciples were gone into the city to buy meats. Then that Samaritan woman saith to him: "How dost thou, being a Jew; ask of me to drink, who am a Samaritan woman? For the Jews do not communicate with the Samaritans." Jesus answered and said to her: "If thou didst know the gift of God and who he is that saith to thee: Give me to drink; thou perhaps wouldst have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water." The woman saith to him: "Sir, thou hast nothing wherein to draw, and the well is deep. From whence then hast thou living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank thereof, himself and his children and his cattle?" Jesus answered and said to her: "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but he that shall drink of the water that I will give him shall not thirst for ever. But the water that I will give him shall become in him a fountain of water, springing up into life everlasting." The woman said to him: "Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst, nor come hither to draw." Jesus saith to her: "Go, call thy husband, and come hither." The woman answered and said: "I have no husband." Jesus said to her: "Thou hast said well: I have no husband. For thou hast had five husbands: and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband. This, thou hast said truly." The woman saith to him: "Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers adored on this mountain: and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where men must adore." Jesus saith to her:"Woman, believe me that the hour cometh, when you shall neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, adore the Father. You adore that which you know not: we adore that which we know. For salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. For the Father also seeketh such to adore him. God is a spirit: and they that adore him must adore him in spirit and in truth." The woman saith to him: "I know that the Messias cometh (who is called Christ): therefore, when he is come, he will tell us all things." Jesus saith to her: "I am he, who am speaking with thee." And immediately his disciples came. And they wondered that he talked with the woman. Yet no man said: "What seekest thou?" Or: "Why talkest thou with her?" The woman therefore left her waterpot and went her way into the city and saith to the men there: "Come, and see a man who has told me all things whatsoever I have done. Is not he the Christ?" They went therefore out of the city and came unto him. In the mean time, the disciples prayed him, saying: "Rabbi, eat." But he said to them: "I have meat to eat which you know not." The disciples therefore said one to another: "Hath any man brought him to eat?" Jesus saith to them: "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, that I may perfect his work. Do not you say: There are yet four months, and then the harvest cometh? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and see the countries. For they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages and gathereth fruit unto life everlasting: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. For in this is the saying true: 'That it is one man that soweth, and it is another that reapeth.' I have sent you to reap that in which you did not labour. Others have laboured: and you have entered into their labours."Now of that city many of the Samaritans believed in him, for the word of the woman giving testimony: "He told me all things whatsoever I have done." So when the Samaritans were come to him, they desired that he would tarry there. And he abode there two days. And many more believed in him, because of his own word. And they said to the woman: "We now believe, not for thy saying: for we ourselves have heard him and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world."


Now, leaving aside all questions of translation (another vexing problem in the Roman liturgy, despite the fact that everyone else seems to do a bang-up job of it), the choice of these texts in the respective lectionaries make a good case for what I'm trying to argue: that the modern Roman lectionary is deficient hermeneutically, in its ability to typologically relate the Old Testament to the New Testament. In the readings appointed in the missal of Paul VI, we have lovely readings, and yes, there's an inner logic that guides the selection and correlation of these two readings. But it's not a correlation hallowed by tradition. In fact, one gets the impression that any other OT reading, on a similar theme, might have sufficed (and in fact, in a different year [I'm not clear on whether the Gospel readings in Lent change according to the cyclical year] the Old Testament reading might very well be different.

What's interesting is that my Roman missal (1962), published by Baronius Press quite recently (but probably an edited reprint of an older edition) explicitly mentions, in the marginal notes above the readings, the typological significance of the rock (that gives forth water, at the intercession of Moses and Aaron): "During the forty years passed in the desert, Moses and Aaron asked God to bring forth from the rock (a figure of Jesus Christ) a spring of living water, so that all the people could quench their thirst." And about the Gospel, the commentator writes, "During these forty days of Lent, the Church entreats our Lord Jesus Christ to give us the living water about which He spoke to the woman of Samaria near Jacob's well, the water which quenches the thirst of our souls forever." Now these two brief comments, strung together in a moment's sermon, draw a satisfying parallel between the OT and NT reading. No verbose homily is required; perhaps no homily at all is required, especially not if the worshiper has attended the liturgy long enough to come to know the Lenten readings and recognize the typological significance of the OT reading. This kind of experience of the mass of Paul VI is almost impossible, however, since the readings change from year to year, destroying the integrity of the liturgical year and disrupting the ability of even the most devoted Mass-attendee to follow the logic of the lectionary.

Finally, it's significant that the editorship of the ancient Roman lectionary was popularly believed to be the work of ST. JEROME. The work of editing or revising a liturgy is tied up inextricably in the Christian past with outstanding sanctity of life: it's why we attribute our liturgies, rightly or wrongly, to saints. This holds true for the East, and for the West, until the Reformation, and in the Roman Church, until the publication of the missal of Paul VI.

Abraham and the Triune God

(I wrote this little piece for a parish newsletter. It's a slight piece, but I hope it contributes to a better understanding and appreciation of the wonderful biblical exegesis of the Fathers.) 

The Old Testament reading (Gen. 18: 1-3) that I took as my material for today's little meditation offers me an opportunity to sketch out a Christ-ological (a fancy theological word; it just means 'things having to do with Christ') reading of the Old Testament. Theology exists, or ought to exist, solely for the purpose of worship. If theological reflection does not lead us to prayer, it has failed in its purpose and should be cast aside as useless, and perhaps even dangerous. But now to the text itself!

“And the LORD appeared unto Abraham in the plains of Mamre, as he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day; And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and, behold, three men stood by him. And when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground. And Abraham said, My LORD, if now I have found favor in your sight, pass not away, I pray you, from your servant.”

I suspect that this little drama has largely been passed over in many an individual's reading of Genesis; it's not nearly as well known as the events that follow. But this episode in the life of Abraham is what ancient Christian writers called a 'type.' A 'type' is an event in the Old Testament that foreshadows Christian doctrine. St. Paul uses this kind of interpretation in his letters. For instance, in his Epistle to the Galatians (4:21-31) he adopts Hagar and Sarah as 'types' or symbols of the synagogue and church; early Christians, following the Apostle's lead, enthusiastically adopted his method. Two brief examples: Cyprian, a 3rd century bishop, interpreted Noah's Ark to be a 'type' of the Church (St. Peter in his First Epistle [3:20-21] adopts the Ark as a 'type' of baptism), and Ambrose of Milan, a 4th century bishop and theologian, interpreted the marriage of Rebecca and Isaac as a 'type' of Christ's mystical union with His spouse, the Church. If it helps, you might think of this kind of interpretation as an ancient counterpart to C.S. Lewis' allegorical re-telling of the Christian story in the Chronicles of Narnia. In those wonderful stories, Lewis re-imagines events in the life of Christ and dresses them up in new clothes: he allegor-izes the Christian story, using Aslan and his sacrificial death on the Stone Table to represent the death and resurrection of Christ. For his storytelling, Lewis is beloved of modern Christians. For ancient Christians, the Old Testament was similarly beloved and beloved for similar reasons. There, Christ was always peering out in veiled disguise, preparing the world for his Incarnation.

At Mamre, Abraham, as the Scriptures say, met the Lord. This passage must indeed be puzzling to Jews, but for Christians, it allows but for one interpretation. The Lord, appearing in the guise of three angels, is a 'type' of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. To Abraham, God was One (as He is to millions of Jews and Muslims), but for Christians, that's only true insofar as we believe that God is One in Three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When God revealed Himself to Abraham, He revealed Himself as the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. But revelation doesn't stop there. It continues with Moses who officiates at God's covenant with Israel, and with her judges, prophets, and priests. But like lightning from a clear sky, the New Testament, the record of Christ's incarnation, earthly ministry, death, and resurrection, reveals that God is not simply and only One; He is a mystery, a communion of three persons, and wonder of wonders, one of those divine persons, the Word, has taken flesh. Furthermore, his Crucifixion and Resurrection have reconciled us to the Father; and His gift of the Holy Spirit ensures the perpetuation of His grace and love in our midst until the end of the world.

Gregory of Nazianzen, a theologian of the 4th century, writes of God's revelation: “It was necessary to proceed by successive perfectings, by 'degrees'; it was necessary to advance from radiance to radiance, through ever more luminous movements of advance, in order that the light of the Trinity might finally be seen to shine forth.” And a modern theologian, Jean Danielou, writes, “The whole history of salvation may be considered as a gradual unveiling of the Trinity.”

When the Lord appeared to Abraham at Mamre, under the guise of three angels, He foreshadows his own revelation of Himself as Three-in-One. But preeminently, we ought to reflect, in this little episode, on Abraham's response: he runs to the Lord, bows down, and does worship. And he asks the Lord to stop with him and feast with him. Not even to Abraham did God confide his entire plan for the salvation of humanity, or the mystery of His own Triune nature, but it is our incomparable gift that we, so much the lesser than Abraham, should worship in spirit and truth the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-Man and the Revealer of God's mysteries. But this knowledge of the Triune God is a gift; we only possess it by virtue of God's own magnanimity, and we only possess it perfectly insofar as we make a gift of it ourselves. Let us too run forth to meet the Lord and bow down.

The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage

Conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner discusses his "Bach Cantata Pilgrimage" with his Monteverdi Choir and Orchestra. In 1999 Gardiner set out to perform all of the Master's extant church cantatas on the appointed feast day and all within a single year.

Bach is probably the only composer whose musical output is so rich, so challenging to the performers and so spiritually uplifting to both performer and listener alike, that one would gladly spend a year in his exclusive company.

–Sir John Eliot Gardiner

The Bach Cantata Pilgrimage

Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI
Total Time: about 60 minutes.
 

Political Theology: A Beginning (I)

As part of my interest in anti-liberal political philosophies, I'd like to draw the reader's attention to this BBC Radio 4 Beyond Belief program on Christian Socialism. The program features Dr. John Milbank, founding member of the Radical Orthodoxy movement. After listening to the program, I concluded that Milbank, while professing himself an English Christian Socialist, has more in common with European Christian democrats than with conventional socialists or even Christian socialists.(1) 

What are the sources of Christian democracy? This is not an easy question to answer: Christian democracy, like any political ideology, is diverse, with different and competing views. At its best, Christian democracy is rooted in the social encyclicals of Pope Leo XIII and Pius XI, Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno. At its worst, it's indistinguishable from left-wing liberalism (2), supportive of a central, bureaucratic state and none too sound on social questions, such as marriage, the family, and the dignity of the person. But what of the more acceptable version? Where are its roots located? What direction is it headed? What does it get right? What does it get wrong? And what lessons might it offer for American Christians? 

These are questions I'd like to consider and will do so by taking a closer look in future posts at some important texts from the Christian democratic tradition: the papal social documents, Radical Orthodox, Distributist and Catholic Worker texts, and the work of recent anti-liberal thinkers such as George Parkin Grant, David Schindler, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. If time permits, I may broaden my topic to include economic thinkers who are within the Christian democratic tradition, including Wilhelm Ropke and E.F. Schumacher. With the possible exception of Ropke, all of these thinkers and movements are fundamentally anti-liberal in outlook, preferring to locate the dignity of man not in Enlightenment views of individual autonomy but in man as the Imago Dei. Because American political philosophy and practice is rooted in the language of the Enlightenment, I shall, I suspect, have to devote some time and energy to adumbrating a Christian critique of classical liberalism. 

(1) For instance, the moderator of Beyond Belief calls Tony Blair a Christian socialist, an appellation that Milbank contests, and oddly, Wikipedia even lists the wildly anti-clerical Hugo Chavez as a Christian socialist.
(2) I hope it's become obvious that I'm not using the term 'liberal' in typical American fashion to necessarily denote a left-wing statist.

Return of the King?

Phil Lawler at Catholic Culture reports:

Today the Vatican announced that Pope Benedict XVI met with "His Royal Imperial Highness Otto von Hapsburg, archduke of Austria." The Vatican protocol office thereby conferred upon the Austrian visitor a title that he himself had renounced.

The heir to the storied Hapsburg dynasty, Otto von Hapsburg is the son of Blessed Karl, the last acknowledged ruler of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Although he was forced from the throne and died in exile, Karl I never abdicated. Otto did renounce his claim to the Austrian throne, as a condition for being allowed to return to his native land. He has been prominent in European politics for decades. Now approaching his 100th birthday, he has stepped away from public life, and in more candid moments has admitted that he regrets renouncing his claims-- even though he made it quite clear that he was renouncing only his own personal claims, not those of his heirs.

Msgr. Albacete contra Christopher Hitchens

On a related bibliographic note, Dr. David Bentley Hart, an Orthodox theologian, has published a book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and its Fashionable Enemies, to counter some of the claims made by the New Atheist authors. Dr. Hart was featured in the July/August volume of the Mars Hill Audio Journal, where he discussed his book and the New Atheism: the interview, however, is only available to subscribers.

(N.B. I cannot recommend the Mars Hill Journal highly enough: consistently high quality, it's worth the price of the subscription.)

Joseph Haydn's "Missa in Angustiis" Part II

This is part two of a two-part essay on Joseph Haydn's "Missa in Angustiis." Part I.

8) Sanctus

The Sanctus is comprised of two parts, the first being an adagio of Sanctus Dominus Deus Sabbaoth. Haydn here achieves a gentle majesty for this most solemn part of the liturgy. A forzando, crescendo, and decrescendo on the first two repetitions of Sanctus create breadth and, starting on the third repetition, the strings pulsing out eighth notes on the beat creates an aura of stateliness. The third repetition is forte but the chorus quickly retreats to piano. The overall impression of this adagio is of an exuberance restrained by awe, a balance difficult to achieve, to say the least. Stephen Town is quite right to say:

The tempo here requires a very poised, deliberate pace, so that the three choral Sanctus invocations may unfold fully, and the ensuing orchestral material may attain its appropriate espressivo character. [1]

In D major and in 3/4 time the following allegro is of an exuberance far less restrained, although it retains a certain regalness. The text, pleni sunt coeli et terra, gloria tua, is repeated only twice before the chorus erupts into a flurry of Hosannas, dynamically contrasted with forte and piano markings.

9) Sanctus: Benedictus

This movement begins with just over 30 bars of orchestral prelude. Also in D minor, it brings back the martial quality of the Kyrie. Strophic in construction, the movement proceeds with the text (broken into two units: benedictus qui venit and in nomine domini), traded back and forth between a soloist and the tutti. The phrases take on different characters in their repetitions, forceful in its first appearance in the solo soprano, then quite gentle. In the third repetition, the alto soprano takes up the phrase, but the tension increases as the other soloists make their entrances on different measures. The fourth repetition is the same as the first, though the half-notes in the tutti on the Do- of Domini are replaced by rising and falling eight note figures in all but the tenors. The last repetition is a mix of the two sentiments with a preparation of the return of the martial atmosphere with the three-note trumpet figure. The tutti enters forte, followed by a heart-stopping chord forte from the orchestra, and an equally strong final repetition of in nomine domine from the tutti.

10) Sanctus: Osanna

This Osanna is contains the same material from the Osanna following the Sanctus.

11) Agnus Dei

The similarities between parts of this movement and other portions of this mass are significant and not due to any lack of originality. Rather the congruities serve to unify the parts of the mass by quoting its elements and focusing them around the concepts of Agnus Dei, qui tolis peccata mundi, and miserere nobis. 

12) Agnus Dei: Dona nobis

Where the last movement ends with only the soloists completing the personal plea dona nobis, here the chorus joyfully takes it up. As if being catapulted up, we hear a note on the timpani and then the altos enter forte in D, followed by the tenors, basses, and sopranos for a glorious choral fugue and finale.

III. Conclusion

Overshadowed by Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven's grand sacred pieces, I think the Missa in Angustiis is still relatively overlooked despite its conception in Haydn's prime. I have passed through several phrases in my opinion regarding this mass. I had much enjoyed it before studying it, grew to see it as in imperfect synthesis of classical era taste and the sacred tradition, and finally, now, enjoy a more nuanced appreciation. For example, no, the Kyrie does not call forth the supernatural, elemental forces that Mozart's do, and the terror of such things, but it does recall an earthly terror, perhaps that of a man who knew a besieged homeland and a war-torn Europe. The celebratory movements, e.g. the Gloria, Osanna, and Dona nobis balance an overflow of praise and enthusiasm with a wonder of that which is being praised.

To conclude our discussions as to whether this piece is a good mass as well as good music, we perhaps must draw one more distinction, that between creating a setting of a text, i.e. creating musical analogues for the words, and creating a text for liturgical use. Tovey noted this distinction comparing Bach's B Minor Mass and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. [2] In the Missa in Angustiis, despite some particular themes I consider misplaced, we largely have a structure largely appropriate to a mass. It does not introduce the problem of scale that the Missa Solemnis presents us with, nor does it possess a movement, like the Sanctus of Bach's B minor mass, which is more of a setting than a liturgically-usable expression of the text. Overall, I think Rosen exaggerates in condemnation. Wherever classical era playfulness or Haydn's exuberance might have undesirably crept in, the Missa in Angustiis, with its turns terrifying, solemn, and exulting, is a glorious mass.

–

[1] Town, Stephen. Sacred Music. "Joseph Haydn's Missa in Angustiis" Volume 11, Number 2 (Summer) 1983.

[2] Tovey, Donald Francis. Essays in Musical Analysis Vol. V Vocal Music. "Essay CCVIII. Missa Solemnis, Op. 123." Oxford University Press. London. 1937.

Joseph Haydn's "Missa in Angustiis" Part I

aka The Lord Nelson Mass. Hob. XXII:11

I. Introduction

What makes a good mass? (Musically speaking.) Such is not a question I had pondered until this past summer and a discussion with my esteemed co-blogger. Surely there are many masses (i.e. musical compositions set to the form of a mass) filled with great genius and beautiful music, but how effective are they as masses? Is the music appropriate to the text? I decided to explore this question and, owing to my enthusiasm for it, began studying Joseph Haydn's "Missa in Angustiis" aka Lord Nelson Mass in the context of this question. I was initially aghast to read Charles Rosen's somewhat strong words on the topic in his excellent book, The Classical Style. He remained quite unconvinced that Haydn and Mozart had successfully reconciled the "classical style" with the liturgical tradition and that to do so "was left to Beethoven." [Rosen. p.373] Without debating that obviously larger point, let us look at this mass in particular and consider "Is this is a good mass as well as a good musical composition?"

• Mass of the Roman Rite - Latin/English
• Recording with the English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner. [Amazon]
• Recording with the American Bach Soloists conducted by Jeffrey Thomas. [Magnatune]
• Vocal Score. 
• "Joseph Haydn's Missa in Angustiis: History, Analysis, and Performance Suggestions" in Sacred Music (Volume 110, Number 2, Summer 1983) [PDF]
  

II. Ordinary of the Mass

1) Kyrie

The D-minor opening of this movement sets the tone for the Kyrie and this movement most lives up to the theme of angustiis. More specifically than anguished though, this movement has an especially martial character, particularly the opening theme on the timpani and trumpets. The chorus then enters in unison not with a traditionally supplicative manner but rather in a terrifying forte. A brief passage for the soloists is then overtaken by a fugue, frighteningly effective in conveying a multitude of voices crying out for mercy. Here and there a soloist will rise above the grieving chorus only to be swallowed up again. The movement concludes with the first theme on timpani.

2) Gloria: Gloria in excelsis Deo

The music for this section of the Gloria could not be in starker contrast to that of the Kyrie and this movement is certainly free from the theme of angustiis. The suffering of man does not interfere with glorifying God. Joyous music like this is perhaps most characteristic, or most associated with, Haydn and it is especially brilliant here. We begin in D major with a soprano solo of Gloria in excelsis Deo, but she only sings it once before the choir joins her in jubilation. She begins again but this time the choir cuts her off in the middle with more Glorias. She continues solo once more but just before she finishes her phrase again the choir bursts in singing Gloria!

Et in terra pax hominibus is performed almost exclusively by the bass and tenor, with repetitive emphasis on the bonae of bonae voluntatis. The tutti returns with three short phrases with crescendos on the middle of each phrase, suggesting a supplicative bowing:

laudamus te, benedicimus te adoramus te

we adore you we give you thanks we adore you

while the strings play an urgent four-note phrase over and over creating a sense of nervous urgency as the vocalists try to praise God with mere words. With the same weight of the previous three phrases, the treble voices enter with Glo-ri-fi-ca only to be cut off by the entrance of the bass voices. The chorus finishes Glorificamus te and then repeats the above three-part praise (laudamus te, et cetera) but forzando and with te only in the basses and tenors.

The rest of the Gloria is treated to the same melody and taken up by either the treble or bass soloists, with the subsequent section taken by the tutti. The movment concludes with a Patris from the tutti, but the strings and trumpets finish out the melody.

3) Gloria: Qui Tollis

The jubilant tone of the preceding movement is gently shaken off by the first note in the strings. A beautiful bass solo for Qui tollis peccata mundi follows, but a curious theme comes next. Curious insofar as it seems extraordinarily casual a setting for qui tollis peccata mundi. Rosen wrote that the late 18th century tradition of religious music was relatively incoherent and such incoherence led to "effects of a peculiar irrelevancy." Once again, I was outraged at first reading of that statement, but came to agree. If not wholly in appropriate, this theme certainly is of imperfect relevance to the text. Likewise the theme on the organ after the tutti enter with their first miserere nobis feels similarly out of place. The rest of the movement is effective, with the soloists singing of Christ as sedes ad dexteram Patris while the tutti penitently repeats deprecationem nostram or miserere nobis.

4) Gloria: Quoniam tu solus

The first theme from the Gloria returns at the end, here at the Quoniam.  The movement contains some more expository material of the text, with the solo soprano declaring quoniam tu solus sanctus and the chorus following in reinforcement. In hushed tones the choir announces, cum sancto Spiritu in gloria Dei Patris before the basses burst in forte reinforcing. Allegro again also, this movement moves with a joyous swiftness before ending in a cavalcade of amens and glorias which functions as an act finale.

5) Credo: Credo in unum Deum

The Credo takes the form of a canon with sopranos and tenors entering first, followed by the altos and basses singing same one bar later. The effect of the structure of a canon upon the Credo, by nature a personal statement of faith, is the sense of many simultaneously professing their faith. The canon was also a traditional method of representing the fixedness of the faith, the repetitions emphasizing its timelessness. [Stauffer pp. 101]

Wisely Haydn chose to end the movement at descendit de coelis. He has the voices repeat the phrase many times until he brings them all together on coelis and holding them up there with a fermata until last neatly descending and landing back at D at de coelis, ready to move onto Christ's incarnation.

6) Credo: Et in carnatus est

The atmosphere of this movement is not dissimilar from the same passage in Mozart's C minor mass. They share an aura of great gentleness, sweetness, and purity. This sentiment is in many ways appropriate, but is it entirely? Indeed, what music is appropriate, i.e. what could possibly be appropriate, for such an event?

In the Missa Pange lingua of des Prez, it is sung without affectation of any kind. In Bach's B minor Mass it is spoken with a hushed tone amidst an atmosphere of great mystery. I consider Beethoven's setting the most appropriate but describing it here is beyond the focus of this essay. Let us return to Haydn.

After the instrumental exposition of the melody, the soprano soloist sings

Et incarnatus est de Spiritu sancto, ex Maria Virgine et homo factus est.

and the chorus follows and repeats it. The chorus continues forte describing the crucifixion with surprisingly little adornment other than being doubled by the strings. Emphasizing that Christ died for us, and also perhaps his falling on the road to Calvary, there is a drop of an octave and new five-note figure in the strings on no-bis.

The tutti continues piano, singing sub Pontio Pilato as the timpani plays five times an intimidating five-note figure, recalling both the mass' martial theme and atmosphere of angustiis, and Christ's march to his crucifixion. The solos take over the material now, the bass repeating sub Pontio Pilato and the tenor repeating crucifixus passus passus et sepultus est as the alto repeats, pro nobis, for us.

The movement ends pianissimo, with writing for the bass full of pathos:

and an especially hushed sepultus est recalling Christ being buried in the tomb.

7) Credo: Et resurexit

I do not know that this movement gets off to the best of starts. Perhaps due to some limitation on my part it seems overly harsh for a setting of The Resurrection and the music seems to tumble out of the gate, with everyone singing the initial et then the tenors resurrexit, then the basses and then the altos and sopranos following suit. There also seems to be a great emphasis on many of the "et"s throughout the movement as well. Naturally this is an inherent difficulty of setting this text to music. The choice seems to be to use them as punctuation or to attempt not to draw attention to them. Haydn seems to pursue the former path on most occasions, with the result they seem to entertain an undue distinction a number of times in this movement.

Compared to the dance-like celebration of Bach's B minor Mass and the heart-stopping entry in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis I do not consider this opening especially effective. (I likewise consider the "et Resurrexit" of Haydn's own Missa brevis Sancti Joannis de Deo in B-flat major (Hob.XXII:7) to be more effective.)

The movement quickly finds its way, though, and goes on to establish a joyous, even rollicking, inertia. The entrance of the tenors announces cuius regni non erit finis and the staggered entrances of the rest of the choir and the many repetitions of non erit finis beautifully emphasize the endlessness of God's kingdom and the emphases on non assert the believer's confidence in that fact. Once again the theme after prophetas seems most out of place to me and would be more at home in an opera or serenade. Perhaps it is a certain dullness or stuffiness on my part that finds the theme distracting behind et unam sanctam Catholican et Apostolicam ecclesiam instead of joyfully adorning the text about the Catholic Church. Lastly the soprano ends, announcing et vitam venturi saeculi in quite operatic fashion. It is nonetheless glorious and the entrance functions like a messenger bringing great news, "the life of the world to come." The tutti repeats the verse and concludes with a string of amens and a fluttering tune in the strings balancing a certain regalness  and playfulness that here is most welcome upon hearing the good news.

Part II

–

Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style. W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. New York, NY. 1971.

Stauffer, George B. Bach: The Mass in B Minor. Yale University Press. New Haven. 1997.

Dvorak and the Stabat Mater

The next two weeks in the liturgical calendar contain feasts common both to East and West: the Nativity of the Virgin Mary on the 8th and the Exaltation of the Cross on the 14th, but the day following Holy Cross Day, the 15th, commemorates the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary, a feast peculiar to the Catholic Church. 

The Tridentine rite of the Catholic Church, now commonly known as the Extraordinary form of the Roman Mass, contains a variable part known as the Sequence: largely disused and abandoned in the modern rite, the Sequence was a poetic hymn inserted between the reading of the Epistle and the Gospel. Perhaps the most famous Sequence is the Dies Irae, one of the signature elements of the Requiem Mass: Mozart and Verdi, inter alia, composed justly famous versions.


The Sequence for the the feast of the Seven Sorrows (Sept. 15th) is Jacopone da Todi's Stabat Mater. Like the Dies Irae, the Stabat Mater is a fine example of medieval Latin poetry. The Sequence, as a portion of the Mass, had both a didactic and devotional purpose: its ejection (or attempted ejection) from the modern rite is one of only many flaws in the contemporary Roman liturgy. 


As a devotional hymn, the Stabat Mater is surely meant to evoke an attitude of contrition in the listener: the poetry itself pictures the distressed Mother of God witnessing the agonies of her son's death. This kind of dramatic imagery' was doubtless intended to summon similar feelings 

The Flemish Josquin des Prez and the Italian Palestrina both wrote polyphonic versions of the Stabat Mater, but my personal favorite is Antonin Dvorak's, the Czech composer of the late 19th century. Composed after the unsettling deaths of two of his children, the work is suffused with an intense feeling of fellow suffering, the subject matter by no means remote to the grief-stricken father and family man. 


The extract below, Quando Corpus Morietur, is the last stanza of the Stabat Mater:

Quando corpus morietur,
Fac, ut animæ donetur
Paradisi Gloria.
Amen

When my body dies
Grant that to my soul is given
The glory of paradise.
Amen

I'd urge the would-be listener to acquire another version, if possible, of this fine piece: the above example is insufficient to the task. And if Dvorak's Stabat Mater piques your interest, do listen to his unfortunately little known Requiem.