Secular Music
Many Catholics who write about music tend to concentrate on the sacred, since this is an integral part of the liturgy and (as I will argue below) evangelical mission of the Church. Secular music (that is, music not intended to be sung or played in Church) has such a huge impact on most people's lives (whether Catholic or not, Christian or not) that it deserves some thought.
As I write this, I am listening to Mahler's Sixth Symphony, a work of great drama and (ultimately) tragedy; one can see why Mahler never composed operas, since he saw the orchestra (occasionally with choral forces) as capable of expressing the full range of human emotion. It begins and ends in utter darkness: driving 'cellos at the beginning; an almighty A minor chord from the full orchestra, followed by the timpani sounding like a death drum, with a final stroke from the strings, often compared to 'the final nail in the coffin'. There is a lot of warmth, humour and joy elsewhere, but the underlying theme is 'vanitas vanitatum, omnis vanitas' as Ecclesiastes puts it.
Now, this is but a summary of what can be said about this 90 minute piece of music; but can this much be written about most contemporary music? Do not misunderstand me: while I do not own any non-classical music, I am quite happy to listen to it, if it is inoffensive (increasingly difficult) and has some subtlety and complexity to its message. Such music can be found on radio stations such as Radio 2 , and Radio 3 (which, as you can imagine, is my favourite) does some good programmes on jazz, and I inifintely prefer this to the pap pumped out by Classic FM. That station does not generally promote anything outside the 'nice, relaxing' category of classical music, which is tremendously limiting, and so they have to constantly recycle the same tunes. In addition, being a commercial station, they must have advertisement breaks at regular intervals, which limits the length of any one piece to about 5 minutes, so a lot of music is presented as 'bleeding chunks': single movements or even parts of movements, giving no idea of the context in which they were intended to be heard.
All good art must challenge the viewer or listener; it should contain something out-of-the-ordinary, something to lift the mind from the mundane. For the Catholic, this 'other' must be God; the subject need not be explicitly religious, but it should not be anti-religious, and if it is ambiguous, one should be able to discern the 'divine spark' in it. This has to be the litmus test for all art, but especially music, since sound is more pervasive: it is easier to ignore an image than it is a sound.
Now, sacred music has a role to play in this; I would argue that the overall exposure of most people to it has not changed that much in the last half-century, but the context in which it is heard has shifted from the church to the concert hall. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it keeps sacred music alive at a time when few churches are using it liturgically. However, there is surely a golden opportunity for churches with the resources to put on 'concerts spirituels', religious concerts, to do so. There is definitely a secular audience for such music, and if it is heard in a religious environment, it will plant a seed of desire to hear it in its proper (liturgical) context. It could be a series of organ recitals, or an a capella group performing music by related composers, or a choir and orchestra singing a full-blown Mozart Mass (appropriate in this his anniversary year). It would depend on the financial resources of a church how often such things occur, but it is definitely a question of priorities: money from both the music and evangelism budgets could be put towards such an enterprise.
These are just musings, not an action plan for change: it will take a lot of hard lobbying at parish, diocesan and bishops' conference level to effect such change on a widespread level, but it bears thinking about.
Gratia Dei et intercessione Sanctae Genetricis suae, sim semper frater dilectus tuus in Christo,
Joannes
As I write this, I am listening to Mahler's Sixth Symphony, a work of great drama and (ultimately) tragedy; one can see why Mahler never composed operas, since he saw the orchestra (occasionally with choral forces) as capable of expressing the full range of human emotion. It begins and ends in utter darkness: driving 'cellos at the beginning; an almighty A minor chord from the full orchestra, followed by the timpani sounding like a death drum, with a final stroke from the strings, often compared to 'the final nail in the coffin'. There is a lot of warmth, humour and joy elsewhere, but the underlying theme is 'vanitas vanitatum, omnis vanitas' as Ecclesiastes puts it.
Now, this is but a summary of what can be said about this 90 minute piece of music; but can this much be written about most contemporary music? Do not misunderstand me: while I do not own any non-classical music, I am quite happy to listen to it, if it is inoffensive (increasingly difficult) and has some subtlety and complexity to its message. Such music can be found on radio stations such as Radio 2 , and Radio 3 (which, as you can imagine, is my favourite) does some good programmes on jazz, and I inifintely prefer this to the pap pumped out by Classic FM. That station does not generally promote anything outside the 'nice, relaxing' category of classical music, which is tremendously limiting, and so they have to constantly recycle the same tunes. In addition, being a commercial station, they must have advertisement breaks at regular intervals, which limits the length of any one piece to about 5 minutes, so a lot of music is presented as 'bleeding chunks': single movements or even parts of movements, giving no idea of the context in which they were intended to be heard.
All good art must challenge the viewer or listener; it should contain something out-of-the-ordinary, something to lift the mind from the mundane. For the Catholic, this 'other' must be God; the subject need not be explicitly religious, but it should not be anti-religious, and if it is ambiguous, one should be able to discern the 'divine spark' in it. This has to be the litmus test for all art, but especially music, since sound is more pervasive: it is easier to ignore an image than it is a sound.
Now, sacred music has a role to play in this; I would argue that the overall exposure of most people to it has not changed that much in the last half-century, but the context in which it is heard has shifted from the church to the concert hall. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it keeps sacred music alive at a time when few churches are using it liturgically. However, there is surely a golden opportunity for churches with the resources to put on 'concerts spirituels', religious concerts, to do so. There is definitely a secular audience for such music, and if it is heard in a religious environment, it will plant a seed of desire to hear it in its proper (liturgical) context. It could be a series of organ recitals, or an a capella group performing music by related composers, or a choir and orchestra singing a full-blown Mozart Mass (appropriate in this his anniversary year). It would depend on the financial resources of a church how often such things occur, but it is definitely a question of priorities: money from both the music and evangelism budgets could be put towards such an enterprise.
These are just musings, not an action plan for change: it will take a lot of hard lobbying at parish, diocesan and bishops' conference level to effect such change on a widespread level, but it bears thinking about.
Gratia Dei et intercessione Sanctae Genetricis suae, sim semper frater dilectus tuus in Christo,
Joannes
posted by John Simmonds at 5:43 PM
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