If great music lifts the mind and heart, and if, as I believe, poor and predictable music keeps the mind from transcending the workaday world, what do we make of the middle case, that is to say, hymns?
Hymn tunes are somewhat predictable, easily memorized. The chordal structure is simple. In other words, they can be comprehended--surrounded and domesticated. A hymn tune, once learned, has an engaging simplicity similar to a folk tune. If the tune is one of those domesticated by Vaughan Williams, it probably actually is a folk tune.
So the question is: is music that is so easily tamed able to engage and elevate the mind? Is it food for the soul?
Is the association that a hymn tune maintains with holy words and theology enough to lift it and give it elevating power?
Why does the Bible encourage us to sing to one another in psalms, hymns, and inspired songs?
Why does it encourage us to sing a new song?
Let me put this another way. The theme from Beethoven's 3rd, the Eroica, is very predictable after a first hearing. Does it stir the soul less after one has learned it?
Could there be a music that is ever fresh?
Singing itself is almost like flying, rising up to God; it is in some way an anticipation of eternity when we will be able to "unceasingly sing God's praise." Pope Benedict XVI
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There grew a vine-shoot on my tongue: and increased and reached unto heaven, And it yielded fruit without measure: leaves likewise without number. It spread, it stretched wide, it bore fruit: all creation drew near, And the more they were that gathered: the more its clusters abounded. These clusters were the Homilies; and these leaves the Hymns. God was the giver of them: glory to Him for His grace! For He gave to me of His good pleasure: from the storehouse of His treasures. Saint Ephrem
10 comments:
Dear Ephrem,
I will ask this of you. We have a liturgical cycle of readings (biennially for weekdays, triennially for Sundays). We can predict and memorize them with ease. Are they ever fresh?
Or perhaps we ought to examine the Liturgy of the Hours. The psalms and canticles repeat monthly. Are they ever fresh?
We know them, we find them comforting. They may not be "the next best thing", and for that I am glad. They are "comfort food" for the soul.
Br. AJK,
Scripture is, of course, ever new.
But is there any music that approaches the same perennial freshness?
Great post, with great questions. In honor of the Ascension, I offer this contemplation (with plans to sing it to "Aurelia"):
O Viri Galilei,
Why stand you in dismay?
For Christ the Lord, your Savior,
Will come again one day.
Just as you see Him rising
So will He then descend
As King of earth and heaven.
To Him all knees shall bend.
And sooner still He’ll send you
A Comforter, Most Blest,
With sev’nfold gifts to greet you,
And in your souls take rest.
Thus by the Spirit strengthened,
All nations you will claim
For Christ’s Eternal Kingdom,
One in His Holy Name.
So Omnes Gentes come now
To clap your hands and sing
With joy and exultation
To see your risen King.
Hosanna, Alleluia!
All glory to our God,
Who was, and is, and shall be,
Now and forevermore.
RCK
Dear Ephrem,
You pose a question whose answer is probably ephemeral. Do you want freshness or comfort? I think I want the comfort vs. the freshness. We all have foods we crave at some point in time (comfort food). Perhaps we ought to be content with that.
The folk/hymn melody is, in a sense, that comfort music, if you will. We instinctively know it, yet we do get variations on it (various settings). Indeed, the beauty of music is that it is ever new because one performance is not the same as the next. Music, as opposed to architecture or some of the other arts, is here and gone. True, we have recordings, score, etc., but never again will we have the exact one again.
With this said, Ephrem, I will say that we do have cases in which music fails to transcend time. The music that has transcended time is our heritage. We are in a period where the hymnody has much good but much bad. We need to separate the wheat from the chaff. Some things we instinctively know are from, say, the 1970s from listening to them. Others, the timeless ones, we have difficulty placing.
OK, I babbles here. Maybe something will work here.
RCK,
Thanks! I love it!
Bro,
Keep thinking. These things are very difficult to analyze and express but I think it's an important task.
RCK, is that your work?
Is it placed in the public domain?
I LOVE the macaronic text (the 2nd verse could use a word or phrase of Latin or Greek...;o))
Much thanks for initiating these discussions, Ephrem.
They are subjects that occupy my thoughts a great deal, but I struggle to find principles, something consistent by which to predict or explain why some music, movies, texts, plays, bear endless repetition, seem ever new.... and others tire one very quickly.
My husband and I were mulling over the criteria by which pulitzers are awarded (bear with me, this does relate....) and the fact that, of the musicals that have won one for stage, at least two seem quaint and hopelessly dated, and one, South Pacific, feels simply timeless, despite its plot being utterly dependant on a particular historic event.
(The day after the conversation, there was a column in the NY Times, on a different matter altogether, but which referenced a current revival of South Pacific, and how fresh and immediate it was for audiences, so others have the same reaction to it.)
I think the extraordinary skill of R & H has something to do with it, but I also wonder if intent doesn't, as well. I think they were more interested in exploring the human condition than in exploring current events or currently fashionable mores and attitudes.
"Progressive" liturgists and musicians of the post-conciliar period are on record as saying that some creations are intended to be ephemeral, of-the-moment.
Nothing gets dull so quickly as the cutting edge...
(Of course, that could be excuses after the fact, of COURSE it was shoddy, we MEANT it to be disposable....)
But genuine folk music, what Thomas Day called, IIRC, "homely hymns," can, ISTM, exhibit the same kind of timelessness as transcendant fine art.
Perhaps the trick is that it is never "tamed" as you put it, it is more like the wild animal that condescends to tolerate your company but is never domesticated, is not "owned" by you anymore than by anyone else.
I believe that there are some few hymn tunes that are powerful, and often these are simple enough to admit of endless possibilities, the way the greatest chants are powerful.
Too many words, I know, this probably makes little sense...
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Scelata,
Thanks for the kind words. I did it myself, by the grace of God, and you're certainly free to use or change it as you see fit.
It started as an exercise to try to reorient the congregation to some of the traditional introits, etc., without overwhelming them. The use of maceronic text just seemed like a natural fit with "Viri Galilei". With the feast's incarnational elements, I also thought it might bring to mind to the congregation something like "In Dulci Jubilo". In a happy accident, you might notice it can sung to the verse of "God Rest You Merry Gentlemen" (and I deliberately constructed the first two sentences to try to reinforce the associations to the Nativity).
I love your idea about adding another key Lation/Greek word/phrase to the second verse. Any ideas?
It was an interesting exercise that I might try again (Wonder what I could do with something like "Quasimodo.."?).
Ephrem, is there anything you can tell us about the use of maceronic text generally? Maybe there's something in it that would make it a useful tool for our own times.
RCK
RCK,
This is something I wrote about macaronic texts: http://hymnographyunbound.blogspot.com/2007/07/in-dulci-jubilo.html
What do you think is the poetic effect of macaronic texts?
Thanks. Let me think about it for awhile. I was thinking most of the potential catechetical effect, without considering the poetic implications.
RCK
P.S. I suspect I will be unable to describe it better than you: "The effects include the delight of surprise, the joy of rediscovering an understanding that surpasses the bounds of a single language, and exuberance in general. In Christian terms, it means the breaking down of the dividing wall that kept us apart: Jew and Gentile, Cretans and Scythians, Medes and Greeks. The curse of Babel gives way to the gift of tongues, in Him in Whom we find our salvation, and in His Holy Spirit."
Perhaps we should abandon the mere "bi-lingual" for "macaronic"?
RCK
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