The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge ... founded thanks to the generosity of a benevolent Dublin landlord (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Patrick Comerford
A few weeks ago, I met an old school friend, Frank Domoney, at Pembroke College in Cambridge, and we had lunch at the Anchor at Silver Street Bridge, enjoying the riverside view and the manoeuvres of the punts on the River Cam.
Punts and Silver Street Bridge at the Anchor in Cambridge ... the beginning of an afternoon on the ‘FitzWilliam Trail’ Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
On the opposite side of the river stands Darwin College, once the home of Charles Darwin’s son, the astronomer and mathematician Sir George Darwin (1845-1912), who lived in the old mill by the Mill Pond.
Geoffrey Chaucer mentions the Mill Pond at the beginning of ‘The Reeve’s Tale’ in The Canterbury Tales, and this was once the only crossing over the River Cam for vehicles on this side of Cambridge.
Tracing the Fitzwilliam connections
Richard FitzWilliam (1745-1816), 7th Viscount FitzWilliam ... gave his name to museums and colleges, streets and squares, in Cambridge and Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
However, the main reason for my visit to Cambridge that sunny day though was to trace some places associated with the Fitzwilliam name. The Revd Dr Humphrey Fitzwilliam, a Fellow of Pembroke College, was Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University when he died in 1503. But the Fitzwilliam name, now a commonplace throughout Cambridge, dates from the generosity of an Irish peer, landlord and antiquarian, Richard FitzWilliam (1745-1816), 7th Viscount FitzWilliam, who owned large estates in Dublin.
A quiet corner in Trumpington Street, opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
The Fitzwilliam Museum was founded in Cambridge when he left his library, art collection and £100,000 to Cambridge University at his death in 1816. And the museum in turn has given its name to a restaurant, a street, a house, a pharmacy and a college.
‘The Search for Immortality’ – an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge – ends this month (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Richard FitzWilliam was born in 1745, and was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, receiving his MA in 1764. In 1776, Richard succeeded his father as 7th Viscount FitzWilliam, and along with the family title inherited his large estates in Dublin.
The Irish peerage titles of Viscount FitzWilliam, of Merrion in the County of Dublin, and Baron FitzWilliam, of Thorncastle in the County of Dublin, were created by Charles I in 1629 for his ancestor, Sir Thomas FitzWilliam (1581-1650). The FitzWilliam family is recorded in Dublin from as early as 1210, and by the time Thomas FitzWilliam was born, his family was one of the wealthiest and most powerful in the Pale. The family seat was at Merrion House, Co Dublin, and they also owned Merrion Castle and Baggotrath Castle, both of which have long since disappeared.
Baggotrath Castle stood on the present Baggot Street in Dublin, but was a casualty in the wars of the mid-17th century. The ruins were demolished in the mid-19th century, and the site is now occupied by 44-46 Upper Baggot Street, facing Waterloo Road.
Merrion Castle, which fell into disrepair around 1710, probably stood opposite Merrion Gates, on the site of Saint Mary’s Home and School for the Blind. The castle was replaced by Merrion House, where Richard FitzWilliam’s father died in 1776, but was demolished 200 years later in 1976.
Designing Georgian squares
The FitzWilliam and Merrion names remembered in Dublin and Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
The FitzWilliam titles became extinct in 1833 with the death of the ninth viscount, Thomas FitzWilliam. But Richard FitzWilliam is still remembered in Cambridge for his generosity and in Dublin for his foresight in developing two of the city’s Georgian squares.
FitzWilliam lived mainly in Richmond, London, but he frequently visited his home at Merrion House near Dublin. Merrion Square was laid out by his father in 1762, and in 1791 Richard secured an Act of Parliament to enclose the centre of Merrion Square.
Fitzwilliam Square was designed by Patrick and John Roe in 1789 and was laid out in 1791-1792 as leases and plots were made available by the FitzWilliam estate. An Act to enclose the centre of Fitzwilliam Square was passed in 1813.
When Lord Fitzwilliam issued the leases for his square, he ensured that houses were built in a uniform manner, imposing strict conditions and controls, although the squares had a variety of builders and owners. The leases set the height and number of storeys, the type of windows and the front façade materials, and ensured that the exteriors presented a uniform typical Georgian elevation.
Another FitzWilliam family
The former Market House in Dwyer Square, Tinahely, Co Wicklow ... the FitzWilliam family of Coolattin House rebuilt the villages of Carnew and Tinahely (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Richard FitzWilliam’s family is often confused with the FitzWilliam family that came to Ireland with William FitzWilliam, who was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland in 1571. His descendants came to own 91,800 acres in Ireland, with large estates in Co Wicklow, Co Wexford and Co Kildare, including Shillelagh, a town planned as part of the FitzWilliam estate in the 17th century, and Coolattin House, built as their country seat around 1800.
This second FitzWilliam family rebuilt the Co Wicklow villages of Carnew and Tinahely in the 19th century. Carnew Castle was re-roofed and modernised for the Revd Richard Ponsonby, later Bishop of Derry and brother-in-law of Earl FitzWilliam, when he became the Rector of Carnew in 1813.
A later rector, the Revd Henry Moore, built the high castle wall. But Moore strongly opposed FitzWilliam plans for an interdenominational school in Carnew. Moore took his case to court and won a ruling that allowed him to build a Protestant school on the only site available – the corner of the churchyard. A petulant FitzWilliam was swift to react – he evicted the Rector of Carnew from Carnew Castle.
When a coat-of-arms was designed for the future Fitzwilliam College in the 1880s, the two FitzWilliam families in Ireland were confused once again
Despite sharing the same name and similar titles, the two families were not related, and the FitzWilliams of Co Wicklow were descended from a family with origins in Northamptonshire. Yet, when a coat-of-arms was designed for the future Fitzwilliam College in the 1880s, the two families were confused once again.
A Cambridge bequest
Fitzbillies, the famous cake shop and bakery at 51-52 Trumpington Street, beloved of Cambridge undergraduates and best known for its Chelsea buns (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
When Richard FitzWilliam, Viscount Fitzwilliam, died in 1816, he left his large Irish estates to his first cousin’s son, the 11th Earl of Pembroke. But his large art collection and library went to the University of Cambridge, along with £100,000 to house them. His generosity led to the foundation of the Fitzwilliam Museum, built on lands acquired from Peterhouse and a good starting point for our ‘Fitzwilliam trail’ in Cambridge that afternoon.
Across the street is Fitzbillies, the famous cake shop and bakery in Trumpington Street that is best known for its Chelsea buns. The shop and restaurant ceased trading unexpectedly last year, but were saved this summer by a husband-and-wife team, Tim Hayward and Alison Wright.
Fitzwilliam House, Trumpington Street, was built in 1727 ... this house known as Fitzwilliam Hall from 1874 and then Fitzwilliam House from 1922, and is known once again as Fitzwilliam House (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2013)
Also opposite the museum, Fitzwilliam House stands between the Peterhouse Master’s Lodge and Fitzwilliam Street. The house was built in 1727, and only became a lodging house for undergraduates in 1869. It later became Fitzwilliam Hall in 1874 and then Fitzwilliam House in 1922, taking its name from the museum. In 1960, Fitzwilliam House moved to new premises in Huntingdon Road, and became Fitzwilliam College in 1966.
The Fitzwilliam Pharmacy opposite the Fitzwilliam Museum, with the original Fitzwilliam House next door on Trumpington Street (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Nearby, the Fitzwilliam Pharmacy stands on the corner of Trumpington Street and Fitzwilliam Street. The sign over the door says “G. Peck & Son Dispensing Chemists Est. 1851,” but the listed Grade II* building is older, dating from the early 18th century, perhaps even before the young Richard FitzWilliam was an undergraduate at Cambridge.
Fitzwilliam Street ... a charming Cambridge sidestreet running from the Fitzwilliam Museum to Darwin College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Fitzwilliam Street runs from the Fitzwilliam Museum to Darwin College. The street marks the northern boundary of the mediaeval Priory of the Gilbertines or White Canons, established around 1307. Charles Darwin, a former student at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and the author of On the Origin of Species (1859), lived at No 22 Fitzwilliam Street in 1836-1837 after his return from the Beagle. Most of the houses on the street are now used for student accommodation.
Charles Darwin once lived at No 22 Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
We walked on through the streets of Cambridge, stopping briefly at Magdalene Bridge or “Mag’s Bridge,” to admire the punts again and to think of the new responsibilities facing Archbishop Rowan Williams at Magdalene College, before pressing on to Fitzwilliam College, our last stop on the Fitzwilliam Trail.
A brief stop at Magdalene Bridge while walking through Cambridge from the Fitzwilliam Museum to Fitzwilliam College (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Fitzwilliam House moved in 1960 to this site on Huntingdon Road on land that once belonged to the Darwin family. It is a stark modern building that has been compared to an opulent Middle Eastern palace and described as “a snail’s-shell pattern” and “a riot of sculptural invention.”
Fitzwilliam College Library ... the college, with its stark modern buildings, has been described as “a riot of sculptural invention” (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
I caught a bus back into the centre to visit to the Institute of Orthodox Christian Studies at Wesley House, and to visit Sidney Sussex College around the corner in Sidney Street. There was a little time to spend a book token that was a gift after preaching in the chapel in Sidney Sussex earlier this year, before catching the train to Stansted Airport for the last flight to Dublin.
Legacies in Dublin
Georgian Doors in Merrion Square and Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Merrion Square remains the most extensive piece of Georgian architecture in Dublin. In 1930, the Pembroke Estate leased the square to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, which had plans to build a cathedral in the square. However, the plans never bore fruit; the square was transferred to the city and opened to the public in 1974.
The square’s most-visited monument is a statue of Oscar Wilde, who lived at No 1 from 1855 to 1876. Other resident of Merrion Square include Daniel O’Connell (No 58), Sheridan Le Fanu (No 70), WB Yeats (No 82) and AE (George William Russell, No 84).
Fitzwilliam Square is kept under lock and key ... could it be opened for its bicentenary next year? (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2012)
Lord FitzWilliam retained the plots of No 4 and No 5 Fitzwilliam Square until his death in 1816. Past residents of the square include Henry Roe, the distiller who underwrote the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral (No 2), William Dargan, founder of the Irish Railways and the National Gallery (also No 2), the artist Jack B Yeats (No 18), Robert Lloyd Praeger, founder of An Taisce (No 19), Mainie Jellett, abstract artist (No 36), the Pym family, including Joshua Pym who twice won the men’s singles at Wimbledon, in 1893 and 1894 (No 50), and Lawrence Edward Knox, the founder of The Irish Times (No 53).
Fitzwilliam Square was the original home of the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club and the central garden became an international focus during the late 19th century, when the Lawn Tennis Championships of Ireland were first held on the open grass. The garden in the centre of the square has not changed since it was first laid out in 1813, and the pathways, the planted trees and the shrubberies remain intact as they were almost two centuries ago. The large grassed open area is still used for tennis in the summer, and the pathways, the planted trees and the shrubberies remain intact as they were almost two centuries ago.
A 150-year lease expired in 1963, ending a link with the square’s commissioners and the early days of the square. Eventually, the garden was leased to the Fitzwilliam Square Association for another 150 years. But the square remains closed to the public, the gates are padlocked and signs outside warn the curious that this is private property.
Merrion Square celebrated its 250th birthday this year. It seems an appropriate way celebrate the 200th anniversary of Fitzwilliam Square by opening it to the public.
Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism and Liturgy, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This essay and the photographs were published in the November 2012 edition of the Church Review (Dublin and Glendalough) and the Diocesan Magazine (Cashel and Ossory)
This post was updated on 21 July 2013 with the photograph of Fitzwilliam House, Trumpington Street
04 November 2012
Church History (full-time) 4.1: An introduction to Church Music
Six English composers who shaped Anglican choral liturgy: top (from left): John Taverner, Thomas Tallis and John Marbeck; bottom (from left): William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tomkins (Photomontage, Patrick Comerford)
Patrick Comerford,
Church of Ireland Theological Institute,
Church History Elective (TH 7864)
Week 6 (Residential Weekend I):
Sunday 4 November 2012:
4.1, An introduction to Church Music
Introduction:
Saint Augustine … did he ever say “He who sings, prays twice”?
Saint Augustine of Hippo (died 430) is often quoted as saying: “He who sings, prays twice.” The Latin citation is “Qui bene cantat bis orat or “He who sings well prays twice.”
However, although I sorry to disappoint you, Augustine said nothing of the sort. What he actually said was: “cantare amantis est … Singing belongs to one who loves.”
And Saint Augustine also wrote:
Qui enim cantat laudem, non solum laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat; qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat. In laude confitentis est praedicatio, in cantico amantis affection… “For he who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyfully; he who sings praise, not only sings, but also loves him whom he is singing to. There is a praise-filled public proclamation in the praise of someone who is acknowledging Go), in the song of the lover there is love.”
On the other hand, Thomas Aquinas defined the Christian hymn in these words: “A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”
Of course we can say that singing and music enhance our worship, prayers and liturgy, especially here at the beginning of the week. But think of just how deadpan our Eucharist for All Saints’ Day would have been without those four hymns.
Indeed, I was asked afterwards why, apart from those four hymns, we sang only the Kyrie, Sanctus and Benedictus, and why we did not also take the opportunity to sing Gloria, Creed and Agnus Dei.
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis … part and parcel of the history of the Anglican choral and liturgical tradition
Sung and Vested Evensong on Thursdays falls flat without singing at least two of the canticles, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.
Singing canticles and the set parts of the Eucharist seem so natural as Anglicans we almost become proprietorial about them, thinking they are quintessentially Anglican, and forgetting both their Biblical and historical roots and the Biblical and historical roots of liturgical music.
Music can go places where words can never go. It can touch, and heal, and liberate us in ways that theology can only stand back and envy.
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem … We can trace Church Music back to the music of the Temple and the synagogue
We can trace Church Music back to Biblical roots and the music of the Temple and the synagogue. It seems so natural that Anglican liturgical texts that are based on the Psalms and the Psalter should be such a major part of the Book of Common Prayer in all its shapes and editions.
According to the Mishnah, the Temple orchestra consisted of 12 instruments, and the choir had 12 male singers. A number of additional instruments were known to the ancient Hebrews, though they were not included in the regular orchestra of the Temple, including : the uggav (small flute) and the abbuv (a reed flute or oboe-like instrument).
After the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people, music was initially banned:
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psalm 137: 4)
Of course, these restrictions were relaxed later.
Jewish music began to crystalise into definite form with the piyyutim or liturgical poems. The cantor sang these poems to melodies selected by their writer or by himself, introducing fixed melodies into synagogue music.
The music may have preserved a few phrases in the reading of Scripture that recalled songs from the Temple itself.
On Thursday, at Choral Evensong for All Saints’ Day [1 November 2012], one of the Psalms we read, Psalm 150, called on us to worship God with a variety of music instruments:
● trumpet;
● harp;
● lyre;
● timbrel;
● strings;
● pipe;
● cymbals;
● clashing cymbals.
The earliest music in synagogues was based on the same system as the system used in the Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Talmud, Joshua ben Hananiah, who had served in the Levitical choir in the sanctuary, told how the choristers went to the synagogue from the orchestra by the altar (Talmud, Suk. 53a), and so took part in both services.
Biblical and contemporary sources mention the following instruments being used in the Temple:
● the nevel, a 12-stringed harp;
● the kinnor, a lyre with 10 strings;
● the shofar, a hollowed-out ram’s horn;
● the chatzutzera, or trumpet, made of silver;
● the tof, a small drum;
● the metziltayim or cymbal;
● the paamon or bell;
● the halil or big flute.
The only record of communal song in the Gospels is at the end of the Last Supper, when Christ and the disciples sing hymns before going out to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26: 30).
The first Christians continued to attend the Temple in Jerusalem and the synagogues. Can we presume the same musical traditions ere carried over into separate Christian meetings?
The earliest Christian hymns are mentioned by Saint Paul in his letters, where he encourages the Ephesians and Colossians to use psalms, hymns and spiritual songs:
but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts – Ephesians 5: 18-19.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. – Colossians 3: 16.
The 24 elders singing around the Lamb on the Throne ... the main panel in the Ghent Altarpiece
In his vision in the Book of Revelation, Saint John the Divine describes seeing the four living creatures with six wings, gathered around the throne and never ceasing to sing day and night (Revelation 4: 8) – an echo of Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 6: 2-3), but they are singing rather than saying their praises – and they are joined by the 24 elders in singing too (see Revelation 4: 10-12), the saints who sing a new song (Revelation 5: 9-10), and the angels, living creatures, myriads and myriads, and thousands of thousands, “singing with full voice (Revelation 5: 11-12), and every creature “in heaven and on earth and under the earth … singing (Revelation 5: 13). And the singing goes on (Revelation 7: 12) and on (Revelation 11: 17-18), and on (Revelation 15: 3-4) … and on. There’s a lot of singing in the heavenly worship described in the Book of Revelation.
Later, there is a reference in Pliny who writes to the Emperor Trajan (61–113) asking for advice about how to prosecute the Christians in Bithynia, and describing their practice of gathering before sunrise and repeating antiphonally “a hymn to Christ, as to God.”
Saint Ignatius of Antioch … had a vision of angels singing in alternate choirs
Saint Ignatius of Antioch (died 107) had a vision in which the angels were singing in alternate choirs. The Greek hymn Φῶς Ἱλαρόν (Phos Hilaron), Hail gladdening light was mentioned by Saint Basil around 370. Latin hymns appear at around the same time, influenced by Saint Ambrose of Milan. Prudentius, a Spanish poet of the late 4th century was one of the most prolific hymn writers of the time.
The use of instruments in early Christian music seems to have been frowned upon. In the late fourth or early fifth century, Saint Jerome wrote that a Christian maiden ought not even to know what a lyre or flute is like, or to what use it is put.
Early Celtic hymns, associated with Saint Patrick and Saint Columba, including Saint Patrick's Breastplate, are traced by some sources to the 6th and 7th centuries.
Hymnody in the Western church introduced four-part vocal harmony as the norm, adopting major and minor keys, and came to be led by organ and choir.
The introduction of church organ music is traditionally believed to date from the time of Pope Vitalian in the sixth century.
Gregorian chant is the main tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical chant of Western Christianity that accompanies the celebration of the Eucharist and other services. This musical form originated in monastic life, in which singing the hours nine times a day was part of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Singing psalms made up a large part of the life in a monastic community, while a smaller group and soloists sang the chants.
Gregorian Chant has gone through many gradual changes and reforms. It was organised, codified, and notated mainly in the Frankish lands of western and central Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries, with later additions and redactions. But the texts and many of the melodies have antecedents going back several centuries earlier.
Although popular belief credits Pope Gregory the Great with introducing Gregorian chant, scholars now believe that Gregorian chant began as a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant.
During the centuries that followed, the chant tradition was at the heart of Church music, but it changed and acquired various accretions.
Polyphonic music arose from the venerable old chants in the Organa by Léonin and Pérotin in Paris (1160–1240), and ended in monophonic chant. In later traditions, new composition styles were practised alongside monophonic chant.
Although chant had mostly fallen into disuse after the Baroque period, it went through a revival in the 19th century in the Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic traditions.
The Requiem Mass has a long tradition in Western liturgical music
Mass settings are found in and shared by the liturgical traditions of Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans, and there are many Mass settings in English in the Anglican tradition.
Masses can be a cappella, for the voice alone, or they can be accompanied by instrumental obligatos up to and including a full orchestra.
Generally speaking, a full Mass includes five invariable sections, which together constitute the Ordinary of the Mass.
● Kyrie (“Lord have mercy”)
● Gloria (“Glory be to God on high”)
● Credo (the Nicene Creed)
● Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”), with Benedictus ("Blessed is he who comes”)
● Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”)
The Requiem Mass has a long tradition in Western liturgical music, with requiems by Palestrina, Victoria, Mozart, Berlioz, Brahms, Bruckner, Fauré, Liszt, Verdi, Benjamin Britten, Duruflé, Stravinsky and others.
The Proper of the Mass is usually not set to music, except in a Requiem Mass, but may be the subject of motets or other musical compositions. The sections of the Proper of the Mass include the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract (depending on the time of year), Offertory and Communion.
In the meantime, the Reformation created two conflicting attitudes to hymns. Many Zwinglians, Calvinists and other radical reformers, considered anything that was not directly authorised by the Bible to be a novel and a Catholic introduction to worship that was to be rejected.
All hymns that were not direct quotations from the Bible fell into this category. They were rejected, along with instrumental musical accompaniment. Organs were removed from churches, and hymns were replaced by chanted Psalms, often unaccompanied. This is a tradition that has continued to this day among the “free churches” of western Scotland.
The second Reformation approach, favoured by Martin Luther, produced a burst of hymn writing and congregational singing. Luther and Lutherans often used their hymns, or chorales, to teach the faith.
The earlier English writers tended to paraphrase biblical texts, particularly Psalms. Isaac Watts followed this tradition, but is also credited as having written the first English hymn which was not a direct paraphrase of Scripture.
Later writers took even more freedom, some even including allegory and metaphor in their texts.
Charles Wesley’s hymns helped to promote the spread of Methodist thinking far beyond the boundaries of Methodism. The Methodist Revival in the 18th century created an explosion of hymn that continued into the 19th century.
This morning, I would like to just briefly look at four traditions that continue to influence and shape our present understandings of liturgical music:
1, Anglican choral tradition
2, Classical composers and Christian liturgical music
3, Christmas Carols
4, American evangelistic hymns
1, Anglican choral tradition
John Taverner ... other composers modelled their work on his
In the century or two after the Anglican Reformation, Anglican theology was developed not only by academic theologians and bishops, but by poet-priests such as John Donne and George Herbert, by architects, and by composers.
Six composers in particular stand out in this period:
1, John Taverner (ca 1490-1545) is regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. Most of Taverner’s music is vocal, and includes masses, Magnificats and motets. Most of his works were probably written in the 1520s.
2, Thomas Tallis (ca 1505-1585) is considered the father of English choral music. Tallis occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered one of England’s greatest early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship, and is also remembered as the teacher of William Byrd. The Motet we shall hear at the Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this morning is O Sacrum Convivium by Tallis.
3, John Marbeck (ca 1510–ca 1585) produced a standard setting of the Anglican liturgy. In the 19th century, the Oxford Movement inspired renewed interest in liturgical music, and the Irish-born John Jebb drew attention to Marbeck’s Prayer Book settings in 1841. In 1843, William Dyce published plainsong music for all Anglican services, with almost all of Marbeck’s settings, adapted for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Later in the 19th century, many editions of Marbeck’s settings were published, especially for the Holy Communion, with arrangements by noted musicians including Sir John Stainer and Charles Villiers Stanford.
4, William Byrd (1539/1540-1623) was a Renaissance composer who wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphone, keyboard and consort music. Byrd played a role in the emergence of the new verse anthem. His four Anglican service settings range in style from the unpretentious Short Service to the magnificent Great Service. The setting for the Eucharist we are taking part in this morning in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin is Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices.
5, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) was one of the most versatile English composers of his time. One of the most versatile English composers of his time, he wrote a quantity of keyboard works, around 30 fantasias for viols, a number of madrigals, and many popular verse anthems.
His choral music is distinguished by his complete mastery of counterpoint, combined with his wonderful gift for melody. He produced two major settings of Evensong, the Short Service and the Second Service. The former includes a beautifully expressive Nunc Dimittis, while the latter is an extended composition, combining verse and full sections.
6, Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) was a prolific composer of verse anthems in the late Tudor and early Stuart period. His life links the great Anglican composers of the Tudor and Stuart eras with the Laudian era and the Caroline Divines.
Tallis, Merbecke and Byrd are honoured, together with a feast day on 21 November in the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church. All six have contributed immeasurably to the corpus of Anglican liturgical music.
2, Classical composers and Christian liturgical music
Mozart and Bach ... does anybody know who was Catholic and who was Protestant, and does anyone care?
Open with the Credo from Mozart’s Mass in C Minor
Bach or Mozart? Does anybody know, or does anyone care whether Mozart or Bach was a Catholic or a Protestant?
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), has been described as “the most stupendous miracle in all music.” He was the child of the German Lutheran Church, but was deeply influenced by Vivaldi, who began his career as a priest at the Pieta in Venice.
Bach saw himself not as a genius but as one of God’s craftsmen. Music should, he wrote, have no aim other than the glory of God and the “re-creation of the soul … Where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting.” His scores bear dedicatory abbreviations like “S.D.G.” (Soli Deo Gloria, “To God alone be praise”) or “J.J.” (Jesu Juva, “Help me, Jesus”).
However, the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth disagreed: “It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille, they play Mozart.”
So let us hear the canticle Magnificat written by Bach for first Christmas in Leipizig. This canticle has retained a similar traditional use in Evening Prayer for Lutherans as it has among Anglicans.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):
May I offer another version of that quote from Karl Barth: “Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure. I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart.” Indeed, it is said that wittily that Barth lived with lifelong guilt that he liked Mozart better than Bach.
Barth’s devotion to Mozart is well known, and he claimed that through the music of Mozart he could hear the praise of Creation. He began each day listening to Mozart; he included Mozart in the Church Dogmatics, and he remarked: “If I ever get to heaven, I would first of all seek out Mozart and only then inquire after Augustine, Saint Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and Schleiermacher.”
Towards the end of his life, Barth even experienced his first and only mystical vision – a vision of Mozart gazing at him benignly from the stage during a concert. Hans Urs von Balthasar was very impressed by this vision.
Barth wrote a short book, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, published in 1956 in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. In this book, Barth collected some of his writings and addresses about Mozart. With wonderful hyperbole, he describes the musical uniqueness of Mozart, suggesting that Mozart’s “characteristic basic sound” might in fact be “the primal sound of music absolutely,” saying Mozart “struck this ‘tone’ in its timelessly valid form.”
Theologically, too, Barth speaks of Mozart’s utter uniqueness: “In the case of Mozart, we must certainly assume that the dear Lord had a special, direct contact with him.” His music “evidently comes from on high.” Indeed, Barth “leaves open” the question “whether Mozart could possibly have been an angel.”
Above all, it is the dialectical character of Mozart’s music that Barth admires. In this music, everything comes to expression: “heaven and earth, nature and man, comedy and tragedy … the Virgin Mary and the demons.” (Mozart simply contains and includes all this within his music in perfect harmony. This harmony is not a matter of “balance” or “indifference” (like the balance of Schleiermacher’s system!) – it is “a glorious upsetting of the balance, a turning in which the light rises and the shadows fall … in which the Yes rings louder than the ever-present No.”
In all this, however, Mozart “does not wish to say anything: he just sings and sounds.” Unlike Bach, he has no doctrine or message, and thus “he does not force anything on the listener …; he simply leaves him free.” (This note of freedom is what most impresses Barth. “Mozart’s music always sounds unburdened, effortless, light. This is why it unburdens, releases, and liberates us.”
In a lecture in 1956, Barth rejoiced that in Mozart’s music “the sun shines, but without burning or weighing upon the earth” and “the earth also stays in its place, remains itself, without feeling that it must therefore rise in titanic revolt against the heavens.” He bowed before an art in which “the laugh is never without tears, tears are never unrelieved by laughter.”
According to Barth, Mozart – who, though Roman Catholic and yet a Freemason – was utterly free of all institutional deformations, whether ecclesiastical or political. He confessed the reality and the peace he finds in an art which embraces nature, humanity and God, which is as true to life as it is to death.
As a Protestant, Barth was troubled that Mozart insisted on being a Catholic. To be sure, Mozart was not an active Catholic. Still, there was a Catholic piety that never left Mozart, and he said he would never want to live outside a Catholic country. He had critical things to say about Protestants: he thought their religion was all in their head! Once he said that an “enlightened Protestant” would never be able to understand his Masses, especially his settings for Agnus Dei.
Barth wanted to argue with Mozart about all this. In a dream one night, he was given the chance. In this dream, Barth was supposed to give Mozart an oral examination in theology. He knew in advance that “under no circumstances would [the composer] be allowed to fail.” And so he did everything he could to make things easy for him; he filled the exam with friendly prompts and hints about his masses. But in answer to Barth’s question about Dogmatics and “Dogma” and what they might mean, Mozart’s response was total silence.
Perhaps the Mozart of Barth’s dream had the right idea. Why worry about 13 volumes of Dogmatics when you can write a mass, a symphony, a serenade? We can imagine him inwardly chuckling at a theologian’s questions.
Thomas Merton was profoundly moved by the dream, and said that it is about our salvation. Merton wrote: “Barth is perhaps striving to admit that he will be saved more by the Mozart in himself than by his theology.” He suggests that, by playing Mozart every morning, the theologian may have been unconsciously trying to awaken the hidden Mozart within himself, “a central wisdom that comes in tune with the divine and cosmic music and is saved by love, even by eros.”
Thomas Merton, addressing Karl Barth, says: “Fear not, Karl Barth! Trust in the divine mercy. Though you have grown up to be a theologian, Christ remains a child in you. Your books (and mine) matter less than we might think! There is in us a Mozart who will be our salvation!”
Over the last two centuries, many people have tried to explain Mozart’s distinctiveness. Barth is not the only theologian to have loved him – Soren Kierkegaard and Hans Kung are two others. Even a sceptic like Bernard Shaw said that Mozart’s was “the only music yet written that would not sound out of place in the mouth of God.”
In that lecture in Geneva in 1956, Barth reached out, in gratitude and respect, towards the ultimate mystery of Mozart, working alternately on the Requiem and The Magic Flute as the shadows of early death visibly closed in about him. He concluded his homage to Mozart with his very personal estimate of some of the great composers:
Bach? Profondément respectable! Beethoven? Hautement admirable! Tel autre, ou tel autre? Plus ou moins remarquable! Mozart? Aimable!
When Barth’s book was republished in 1986, there was a brilliant foreword by John Updike, who highlighted the deep affinity between the music of Mozart and the theology of Barth: “Those who have not felt the difficulty of living have no need of Barthian theology; but then perhaps they also have no ear for music.”
3, Christmas Carols
Stainer and Bramley published their collection ‘Christmas Carols New and Old’ in 1871
Christmas carols have a distinct story of their own. A carol is a festive song, often of a popular character. Today the carol is represented almost exclusively by the Christmas carol and the Advent carol, but we often forget the tradition of Easter carols too.
The tradition of Christmas carols dates back to at least the 13th century. They were popular songs originally and it was only later that they began to be sung in church and to be associated with Christmas.
Although Martin Luther wrote carols and encouraged their use, carols declined in popularity after the Reformation in many European countries, although they survived in rural communities until the revival of interest in carols in the 19th century.
The carols God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, The First Noel, I Saw Three Ships and Hark the Herald Angels Sing first appeared in print in 1833 in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern edited by William B. Sandys.
Composers like Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) – born to Irish parents and of Gilbert and Sullivan fame – helped to give new popularity to the carol. This period also saw the publication of carols that would become favourites such as Good King Wenceslas and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, a New England carol written by Edmund H. Sears and Richard S. Willis.
4, American evangelistic hymns
African-Americans developed a rich hymnody out of the spirituals sung during times of slavery.
Then during the Second Great Awakening in the US, a new popular style emerged with Fanny Crosby, Ira D Sankey, and other hymn writers producing testimonial music for evangelistic crusades. These are often called “Gospel songs” to distinguish them from hymns, and they generally include a refrain or chorus, and usually, though not always, a faster tempo than the hymns.
To distinguish them from each other, we could say Amazing Grace is a hymn, with no refrain, while How Great Thou Art is a Gospel song. During the 19th century the gospel-song genre spread rapidly.
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic tradition produced many popular hymns such as Lead, Kindly Light, Silent Night, O Sacrament Divine and Faith of our Fathers.
Today, many churches use contemporary worship music that includes a range of styles, often influenced by popular music. This style began in the late 1960s and became very popular during the 1970s.
Supplemental Reading:
Karl Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clarence K. Pott, trans., foreword by John Updike (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1986, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2003).
Edward Darling and Donald Davison (eds), Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba, 2005).
Hans Kung, Mozart: Traces of Transcendence, John Bowden, trans., foreword by Yehudi Menuhin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1993).
Thomas Merton, “Barth’s Dream” in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 11-12.
Next:
Church History (full-time) 4.2: An introduction to the history of liturgy, Cathedral Eucharist, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, William Byrd, Mass for Five Voices, with student participation.
Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This lecture on 4 November 2012 was part of the residential weekend in Church History Elective (TH 7864).
Patrick Comerford,
Church of Ireland Theological Institute,
Church History Elective (TH 7864)
Week 6 (Residential Weekend I):
Sunday 4 November 2012:
4.1, An introduction to Church Music
Introduction:
Saint Augustine … did he ever say “He who sings, prays twice”?
Saint Augustine of Hippo (died 430) is often quoted as saying: “He who sings, prays twice.” The Latin citation is “Qui bene cantat bis orat or “He who sings well prays twice.”
However, although I sorry to disappoint you, Augustine said nothing of the sort. What he actually said was: “cantare amantis est … Singing belongs to one who loves.”
And Saint Augustine also wrote:
Qui enim cantat laudem, non solum laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat; qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat. In laude confitentis est praedicatio, in cantico amantis affection… “For he who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyfully; he who sings praise, not only sings, but also loves him whom he is singing to. There is a praise-filled public proclamation in the praise of someone who is acknowledging Go), in the song of the lover there is love.”
On the other hand, Thomas Aquinas defined the Christian hymn in these words: “A hymn is the praise of God with song; a song is the exultation of the mind dwelling on eternal things, bursting forth in the voice.”
Of course we can say that singing and music enhance our worship, prayers and liturgy, especially here at the beginning of the week. But think of just how deadpan our Eucharist for All Saints’ Day would have been without those four hymns.
Indeed, I was asked afterwards why, apart from those four hymns, we sang only the Kyrie, Sanctus and Benedictus, and why we did not also take the opportunity to sing Gloria, Creed and Agnus Dei.
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis … part and parcel of the history of the Anglican choral and liturgical tradition
Sung and Vested Evensong on Thursdays falls flat without singing at least two of the canticles, Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.
Singing canticles and the set parts of the Eucharist seem so natural as Anglicans we almost become proprietorial about them, thinking they are quintessentially Anglican, and forgetting both their Biblical and historical roots and the Biblical and historical roots of liturgical music.
Music can go places where words can never go. It can touch, and heal, and liberate us in ways that theology can only stand back and envy.
The Temple Mount in Jerusalem … We can trace Church Music back to the music of the Temple and the synagogue
We can trace Church Music back to Biblical roots and the music of the Temple and the synagogue. It seems so natural that Anglican liturgical texts that are based on the Psalms and the Psalter should be such a major part of the Book of Common Prayer in all its shapes and editions.
According to the Mishnah, the Temple orchestra consisted of 12 instruments, and the choir had 12 male singers. A number of additional instruments were known to the ancient Hebrews, though they were not included in the regular orchestra of the Temple, including : the uggav (small flute) and the abbuv (a reed flute or oboe-like instrument).
After the destruction of the Temple and the exile of the Jewish people, music was initially banned:
How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psalm 137: 4)
Of course, these restrictions were relaxed later.
Jewish music began to crystalise into definite form with the piyyutim or liturgical poems. The cantor sang these poems to melodies selected by their writer or by himself, introducing fixed melodies into synagogue music.
The music may have preserved a few phrases in the reading of Scripture that recalled songs from the Temple itself.
On Thursday, at Choral Evensong for All Saints’ Day [1 November 2012], one of the Psalms we read, Psalm 150, called on us to worship God with a variety of music instruments:
● trumpet;
● harp;
● lyre;
● timbrel;
● strings;
● pipe;
● cymbals;
● clashing cymbals.
The earliest music in synagogues was based on the same system as the system used in the Temple in Jerusalem. According to the Talmud, Joshua ben Hananiah, who had served in the Levitical choir in the sanctuary, told how the choristers went to the synagogue from the orchestra by the altar (Talmud, Suk. 53a), and so took part in both services.
Biblical and contemporary sources mention the following instruments being used in the Temple:
● the nevel, a 12-stringed harp;
● the kinnor, a lyre with 10 strings;
● the shofar, a hollowed-out ram’s horn;
● the chatzutzera, or trumpet, made of silver;
● the tof, a small drum;
● the metziltayim or cymbal;
● the paamon or bell;
● the halil or big flute.
The only record of communal song in the Gospels is at the end of the Last Supper, when Christ and the disciples sing hymns before going out to the Mount of Olives (Matthew 26: 30).
The first Christians continued to attend the Temple in Jerusalem and the synagogues. Can we presume the same musical traditions ere carried over into separate Christian meetings?
The earliest Christian hymns are mentioned by Saint Paul in his letters, where he encourages the Ephesians and Colossians to use psalms, hymns and spiritual songs:
but be filled with the Spirit, as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts – Ephesians 5: 18-19.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. – Colossians 3: 16.
The 24 elders singing around the Lamb on the Throne ... the main panel in the Ghent Altarpiece
In his vision in the Book of Revelation, Saint John the Divine describes seeing the four living creatures with six wings, gathered around the throne and never ceasing to sing day and night (Revelation 4: 8) – an echo of Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 6: 2-3), but they are singing rather than saying their praises – and they are joined by the 24 elders in singing too (see Revelation 4: 10-12), the saints who sing a new song (Revelation 5: 9-10), and the angels, living creatures, myriads and myriads, and thousands of thousands, “singing with full voice (Revelation 5: 11-12), and every creature “in heaven and on earth and under the earth … singing (Revelation 5: 13). And the singing goes on (Revelation 7: 12) and on (Revelation 11: 17-18), and on (Revelation 15: 3-4) … and on. There’s a lot of singing in the heavenly worship described in the Book of Revelation.
Later, there is a reference in Pliny who writes to the Emperor Trajan (61–113) asking for advice about how to prosecute the Christians in Bithynia, and describing their practice of gathering before sunrise and repeating antiphonally “a hymn to Christ, as to God.”
Saint Ignatius of Antioch … had a vision of angels singing in alternate choirs
Saint Ignatius of Antioch (died 107) had a vision in which the angels were singing in alternate choirs. The Greek hymn Φῶς Ἱλαρόν (Phos Hilaron), Hail gladdening light was mentioned by Saint Basil around 370. Latin hymns appear at around the same time, influenced by Saint Ambrose of Milan. Prudentius, a Spanish poet of the late 4th century was one of the most prolific hymn writers of the time.
The use of instruments in early Christian music seems to have been frowned upon. In the late fourth or early fifth century, Saint Jerome wrote that a Christian maiden ought not even to know what a lyre or flute is like, or to what use it is put.
Early Celtic hymns, associated with Saint Patrick and Saint Columba, including Saint Patrick's Breastplate, are traced by some sources to the 6th and 7th centuries.
Hymnody in the Western church introduced four-part vocal harmony as the norm, adopting major and minor keys, and came to be led by organ and choir.
The introduction of church organ music is traditionally believed to date from the time of Pope Vitalian in the sixth century.
Gregorian chant is the main tradition of Western plainchant, a form of monophonic liturgical chant of Western Christianity that accompanies the celebration of the Eucharist and other services. This musical form originated in monastic life, in which singing the hours nine times a day was part of the Rule of Saint Benedict. Singing psalms made up a large part of the life in a monastic community, while a smaller group and soloists sang the chants.
Gregorian Chant has gone through many gradual changes and reforms. It was organised, codified, and notated mainly in the Frankish lands of western and central Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries, with later additions and redactions. But the texts and many of the melodies have antecedents going back several centuries earlier.
Although popular belief credits Pope Gregory the Great with introducing Gregorian chant, scholars now believe that Gregorian chant began as a later Carolingian synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant.
During the centuries that followed, the chant tradition was at the heart of Church music, but it changed and acquired various accretions.
Polyphonic music arose from the venerable old chants in the Organa by Léonin and Pérotin in Paris (1160–1240), and ended in monophonic chant. In later traditions, new composition styles were practised alongside monophonic chant.
Although chant had mostly fallen into disuse after the Baroque period, it went through a revival in the 19th century in the Roman Catholic and Anglo-Catholic traditions.
The Requiem Mass has a long tradition in Western liturgical music
Mass settings are found in and shared by the liturgical traditions of Roman Catholics, Anglicans and Lutherans, and there are many Mass settings in English in the Anglican tradition.
Masses can be a cappella, for the voice alone, or they can be accompanied by instrumental obligatos up to and including a full orchestra.
Generally speaking, a full Mass includes five invariable sections, which together constitute the Ordinary of the Mass.
● Kyrie (“Lord have mercy”)
● Gloria (“Glory be to God on high”)
● Credo (the Nicene Creed)
● Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy”), with Benedictus ("Blessed is he who comes”)
● Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”)
The Requiem Mass has a long tradition in Western liturgical music, with requiems by Palestrina, Victoria, Mozart, Berlioz, Brahms, Bruckner, Fauré, Liszt, Verdi, Benjamin Britten, Duruflé, Stravinsky and others.
The Proper of the Mass is usually not set to music, except in a Requiem Mass, but may be the subject of motets or other musical compositions. The sections of the Proper of the Mass include the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract (depending on the time of year), Offertory and Communion.
In the meantime, the Reformation created two conflicting attitudes to hymns. Many Zwinglians, Calvinists and other radical reformers, considered anything that was not directly authorised by the Bible to be a novel and a Catholic introduction to worship that was to be rejected.
All hymns that were not direct quotations from the Bible fell into this category. They were rejected, along with instrumental musical accompaniment. Organs were removed from churches, and hymns were replaced by chanted Psalms, often unaccompanied. This is a tradition that has continued to this day among the “free churches” of western Scotland.
The second Reformation approach, favoured by Martin Luther, produced a burst of hymn writing and congregational singing. Luther and Lutherans often used their hymns, or chorales, to teach the faith.
The earlier English writers tended to paraphrase biblical texts, particularly Psalms. Isaac Watts followed this tradition, but is also credited as having written the first English hymn which was not a direct paraphrase of Scripture.
Later writers took even more freedom, some even including allegory and metaphor in their texts.
Charles Wesley’s hymns helped to promote the spread of Methodist thinking far beyond the boundaries of Methodism. The Methodist Revival in the 18th century created an explosion of hymn that continued into the 19th century.
This morning, I would like to just briefly look at four traditions that continue to influence and shape our present understandings of liturgical music:
1, Anglican choral tradition
2, Classical composers and Christian liturgical music
3, Christmas Carols
4, American evangelistic hymns
1, Anglican choral tradition
John Taverner ... other composers modelled their work on his
In the century or two after the Anglican Reformation, Anglican theology was developed not only by academic theologians and bishops, but by poet-priests such as John Donne and George Herbert, by architects, and by composers.
Six composers in particular stand out in this period:
1, John Taverner (ca 1490-1545) is regarded as one of the most important English composers of his era. Most of Taverner’s music is vocal, and includes masses, Magnificats and motets. Most of his works were probably written in the 1520s.
2, Thomas Tallis (ca 1505-1585) is considered the father of English choral music. Tallis occupies a primary place in anthologies of English church music, and is considered one of England’s greatest early composers. He is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship, and is also remembered as the teacher of William Byrd. The Motet we shall hear at the Eucharist in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, this morning is O Sacrum Convivium by Tallis.
3, John Marbeck (ca 1510–ca 1585) produced a standard setting of the Anglican liturgy. In the 19th century, the Oxford Movement inspired renewed interest in liturgical music, and the Irish-born John Jebb drew attention to Marbeck’s Prayer Book settings in 1841. In 1843, William Dyce published plainsong music for all Anglican services, with almost all of Marbeck’s settings, adapted for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. Later in the 19th century, many editions of Marbeck’s settings were published, especially for the Holy Communion, with arrangements by noted musicians including Sir John Stainer and Charles Villiers Stanford.
4, William Byrd (1539/1540-1623) was a Renaissance composer who wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphone, keyboard and consort music. Byrd played a role in the emergence of the new verse anthem. His four Anglican service settings range in style from the unpretentious Short Service to the magnificent Great Service. The setting for the Eucharist we are taking part in this morning in Christ Church Cathedral Dublin is Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices.
5, Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) was one of the most versatile English composers of his time. One of the most versatile English composers of his time, he wrote a quantity of keyboard works, around 30 fantasias for viols, a number of madrigals, and many popular verse anthems.
His choral music is distinguished by his complete mastery of counterpoint, combined with his wonderful gift for melody. He produced two major settings of Evensong, the Short Service and the Second Service. The former includes a beautifully expressive Nunc Dimittis, while the latter is an extended composition, combining verse and full sections.
6, Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656) was a prolific composer of verse anthems in the late Tudor and early Stuart period. His life links the great Anglican composers of the Tudor and Stuart eras with the Laudian era and the Caroline Divines.
Tallis, Merbecke and Byrd are honoured, together with a feast day on 21 November in the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church. All six have contributed immeasurably to the corpus of Anglican liturgical music.
2, Classical composers and Christian liturgical music
Mozart and Bach ... does anybody know who was Catholic and who was Protestant, and does anyone care?
Open with the Credo from Mozart’s Mass in C Minor
Bach or Mozart? Does anybody know, or does anyone care whether Mozart or Bach was a Catholic or a Protestant?
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), has been described as “the most stupendous miracle in all music.” He was the child of the German Lutheran Church, but was deeply influenced by Vivaldi, who began his career as a priest at the Pieta in Venice.
Bach saw himself not as a genius but as one of God’s craftsmen. Music should, he wrote, have no aim other than the glory of God and the “re-creation of the soul … Where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamour and ranting.” His scores bear dedicatory abbreviations like “S.D.G.” (Soli Deo Gloria, “To God alone be praise”) or “J.J.” (Jesu Juva, “Help me, Jesus”).
However, the great Swiss theologian Karl Barth disagreed: “It may be that when the angels go about their task praising God, they play Bach. I am sure, however, that when they are together en famille, they play Mozart.”
So let us hear the canticle Magnificat written by Bach for first Christmas in Leipizig. This canticle has retained a similar traditional use in Evening Prayer for Lutherans as it has among Anglicans.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791):
May I offer another version of that quote from Karl Barth: “Whether the angels play only Bach praising God, I am not quite sure. I am sure, however, that en famille they play Mozart.” Indeed, it is said that wittily that Barth lived with lifelong guilt that he liked Mozart better than Bach.
Barth’s devotion to Mozart is well known, and he claimed that through the music of Mozart he could hear the praise of Creation. He began each day listening to Mozart; he included Mozart in the Church Dogmatics, and he remarked: “If I ever get to heaven, I would first of all seek out Mozart and only then inquire after Augustine, Saint Thomas, Luther, Calvin, and Schleiermacher.”
Towards the end of his life, Barth even experienced his first and only mystical vision – a vision of Mozart gazing at him benignly from the stage during a concert. Hans Urs von Balthasar was very impressed by this vision.
Barth wrote a short book, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, published in 1956 in celebration of the 200th anniversary of Mozart’s birth. In this book, Barth collected some of his writings and addresses about Mozart. With wonderful hyperbole, he describes the musical uniqueness of Mozart, suggesting that Mozart’s “characteristic basic sound” might in fact be “the primal sound of music absolutely,” saying Mozart “struck this ‘tone’ in its timelessly valid form.”
Theologically, too, Barth speaks of Mozart’s utter uniqueness: “In the case of Mozart, we must certainly assume that the dear Lord had a special, direct contact with him.” His music “evidently comes from on high.” Indeed, Barth “leaves open” the question “whether Mozart could possibly have been an angel.”
Above all, it is the dialectical character of Mozart’s music that Barth admires. In this music, everything comes to expression: “heaven and earth, nature and man, comedy and tragedy … the Virgin Mary and the demons.” (Mozart simply contains and includes all this within his music in perfect harmony. This harmony is not a matter of “balance” or “indifference” (like the balance of Schleiermacher’s system!) – it is “a glorious upsetting of the balance, a turning in which the light rises and the shadows fall … in which the Yes rings louder than the ever-present No.”
In all this, however, Mozart “does not wish to say anything: he just sings and sounds.” Unlike Bach, he has no doctrine or message, and thus “he does not force anything on the listener …; he simply leaves him free.” (This note of freedom is what most impresses Barth. “Mozart’s music always sounds unburdened, effortless, light. This is why it unburdens, releases, and liberates us.”
In a lecture in 1956, Barth rejoiced that in Mozart’s music “the sun shines, but without burning or weighing upon the earth” and “the earth also stays in its place, remains itself, without feeling that it must therefore rise in titanic revolt against the heavens.” He bowed before an art in which “the laugh is never without tears, tears are never unrelieved by laughter.”
According to Barth, Mozart – who, though Roman Catholic and yet a Freemason – was utterly free of all institutional deformations, whether ecclesiastical or political. He confessed the reality and the peace he finds in an art which embraces nature, humanity and God, which is as true to life as it is to death.
As a Protestant, Barth was troubled that Mozart insisted on being a Catholic. To be sure, Mozart was not an active Catholic. Still, there was a Catholic piety that never left Mozart, and he said he would never want to live outside a Catholic country. He had critical things to say about Protestants: he thought their religion was all in their head! Once he said that an “enlightened Protestant” would never be able to understand his Masses, especially his settings for Agnus Dei.
Barth wanted to argue with Mozart about all this. In a dream one night, he was given the chance. In this dream, Barth was supposed to give Mozart an oral examination in theology. He knew in advance that “under no circumstances would [the composer] be allowed to fail.” And so he did everything he could to make things easy for him; he filled the exam with friendly prompts and hints about his masses. But in answer to Barth’s question about Dogmatics and “Dogma” and what they might mean, Mozart’s response was total silence.
Perhaps the Mozart of Barth’s dream had the right idea. Why worry about 13 volumes of Dogmatics when you can write a mass, a symphony, a serenade? We can imagine him inwardly chuckling at a theologian’s questions.
Thomas Merton was profoundly moved by the dream, and said that it is about our salvation. Merton wrote: “Barth is perhaps striving to admit that he will be saved more by the Mozart in himself than by his theology.” He suggests that, by playing Mozart every morning, the theologian may have been unconsciously trying to awaken the hidden Mozart within himself, “a central wisdom that comes in tune with the divine and cosmic music and is saved by love, even by eros.”
Thomas Merton, addressing Karl Barth, says: “Fear not, Karl Barth! Trust in the divine mercy. Though you have grown up to be a theologian, Christ remains a child in you. Your books (and mine) matter less than we might think! There is in us a Mozart who will be our salvation!”
Over the last two centuries, many people have tried to explain Mozart’s distinctiveness. Barth is not the only theologian to have loved him – Soren Kierkegaard and Hans Kung are two others. Even a sceptic like Bernard Shaw said that Mozart’s was “the only music yet written that would not sound out of place in the mouth of God.”
In that lecture in Geneva in 1956, Barth reached out, in gratitude and respect, towards the ultimate mystery of Mozart, working alternately on the Requiem and The Magic Flute as the shadows of early death visibly closed in about him. He concluded his homage to Mozart with his very personal estimate of some of the great composers:
Bach? Profondément respectable! Beethoven? Hautement admirable! Tel autre, ou tel autre? Plus ou moins remarquable! Mozart? Aimable!
When Barth’s book was republished in 1986, there was a brilliant foreword by John Updike, who highlighted the deep affinity between the music of Mozart and the theology of Barth: “Those who have not felt the difficulty of living have no need of Barthian theology; but then perhaps they also have no ear for music.”
3, Christmas Carols
Stainer and Bramley published their collection ‘Christmas Carols New and Old’ in 1871
Christmas carols have a distinct story of their own. A carol is a festive song, often of a popular character. Today the carol is represented almost exclusively by the Christmas carol and the Advent carol, but we often forget the tradition of Easter carols too.
The tradition of Christmas carols dates back to at least the 13th century. They were popular songs originally and it was only later that they began to be sung in church and to be associated with Christmas.
Although Martin Luther wrote carols and encouraged their use, carols declined in popularity after the Reformation in many European countries, although they survived in rural communities until the revival of interest in carols in the 19th century.
The carols God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, The First Noel, I Saw Three Ships and Hark the Herald Angels Sing first appeared in print in 1833 in Christmas Carols Ancient and Modern edited by William B. Sandys.
Composers like Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) – born to Irish parents and of Gilbert and Sullivan fame – helped to give new popularity to the carol. This period also saw the publication of carols that would become favourites such as Good King Wenceslas and It Came Upon the Midnight Clear, a New England carol written by Edmund H. Sears and Richard S. Willis.
4, American evangelistic hymns
African-Americans developed a rich hymnody out of the spirituals sung during times of slavery.
Then during the Second Great Awakening in the US, a new popular style emerged with Fanny Crosby, Ira D Sankey, and other hymn writers producing testimonial music for evangelistic crusades. These are often called “Gospel songs” to distinguish them from hymns, and they generally include a refrain or chorus, and usually, though not always, a faster tempo than the hymns.
To distinguish them from each other, we could say Amazing Grace is a hymn, with no refrain, while How Great Thou Art is a Gospel song. During the 19th century the gospel-song genre spread rapidly.
Meanwhile, the Roman Catholic tradition produced many popular hymns such as Lead, Kindly Light, Silent Night, O Sacrament Divine and Faith of our Fathers.
Today, many churches use contemporary worship music that includes a range of styles, often influenced by popular music. This style began in the late 1960s and became very popular during the 1970s.
Supplemental Reading:
Karl Barth, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Clarence K. Pott, trans., foreword by John Updike (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1986, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2003).
Edward Darling and Donald Davison (eds), Companion to Church Hymnal (Dublin: Columba, 2005).
Hans Kung, Mozart: Traces of Transcendence, John Bowden, trans., foreword by Yehudi Menuhin (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 1993).
Thomas Merton, “Barth’s Dream” in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 11-12.
Next:
Church History (full-time) 4.2: An introduction to the history of liturgy, Cathedral Eucharist, Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, William Byrd, Mass for Five Voices, with student participation.
Canon Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This lecture on 4 November 2012 was part of the residential weekend in Church History Elective (TH 7864).
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