Mood Modality

I was looking through Bach's Orgelbüchlen for a chorale prelude to play on Eastertide. I was surprised by how almost every single chorale for the season and its resultant prelude was in a minor key. And then I was surprised at my surprise. This is a way in which Classical music since Bach has seriously damaged our conception of what modes can express. We naturally assume that if it's a happy occasion we need a major key and if it's a sad occasion we need a minor key. Lost is the notion of an exuberant, zippy, joyful, lusty, minor-keyed piece.

When asked by Stephen Pettitt why he took such a fast tempo on St. Matthew Passion's Kommt, ihr Töchter, Paul McCreesh replied, "All Bach's music, fast or slow, has an almost visceral connection with the dance. Why should we require the first chorus to be slow and solemn, when it is above all else celebratory? There's an almost ecstatic desire to share in the retelling of the Passion story."

This is another area where we need to war against the idea that the solemn and the joyous are mutually exclusive. All parts of the Christian life are required to be both, especially the liturgy.

Classical Music Is Dead, Part II

I'd like to clear up a few loose ends and objections that people have given me. This is an important premise in my larger argument for a return to the Medieval in composition (and a solution for the Church music crises).

Classical music is progressive. That's essential. But that's not the only thing that makes it classical. Something can be progressive and not classical. But something that isn't progressive is definitely not classical, no matter how hard it tries. Richard Wagner sounds very similar to John Williams sometimes. The difference is that Richard Wagner was from the 19th century and he leaned forward. John Williams is from the 20th century and he leans backwards. There is not enough in John Williams' music that is innovative in order for it, in a Classical setting, to be considered truly forward leaning. (As soundtrack music, I think he's extremely innovative and attention-arresting.)

There's a simple way to illustrate this - there are no composers who are considered universally classical that were not progressives and products of their time. An example of this would be, at random, Bach. It so happens Bach was extremely progressive. An example of this would not be a composer from the 20th century who was not progressive, because he would have to redefine what is historically the uniting principle of all Classical music in order to get his foot in the door.

But there are other things that make Classical music what it is. Classical music is an intentional expansion on the ideas of the Classical age. And by this, I do not mean Mozart, Salieri, and Haydn. I mean Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, who were asked by contemporaries the classical question, "What does it have to do with Dionysus?" The answer is, of course, that it has nothing to do with Dionysus. Classical is ars gratia artis - art for art's sake. It is secular. It is oriented around the stage, not Dionysus. It has nothing to do with the religious holidays anymore. It is now simply high drama for audiences in heels and ties. Or whatever they wore back then.

Classical music as we understand it is just this in a modern form. This can be shown clearly in the monodist movement of the 17th century. Monody was the birth of homophony, opera, and Classical music in its recognizable form. Their idea was not simply to nod back to Classical drama of ancient Greece but to manifest its rebirth and expand on its tradition. Out of this movement came a surge away from polyphony (music with many melodies) and towards the simpler homophony (music with one melody and some accompaniment) in high music.

This is why, properly speaking, anything before the rise of monodism or secular music in the West cannot be considered Classical music because it was not secular. It was religious. It answered the classical question posed above to Aeschylus differently - "It has everything to do with Dionysus." Or, more properly, Christ.

























(Theodore M. Finney, A History of Music. Revised Edition. New York, 1947. As much as his analysis is atrociously anachronistic in some areas, he provides a helpful chart for those interested in the shape of music between the 9th and 18th century.)

Objective Emotions

"For all their musike bothe that they [the Utopians] playe upon instrumentes, and that they singe with mannes voyce dothe so resemble and expresse naturall affections, the sound and tune is so applied and made agreeable to the thinge, that whether it bee a prayer, or els a dytty of gladnes, of patience, of trouble, of mournynge, or of anger: the fassion of the melody dothe so represente the meaning of the thing, that it doth wonderfullye move, stirre, pearce, and enflame the hearers myndes." (Sir Thomas More, Utopia, from Robert Donington, The Interpretation of Early Music, "Music as Expression", pg. 111.)

Qualifying the Contemporary

As much as we must always seek to embrace the contemporary in our worship services, this is no excuse for apathy in the writing or the hearing. This requires a cordial and firm rejection of, however effective, mindless Scripture songs or repetitive and shallow ditties in Sabbath worship. (Which isn't to say all Scripture songs are mindless, but why them when you have Goudimel?)

This is not to say that simple music has no place, or that complex music is alone suitable. As the Episcopalian Music for the Church Year: A Handbook for Clergymen, Organists, and Choir Directors admirably says, "A great deal of the best church music is simple and easy and can be performed acceptably on very small organs or by beginning organists. When there is so much good church organ music available, it is nothing short of sacrilege to offer less than the best to God. It is just as easy to learn good organ music as bad, so an organist should not waste his own time, detract from the service, and offend the musically sensitive by presenting that which is not up to the reasonable Church standards."

Qualitative and Quantitative

I cringe whenever "traditional" and "contemporary" are pitted against each other, since they really go together like a horse and carriage. You can't have one without the other. This misguided notion of their mutual exclusivity is because we think of "traditional" as a quantitative term and "contemporary" as a qualitative one. In reality, it's just the opposite.

"Traditional" usually means something like, how many years of dust have piled up on the manuscript. But it's not a question at all of how many but of what kind. Something is traditional because of the tradition it plugs itself into. On the other hand, contemporary usually means (especially to the traditionalist) new and, hence, cheap. But this is misguided as well. This can all be illustrated by the simple fact that J. S. Bach was contemporary when he was writing his music. Who says it isn't traditional?

Once we release ourselves from this false conception of the traditional and the contemporary, the whole situation becomes much simpler. The Scriptural mandate for "new songs" and contemporary music is inescapable. It now depends upon what kind of contemporary music. This necessitates a method, a theory, an education, an analysis, a science, and a tradition of its own that Church composers can plug themselves into. This will make them simultaneously traditional and contemporary composers.

So, you ask, that's all very nice, but what's the concrete side of this? What musical science and analysis and theory and education and tradition should we be composing new music in? The answer is obvious - a culture, with its worldviews, doctrines, and presuppositions, that can produce music like Josquin, Dufay, and Perotinus is one that must have a coherent, methodological approach to it. Why else would he be called Magister Perotinus? He teaches something. All we have to do is teach it once again.

One more comment on tradition and the qualitative definition. As much as it is a qualitative sort of thing, tradition is inescapable. No matter how revolutionary your music is, it is always in some sort of tradition. As much as many people would like to think ex nihilo Schoenberg fit, even he can be traced through Wagner through Beethoven through Bach, all the way back to Magister Perotinus. You may digress from tradition and you may even revolt from it, but in so doing, not only are you still being affected by it, but all that you'll do is revolt into a different tradition. It's still always tradition, though. This holds true for Schoenberg and for Zep.

So, it becomes even more important when we approach what usually passes for worship music in, say, PCA, OPC, PCUSA, and all those other Reformed denominations. What tradition is your music plugging itself into? What culture does it sound like it's coming out of? Does it sound like, if you took away the words, it would be a bad imitation of a mild (or not so mild) pop song? It should be terrifying to us that our music is always traditional when we analyze what tradition it came out of.

Tintinnabuli In Short

I can't possibly analyze Arvo Pärt well, let alone in one post. But here is a short introduction to the style that I think is proof of this return to the Medieval in High music. Here is an excellent article on the universality and "Bright Sadness" of Pärt's music, fitting for the season.

Tintinnabuli is derivative of the Latin word for "bells" and is essentially built off the interplay of two voices - one melodic and stepwise and one bell-like. "Tintinnabular". The main voice and the tintinnabular voice are the basic unit of Pärt's music, and he extends the logic in his grander and fuller pieces, creating a splendid diversity of emotion and expression. An example of the breath-taking potency in some of his sparser music is this section from the Kyrie of his Missa Sillabica.






You can see that the upper voice moves along the notes of a d-minor scale and the lower voice moves along the notes of a triad. This provides for considerable dissonance, but it's dissonance that you can, remarkably, only help but enjoy. Here is a sample of his Berliner Messe here.

The transcription of Missa Sillabica is done entirely by ear from "De Profundis" by Arvo Pärt, recorded by Paul Hillier and the Theatre of Voices.

Art as Adam's Commission

A quote of Birnbaum (the theological "mouthpiece" of J. S. Bach) from Christoph Wolff's introduction to Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician:

"The essential aims of true art are to imitate nature, and, where necessary, to aid it. If art imitates nature, then indisputably the natural element must everywhere shine through in works of art. Accordingly it is impossible that art should take away the natural element from those things in which it imitates nature - including music. If art aids nature, then its aim is to preserve it, and to improve its condition; certainly not to destroy it. Many things are delivered to us by nature in the most misshapen states, which, however, acquire the most beautiful appearance when they have been formed by art. Thus art lends nature a beauty it lacks, and increases the beauty it possesses. Now, the greater the art is - that is, the more industriously and painstakingly it works at the improvement of nature - the more brilliantly shines the beauty thus brought into being. Accordingly it is impossible that the greatest art should darken the beauty of a thing." (Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, pg. 5, "Prologue: Bach and the Notion of 'Musical Science'")

But what does Birnbaum mean? He perhaps believes the natural realm has been affected by the "total depravity" of man's sin. But could he mean when he says that nature delivers us things "in the most misshapen states" that there are things inherently in nature that need the aid of man's art? Is he suggesting the conceited, humanist notion that God needs help making creation "very good"?

Or perhaps this is simply Birnbaum's exegesis on Adam's commission in Genesis 2 to "subdue" or "rule" the land. As one Old Testament scholar puts it, "When God creates the world, it is all good, so Adam does not have to 'subdue' wicked enemies. Still, Adam has to work hard to subdue the world. Even before Adam sins, it is not easy to rule creation. Animals need training, tress are tough to cut, the earth is hard to dig, and rocks are hard to break... He is supposed to find new ways to use what God has made, so that the whole creation serves man more and more... Today, thousands of years later, we are still learning new ways to 'subdue' creation." (Peter J. Leithart, A House For My Name: A Survey of the Old Testament, pg. 51, "Book of Beginnings")

Simson on Nietzsche and Art

Von Simson also mentions, "for Nietzsche art is a lie, the consequence of the artist's heroic will to 'flee from "truth"' and to create the 'illusion' that alone makes life livable. The Middle Ages perceived beauty as the 'splendor veritatis,' the radiance of truth; they perceived the image not as illusion but as revelation. The modern artist is free to create; we demand of him only that he be true to himself. The medieval artist was committed to a truth that transcended human existence. Those who looked at his work judged it as an image of that truth, hence the medieval tendency to praise or condemn a work of art in terms of the ultimates of religious experience."(Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture & the Medieval Concept of Order, pg. xx.)

Doubtless we are picturing that a revolution in High music toward Medieval ideology would turn us into pious composers that only wrote pious-sounding pieces, and consequently, boring-sounding pieces. But isn't Flannery O'Connor a student of Maritain? Isn't she admittedly in her writing creating a mimesis of "the ultimates of religious experience"? If dissonance is possible from a Thomistic perspective in writing, then it is possible from a Thomistic perspective in music.

Simson on Medieval Aesthetics

For medieval man, the physical world as we understand it has no reality except as a symbol. But even the term "symbol" is misleading. For us the symbol is the subjective creation of poetic fancy; for medieval man what we would call symbol is the only objectively valid definition of reality. We find it necessary to suppress the symbolic instinct if we seek to understand the world as it is rather than as it seems. Medieval man conceived the symbolic instinct as the only reliable guide to such an understanding. (Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral: Origins of Gothic Architecture & the Medieval Concept of Order, pg. xix.)

Cage on Music as Culture

John Cage describes his music as "an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we're living". Perhaps this is a greater proof than most that Classical music becomes absurd, if not impossible, in "the very life we're living".

Classical Music Is Dead

Had Brahms premiered a sonata that sounded like it belonged with powdered wigs, he would have come off stage with bits of rotten tomato stuck to his face. Mozart could write like Mozart, and Brahms could write like Brahms, and it's possible Mozart could have even written like Brahms, but Brahms could never write like Mozart. Nobody would listen.

Whatever Classical music is, it is progressive. It leans forward constantly. Any backward glance must be through this progressive lens, like Brahms glancing back at Haydn in theme and variation or like Grieg glancing back at the Baroque suite in the Holberg or like Vaughn Williams glancing back at Medieval fauxbourdon in O Vos Omnes. All of these works remain products of their time, however, and cannot be understand as anything other than the specific cultural output of the culture in which they were composed. Which is why Brahms would need to wear a powdered wig to write like Mozart.

This is a sine qua non of Classical music. Without this progressive element, it simply falls apart. Which is why it is impossible to consider the body of music currently being contributed into the Classical canon as valid Classical music. It isn't music that looks forward with any new theoretical lens. It isn't discovering chromaticism like Beethoven. It isn't dispensing with a consistent tonal center like Wagner. It isn't edging on modality like Ravel. It isn't using inordinate dissonance like Messiaen. It isn't being atonal like Schoenburg. It's pretending to sound like Rachmaninoff or Prokofiev or even Webern, but that's fallacious - Classical music must be a unique output of the culture in which it is placed, and our culture is distinctly different from the culture present in the 1950s or the 1920s or the 1880s.

Classical music is dead like Latin is dead. There's nothing new being added to it. You can take some roots and some prefixes and some suffixes and bring them together to have a slightly modified denotation, as might be necessary if you were working for the Vatican and wanted to put together a Papal encyclical. But Latin is still dead. It's not being changed or morphed inside the tongues and minds of Latinists. It's analyzed, studied, and prodded, but not spoken and certainly not changing.

But Classical music is only even possible in a society that values secularism and ars gratia artis. That's rendered moot by a society overrun with a strange mix of Kantianism and utilitarianism, which are, coincidentally, two of the monumental products of secularism. Classical music is oriented around the stage, which is itself only supportable in a society that values schola or leisure the way Rawls might value justice. Leisure, schola, and hence the stage are implausible constructs in a modern and post-modern society. Classical music is no longer possible since it would be a product of a society that cannot philosophically support the concept of classical.

There is a forgotten kind of High music, one whose teleology is lost on our music historians, analysts, and musicologists. It's High music that values leisure, necessitates schola, but rejects the stage, ars gratia artis, and other secular constructs. Music that centers around the altar, ars gratia Dei, etc. Because this is music, it is a product of a certain culture, but in this case, it is far more potent, efficacious, and sacramental in its makeup because it is the cultus, the center of worship. A culture that adopts an attitude of worship will see its culture molded and formed by the music it sings in its worship, since, at the center of every culture is cultus, your manner of worship.

What would our culture look like if we sang OCP? What would it look like if we sang Arvo Pärt?