Patrick Comerford
Church of Ireland Theological Institute:
Church History elective module (TH 7864)
Years I to IV, MTh part-time,
7 p.m. to 9.15 p.m., Brown Room,
Friday 6 February 2015:
7 p.m.: 3.1: An introduction to Church Art and Music
Introduction:
Christ enthroned ... the Book of KellsDuring our last weekend we looked at the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and the early development of the “Celtic” or “insular” church.
One of the great achievements of the “insular” church was the way it expressed Christianity in art, including illuminated manuscripts, carved stone High Crosses with their Biblical images, including images of the passion, and metalwork like the Ardagh Chalice.
The great illuminated manuscripts produced in Ireland include the Book of Durrow (ca 650-700) and the Book of Kells (ca 800), both now in Trinity College Dublin, while the monasteries in England produced the Lichfield Gospels (or the Saint Chad Gospels, ca 730), in Lichfield Cathedral, and the Lindisfarne Gospels (ca 715), now in the British Library in London. It is interesting to note that these two English Gospels are both older than the Book of Kells.
During the Dark Ages in Europe, Irish missionary monks and their monasteries were havens and sanctuaries for scholars and theologians, keeping alive Latin learning and the monastic schools in Ireland became centres of learning, attracting people from throughout Europe. The manuscripts and metalwork were produced by and for monasteries, yet these early forms of Christian art had profound influences beyond the monasteries on Western medieval art.
Over the course of your ministry, you will hear from many people of who they have had deeply spiritual experiences as they encountered great works of art: Carravagio’s Taking of the Christ in the National Gallery of Ireland in Dublin, which I hope we see tomorrow morning on our field trip [Saturday, 7 March 2015], or Michelangelo’s ceilings of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, for example.
We are all aware of how the spiritual message of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper has been misused in promoting Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code.
But think of how many people visit Saint Paul’s Cathedral in London solely to see William Holman Hunt’s The Light of the World. For me, this is the first image of Christ that I remember from my childhood, an image first shown to me in a book by my grandmother.
But works of art that are less well-known also have a strong impact on people, and necessarily during the first encounter. Although many of our churches have large east windows, this is the place for great works of art in, for example, the chapels of many colleges in Oxford and Cambridge, or in Lutheran churches throughout Scandinavia and Germany.
People will come to your churches to see the windows, or a painting, or the Telford organ, or the carved pews. Who can deny that these are religious experiences?
Is there ‘Christian art’?
So is there such a subject as Christian art?
And what is its place in the study of Church History?
Christian art is sacred art that seeks to illustrate, supplement and portray the principles of Christianity. Today, most Christian groups use art to some degree.
But there are strong objections to some forms of religious images, and there are major periods of iconoclasm in the past.
Which forms of Christian art do you find yourself feeling most comfortable about?
And which forms of Christian art do you find yourself feeling most uncomfortable about?
[Discussion]
What about the following examples:
● Stained glass windows;
● Icons;
● Statues;
● Stations of the Cross;
● Paintings;
● Frescoes.
● Cheap kitsch popular devotional prints.
To what degree is your taste or distaste related to the subject matter?
The subjects represented in Christian art may include:
● Images of Jesus;
● Narrative scenes from the Life of Christ;
● Scenes from the Old Testament and the New Testament;
● Images of the Virgin Mary;
● Portrayals of saints.
Can you think of others?
[Discussion]
You may think portrayals of saints and their representation in statues are much rarer in Anglican and Protestant traditions than in Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy traditions. But think of the carved statues on the west fronts of Westminster Abbey or Lichfield Cathedral.
What do you think of the place of Moses and David by Michelangelo in Florence in shaping our understanding of key figures in the Old Testament?
Christianity makes a greater use of images than the other two principal monotheistic faiths, Judaism and Islam, which discourage and even forbid the use of religious imagery.
Early Christian art can be traced right back to the beginnings of Christianity:
●The oldest surviving Christian paintings, from Megiddo, date from around the year 70.
●The oldest Christian sculptures are early 2nd century sarcophagi.
● The largest groups of Early Christian paintings come from the tombs in the Catacombs of Rome.
● The depiction of Christ in Christian art is a process that evolves until the 6th century. But the oldest image we have of Christ is the Icon of Christ from Saint Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai – there is a copy in the chapel.
However, Christian art is not only religious. It speaks to, informs and influences the development of art in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, and the Church became one of the greatest patrons of art.
After Rome fell and the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the Church continued to commission and to fund religious art.
In the East, the Greek Orthodox Church enjoyed greater stability and so there was greater continuity in art form in Constantinople and the East.
In Byzantine Christian art, a more abstract approach and replaced the naturalism found in Hellenistic art. Its primary purpose was to convey religious meaning rather than the accurate representation of objects and people. Realistic perspective, proportions, light and colour were ignored in favour of the geometric simplification of forms, reverse perspective and standardised conventions to portray individuals and events.
The controversy over the use of graven images, the interpretation of the Second Commandment, and the crisis of Byzantine Iconoclasm led to a standardisation of religious imagery in the Eastern Orthodoxy.
The fall of Constantinople in 1453 brought an end to the highest quality Byzantine art, produced in workshops in Constantinople and, most notable, in the school in Crete. Yet Orthodox art has since continued with relatively little change in subject and style.
When Western Europe became more stable in the Middle Ages, the Church commissioned paintings and sculptures.
The Renaissance saw an increase in great secular works of art, but until the Reformations Christian art continued to be commissioned in great quantities by the churches, clergy and the aristocracy.
The Reformation brought the production of public Christian art to a virtual halt in many European countries, and also saw the destruction of great works of art in churches, monasteries and other religious foundations. Artists were commissioned to work more secular genres, such as portraits and landscapes, and then – with the revival of Neoplatonism – subjects from classical Greek and Roman mythology.
In Roman Catholic countries, the Church role in commissioning art and the use of religious subjects in art continued. Indeed, this increased with the Counter-Reformation, although Roman Catholic art came under tighter Church control.
From the 18th century, the number of religious works by leading artists declined sharply, although important commissions continued, and some artists continued to produce large bodies of religious art on their own initiative. Examples of these include the Pre-Raphaelites in 19th century Victorian Britain.
By the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in Western Europe, some secular artists treated Christian themes, but only rarely was a Christian artist, such as Stanley Spencer, regarded as culturally significant.
However, in recent decades there has been a resurgence in religious art, with many modern artists, both Jewish and Christian – such as Eric Gill, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Jacob Epstein and Graham Sutherland – producing well-known works of art for churches.
This evening, I want to introduce eight great paintings that may help you develop a way of relating art to spirituality.
The first work bridges the gap between Byzantine art and the classical western art; the second, from Raphael, bridges the gap between the mediaeval and the modern in western art; the third provides an interesting challenge to our preconceived ideas about the Continental Reformations; the fourth and fifth are from the Pre-Raphaelites, who had a particular relationship with the development of Victorian Anglicanism; the sixth is by a modern artist whose work cannot be understood without understanding his theology and his spirituality; and the seventh and eighth are from a controversial modern surrealist who, surprisingly, believed he was inspired by revelations.
1, El Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586-1588):
El Greco, The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586-1588)The Burial of the Count of Orgaz (1586-1588) was painted by El Greco, Doménikos Theotokópoulos, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος (1541-1614), the Greek painter who is regarded as the architect of the Spanish Renaissance. This painting is widely regarded as one of his finest works. It illustrates a popular local legend. An exceptionally large painting, it is very clearly divided into two sections, with the heavenly above and the terrestrial below, but it gives little impression of duality, and the upper and lower sections are brought together in a unified composition.
The painting is based on a legend from the early 14th century. Don Gonzalo Ruíz of Toledo, lord of the town of Orgaz, who died in 1312, was a pious and charitable man. He left money for the enlargement and adornment of the church of Santo Tomé, which was El Greco’s parish church. According to the legend, when he was being buried, Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine came down in person from heaven and buried the good knight with their own hands in front of the dazzled eyes of those present.
El Greco’s painting was commissioned by Father Andrés Núñez, the parish priest of Santo Tomé, for the side-chapel of the Virgin in the Church of Santo Tomé.
The Burial of the Count of Orgaz has been admired not only for its art, but also because it was a gallery of portraits of the most eminent social figures of that time in Toledo.
The priest who commissioned El Greco is portrayed in the painting reading, while there is a life-like portrayal of the notable men of Toledo of the time. By including them in this painting, El Greco was paying homage to the aristocracy of the spirit, the clergy, the jurists, the poets and the scholars, who honoured him and his art, which had been spurned some time earlier in Italy.
Theologically, we should note how the painting is clearly divided into two zones: above, heaven is evoked by swirling icy clouds, semi-abstract in their shape, while the saints are tall and spirit-like; below, all is normal in the scale and proportions of the figures.
Can you see how the upper and lower zones are brought together in the composition? This is achieved, for example, by the standing figures, by their varied participation in the earthly and heavenly event, by the torches, by the cross, and so on.
The scene of the miracle is depicted in the lower part of the composition, in the earthly section. In the upper part, the heavenly domain, the clouds have parted to receive this just man. Christ clad in white and in glory, is the crowning point of the triangle formed by the figures of the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist.
This finds an obvious and immediate inspiration in the Greek Orthodox composition of the Δέησις (Deesis), where the enthroned Christ is guarded on each side by the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist, an arrangement that is generally seen on the iconostasis of Greek Orthodox churches too.
These three central figures of heavenly glory are surrounded by apostles, martyrs, Biblical kings and the just – including King Philip II of Spain, although he was still alive at the time.
Saint Stephen and Saint Augustine, robed in golden and red vestments, bend reverently over the body of the count, who is clad in armour that reflects the yellow and reds of the other figures.
The young boy at the left is El Greco’s son, Jorge Manuel. Written on a handkerchief in his pocket is the artist’s signature and the date 1578, the year the boy was born.
El Greco is also included in the painting: his face is just above of the saint’s golden hat.
Domenikos Theotokopoulos, The Dormition of the Virgin, SyrosThe Burial of the Count of Orgaz is El Greco’s first completely personal work. There are no longer any references to Roman or Venetian formulas or motifs. Yet El Greco remained a Byzantine painter all his life, and this painting should be compared with the composition of the Dormition of the Virgin, an icon found in 1983 in the Cathedral of the Dormition on the Greek island of Syros. It is now accepted that this icon was written by El Greco at the end of his career in his native Crete.
2, Raphael, The School of Athens (1510-1511):
Raphael, The School of Athens (1510-1511)The School of Athens, or Scuola di Atene, is one of the most famous paintings by the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael. It was painted between 1510 and 1511 as part of Raphael’s commission from Pope Julius II, who wanted Raphael to decorate the rooms now known as the Raphael Rooms or Stanze di Raffaello, in the Vatican Museums in Rome, with frescoes.
The Stanza della Segnatura was the first of the rooms decorated by Raphael, and The School of Athens, the second painting he finished there, after La Disputa on the opposite wall. The work has long been regarded as his masterpiece and the perfect embodiment of the classical spirit of the High Renaissance.
However, the title, The School of Athens, is not Raphael’s: it comes from a 17th century guidebook, and the title tends to obscure the painting’s immediate context and meaning.
It is actually one of a group on the four walls of the Stanza depicting distinct themes of knowledge. Each theme is identified above by a separate tondo with a majestic female figure seated in the clouds, with putti bearing the phrases: “Seek Knowledge of Causes,” “Divine Inspiration,” “Knowledge of Things Divine” (Disputa), “To Each What Is Due.” The figures on the walls below represent Philosophy, Poetry (including Music), Theology and Law.
The proper name of The School of Athens is therefore “Philosophy,” and its overhead-tondo-label, Causarum Cognitio, appears to echo Aristotle’s emphasis on wisdom as knowing why, hence knowing the causes (Metaphysics Book I and Physics Book II).
Aristotle appears to be the central figure in the scene below. Many of the philosophers shown in the fresco lived before Plato and Aristotle, hardly a third were Athenians, and the architecture is Roman, not Greek.
Commentators have suggested that nearly every great Greek philosopher can be found in the painting. But trying to identify who is who is difficult. Raphael left no newspaper-photograph caption for his work, and there are no contemporary documents to explain the painting.
This problem is compounded by the fact that Raphael found he had to invent his own system of iconography to allude to various philosophers for whom there had been no previous or traditional visual types. For example, while the figure of Socrates is immediately recognisable from classical busts, the figure said to be Epicurus is far removed from his standard type.
And yet there is widespread agreement on the identity of certain figures within the painting.
There is a popular notion that the rhetorical gestures of Plato and Aristotle show Plato pointing up to the heavens and Aristotle pointing down to earth. And yet, Plato’s Timaeus – which Raphael places in his hand – was a sophisticated treatment of space, time and change, including the Earth, which guided mathematical sciences for over a millennium. For his part, Aristotle, in his theory of four elements, held that all change on Earth was caused by the motions of the heavens. In the painting Aristotle carries his Ethics, which he denied could be a scientific study.
We do not known how much the young Raphael knew of ancient philosophy, what guidance he had from people such as Donato Bramante, or what detailed programme may have been dictated by the Pope.
Raphael orchestrates a beautiful space, continuous with that of the viewers in the Stanza, in which a variety of human figures, each expressing “mental states by physical actions,” interact and are grouped in a “polyphony” unlike anything in earlier art, in the ongoing dialogue of Philosophy.
The identity of some of the philosophers, such as Plato and Aristotle, the two central figures, is incontrovertible. But scholars disagree on many of the other figures, some of whom have double identities as ancients and as figures contemporary to Raphael. In addition, the extent of double portrayals is uncertain although, for example, it is generally accepted that Michelangelo is portrayed.
A key to understanding Raphael’s School of AthensRaphael’s figures are usually identified as follows:
1, Zeno of Citium;
2, Epicurus;
3, Federico II of Mantua?
4, Anicius Manilus Sverinus Boethius, or Anaximander, or Empedocles.
5, Averroes.
6, Pythagoras.
7, Alcibiades, or Alexander the Great?
8, Atisthenes, or Xenophon?
9, Hypatia (Francesco Maria della Rovere).
10, Aeschines, or Xenophon?
11, Parmenides?
12, Socrates.
13, Heraclitus (Michelangelo).
14, Plato (Leonardo da Vinci).
15, Aristotle.
16, Socrates, or Diogenes, or Sinope?
17, Plotinus?
18, Euclid, or Archimedes with students (Bramante)?
19, Strabo or Zoroaster (Pietro Bembo).
20, Ptolemy?
R, Appeles (Raphael).
21, Protogenes (Il Sodomoa, Perugio or Timoteo Viti).
In the centre of the fresco, at its architectural central vanishing point, are the two undisputed main subjects – Plato on the left, and his student Aristotle on the right. Both hold copies of their books in their left hands, while gesturing with their right. Plato holds Timaeus, Aristotle holds his Nicomachean Ethics. Plato is depicted as old, grey, wise-looking, and barefooted. By contrast Aristotle, slightly ahead of him, is in mature manhood, handsome, well-shod and dressed, with gold, and the youth about them seem to look his way.
In addition, these two central figures gesture along different dimensions: Plato vertically, upwards along the picture-plane, into the beautiful vault above; Aristotle on the horizontal plan at right-angles to the picture-plane, initiating a powerful flow of space toward viewers. It is popularly thought that their gestures indicate central aspects of their philosophies, Plato and his theory of forms, Aristotle and his empiricist views, with an emphasis on concrete particulars.
The setting of this work is also important. The building is in the shape of a Greek cross, which some commentators suggest was intended to show a harmony between pagan philosophy and Christian theology. The architecture of the building was inspired by the work of Bramante who is said to have helped Raphael with the architecture in the picture. Some writers suggest that the building itself was intended to be an advance view of Saint Peter’s Basilica.
There are two sculptures in the background. On the left is Apollo, the god of the Sun, archery and music, holding a lyre; on the right is Athena, the goddess of wisdom, in her Roman guise as Minerva.
At the time, the major controversies may have been caused by the inclusion of a woman, Hypatia, who was regarded as the brightest of the students at the School of Athens, and the Spanish philosopher Averroes, a Muslim who has often been described as the founder of western secular thinking.
Does Raphael in this fresco succeed in showing how theologians can reconcile philosophy with theology?
3, Rembrandt, The Nightwatch (1642):
Rembrandt, The Nightwatch (1642)The Night Watch (De Nachtwacht) is the most famous work by the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn. The painting is best known for three striking elements: its colossal size (363 x 437 cm); the effective use of light and shadow; and the perception of motion in what might have been expected to be a static military portrait.
This painting was completed in 1642, at the peak of the golden age in the history of The Netherlands. It shows the company moving out, led by Captain Frans Banning Cocq, dressed in black with a red sash, and his lieutenant, Willem van Ruytenburch, dressed in yellow with a white sash. Rembrandt’s effective use of sunlight and shade leads the eye to the three most important characters among the crowd, the two gentlemen in the centre, and the small girl in the centre left background. Behind them the company’s colours are carried by the ensign, Jan Visscher Cornelissen.
Rembrandt shows the traditional emblem of the militiamen, the arquebusiers, in a natural way: the girl in yellow dress in the background is carrying the main symbols: the claws of a dead chicken on her belt, the pistol behind the chicken, which refers to the name of the militia, and the militia’s goblet. The man in front of her is wearing a helmet with an oak leaf, a traditional motif of the militia. The dead chicken represents a defeated adversary, while the colour yellow symbolises victory.
The painting was commissioned by the captain and 17 members of the militia, who each paid a large sum for the painting which was to hang in musketeers’ newly-built banquet hall in Amsterdam. Some critics suggest that the occasion for Rembrandt’s commission was the visit of the then French Queen Marie de Medici in 1638. At the time she was escaping from her exile from France by her son, Louis XIII, but her arrival in Amsterdam was an occasion for great pageantry.
For centuries, the Nightwatch was covered with a dark varnish, giving the false impression that it shows a night scene, giving it its popular name. In 1715, the painting was moved cut down on all four sides so could fit between two columns in a new setting. This resulted in the loss of two characters on the left-hand side of the painting, as well as the top of the arch, the balustrade and the edge of the step, even though the balustrade and step were key visual tools used by Rembrandt to give the painting a forward motion.
This varnish was removed only in the 1940s.
Why I have I chosen this painting?
This painting has an important place in European culture. It is the most famous and most popular exhibit in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and is said to be the fourth most famous painting in the Western world, after the Mona Lisa, the Last Supper and Michelangelo’s ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
It has inspired many musical works, including the second movement of Gustav Mahler’s 7th Symphony, and the front cover of Terry Pratchett’s novel, Night watch, is illustrated with a parody of the painting.
But I also think when we see this painting without the gloomy varnish coat that covered it until the 1940s, we realise that Dutch Calvinist society was not as gloomy and dour as some prejudices might lead us to think. In fact, at its height, Dutch Calvinist society was a bright and interesting culture.
You might like to think too of Rembrandt’s great paintings of Biblical figures. His figures were often based on members of Amsterdam’s thriving Jewish community at the time.
And so Rembrandt’s corpus of work integrates many aspects of religious life as it impacted the secular concerns of 17th century Continental Europe.
4, William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat (1854-1855):
William Holman Hunt, The Scapegoat (1854)William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) is best known for his painting The Light of the World [see The Light of the World: art as spirituality]. There are two versions of that painting, one in Saint Paul’s Cathedral, London, and a second in the chapel of Keble College, Oxford.
Holman Hunt was a founding figure in the Pre-Raphaelites, a group of English painters and poets who hoped to bring to their art the richness and purity of the mediaeval period.
This painting, The Scapegoat (1854-1855), which hangs in the Lever Gallery in Liverpool, has two Biblical quotations on the original frame: “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows/Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53: 4); and “And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited” (Leviticus 16: 22).
The Scapegoat was the first major painting by Holman Hunt during his first visit to the Holy Land. He was there in search of scenes to use in planned paintings of the life of Christ. But the idea for this picture came while he was studying the Talmud for information on Jewish ritual for his painting, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple.
Hunt learned how on the Day of Atonement, one goat was sacrificed while another was ejected from the Temple with a scarlet piece of woollen cloth on its head. It was goaded and driven, either to death or into the wilderness, carrying with it the sins of the community. It was believed that if these sins were forgiven the scarlet cloth would turn white.
In the Book Leviticus, which is quoted on the frame, the goat is said to bear the iniquities of all into a land that was not inhabited. Hunt saw this Old Testament scapegoat as prefiguring Christ whose suffering and death expunged the sins of humanity.
Hunt set his goat in a landscape of quite hideous desolation – the shore of the Dead Sea at Osdoom, with the mountains of Edom in the distance. At the time, he described this setting as “a scene of beautifully arranged horrible wilderness,” and he saw the Dead Sea as a “horrible figure of sin,” believing, as many at the time believed, that it was the original site of Sodom.
In a letter to Dante Rossetti in 1855, Holman Hunt said the extraordinary sight of the Dead Sea for the first time led to his decision to paint this subject. Hunt spent two weeks on the edge of the Dead Sea painting in the landscape and making sketches and notes. Although he took a white goat with him, and tethered it near the shoreline of the Dead Sea, he left blank that part of the picture that the animal occupies and only painted the animal when he returned to his studio in Jerusalem.
Take a look at the foreground. Holman Hunt actually brought back samples of mud and salt from the Dead Sea to help him finish the foreground. In Jerusalem, he also bought or borrowed sheep and goat skulls and a full camel skeleton.
In both versions of this painting, he included the skull of an ibex, though in one version the skull and horns have become separated. The ibex skull was added to oblige a friend who told Holman Hunt that he should have used a goat with curved horns.
Hunt sold the picture for 450 guineas. The Liverpool soap magnate Lever bought the painting in 1923 for £4,950. It was exhibited at the Walker Art Gallery in 1923 and it now hangs in the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool. A smaller version of this painting, with a black goat and a rainbow symbolising hope and forgiveness of sins, is in the Manchester Art Gallery.
5, Dante Rossetti, The Annunciation (1850):
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Annunciation (1850)The poet, painter, and designer Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), was a co-founder of the Pre-Raphaelites. The son of the exiled Italian patriot and scholar, he was a brother of the poet Christina Rossetti (1830-1893), author of one of the greatest Christmas carols, In the bleak mid-winter.
Dante Rossetti studied at the Royal Academy, where he met William Holman Hunt and John Millais, and together they formed the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848. Rossetti’s first Pre-Raphaelite paintings in oils, based on religious themes and with elements of mystical symbolism, were The Girlhood of Mary Virgin (1849) and The Annunciation: Ecce Ancilla Domini (1850), both in the Tate Gallery, London.
Rossetti’s The Annunciation was first exhibited at the Royal Academy, along with works by Millais and Holman Hunt, all with Christian themes. In this painting, white dominates, only relieved by small areas of blue, red and yellow. This emphasises the quality of the Virgin Mary’s purity. The Archangel Gabriel offers Mary a lily – a flower that always denotes purity when shown alongside the Virgin Mary – as he tells her she is to bear the Christ child.
But what is unusual about this painting?
What was controversial about it?
Did you notice how Mary is shown in a state of fear? How she is cowering against the wall and casting her eyes down? This portrayal of Mary contrasts with many artistic depictions of the annunciation, where she is shown in a state of humble acceptance.
In painting his Annunciation in such a realistic manner, Rossetti was breaking with tradition. Italian Renaissance artists had painted the Virgin Mary as a holy figure, isolated and set aside from ever-day life. But in this work, she is an ordinary Mary, an every-day girl bewildered by the news she has just hear from the Angel Gabriel.
And, as you can image, large sections of the public were enraged.
6, Stanley Spencer, The Resurrection, Cookham (1923-1927):
Stanley Spencer, The Resurrection, Cookham (1923-1927)This painting hangs in the Tate Gallery in London and I have been intrigued by it long before it was used to illustrate a major feature of mine in The Irish Times.
The English artist Stanley Spencer (1891-1956) believed that the divine rested in all creation. His earthy Christian faith and his preoccupation with death and resurrection are reflected in many of his works. His mural for the Sandham Memorial Chapel in Burghclere, dedicated to the dead of World War I, has an altarpiece depicting the Resurrection of the Soldiers.
Stanley Spencer was born in and spent most of his life in the Thames-side village of Cookham in Berkshire, about 30 miles west of London. One of 12 children, he seems to have had an enchanted childhood. Perhaps this explains why he saw his home town of Cookham as a paradise in which everything is invested with mystical significance.
Characters and stories drawn from the daily Bible readings with his father inspired his future work. Much of his greatest work depicts Biblical scenes, from miracles to the Crucifixion. However, they are set not in the Holy Land, but – like this painting, The Resurrection, Cookham (1923–1927) – are set in Cookham, which he referred to as “a village in heaven.” Cookham and its familiar figures became the ingredients for most of his paintings, with actual villagers depicted as Biblical characters.
The Resurrection, Cookham is the first of a great series of resurrection paintings. The entire population of the village – including Spencer – is seen popping out of their graves in the churchyard in Cookham, looking as dapper as ever, squinting in the sunlight of bright sunny day.
Christ is enthroned in the church porch, cradling three babies, with God the Father standing behind. Spencer himself appears near the centre, naked, leaning against a grave stone. His fiancée Hilda Carline – whom he married in 1925 while working on this painting – lies sleeping in a bed of ivy. At the top left, we can see risen souls being transported to Heaven in the pleasure steamers that then ploughed along the River Thames.
But do you notice anything odd here?
This is a resurrection without a last judgment. It seems everyone in Cookham is to be forgiven their sins.
7, Salvador Dalí, Christ of Saint John of the Cross (1951):
Salvador Dalí, Christ of Saint John of the CrossThe Christ of Saint John of the Cross was painted by the Spanish surrealist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) in 1951, and is probably the best-known modern painting of the Crucifixion.
The painting shows Christ on the cross in a darkened sky floating over a body of water complete with a boat and fishermen. The people beside the boat are derived from a picture by Le Nain and from a drawing by Velazquez. But the painting takes its theme, inspiration and title from a drawing by the 16th century Spanish Carmelite mystic Saint John of the Cross, in which Christ is depicted as if seen from above. That work is now in the convent in Avila.
Although this is a depiction of the Crucifixion, did you notice how there are no nails, blood, wounds, or crown of thorns?
Why?
Dalí said he was convinced in a dream that these features would mar his depiction of Christ.
Secondly, take a look at the angle that we are asked to see Christ from.
Once again, Dalí said that in a dream he was revealed the importance of depicting Christ in this extreme angle.
In 1961, the canvas was damaged by a visitor to the museum who threw a brick at it. He later explained his action, saying the viewpoint of the artist was looking down on rather than up at Christ on the Cross.
Thirdly, notice how the composition of Christ is based on a triangle and circle. The triangle is formed by Christ’s arms; the circle is formed by Christ’s head.
What is the artist saying here?
The triangle, since it has three sides, can be seen as a reference to the Trinity. The circle may be an allusion to Platonic thought.
On the bottom of his studies for the painting, Dalí explained its inspiration: “In the first place, in 1950, I had a ‘cosmic dream’ in which I saw this image in colour and which in my dream represented the ‘nucleus of the atom.’ This nucleus later took on a metaphysical sense; I considered it ‘the very unity of the universe,’ the Christ!”
This painting was regarded as banal by an important art critic when it was first exhibited in London for the first time at the Lefevre Gallery. It was bought by Glasgow Corporation in the early 1950s for £8,200, which was a very high price high at the time. It now hangs in the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow, and has been voted Scotland’s favourite painting.
8, Salvador Dali, The Ascension of Christ (1958):
Salvador Dali, The Ascension of Christ (1958)Salvador Dalí said that his inspiration for The Ascension of Christ similarly came from a “cosmic dream” that he had eight years earlier in 1950. In the dream, which was in vivid colour, he said he saw the nucleus of an atom, which we see in the background of the painting.
Dalí said he later realised that this nucleus was the true representation of the unifying spirit of Christ. As with most of Dalí’s other paintings of Christ, his face is not visible.
Did you notice how the figure of the Christ, from his feet in the foreground to his outstretched arms, forms a triangle?
The feet of Christ point out at me as the viewer, drawing my eye inwards along his body to the centre of the atom behind him. The atom has the same interior structure as the head of a sunflower.
We have just noticed how Dalí first used a triangular structure in 1951 in his painting Christ of Saint John of the Cross.
The painting is also formed by the theories of the golden rectangle. A golden rectangle is a rectangle whose side lengths are in the golden ratio, one-to-phi, that is, approximately 1:1.618. A distinctive feature of this shape is that when a square section is removed, the remainder is another golden rectangle, that is, with the same proportions as the first. Square removal can be repeated infinitely, which leads to an approximation of the golden or Fibonacci spiral.
What do you think Dalí is trying to say to us by using the gold rectangle in this work? What is he saying about the Cosmic Christ and eternity?
An introduction to Church Music
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 in settings for the Eucharist, with singing Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus and Benedictus and Agnus Dei.
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis … part and parcel of the history of the Anglican choral and liturgical traditionSung and Vested Evensong in the chapel here on Thursday evenings can fall 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 synagogueWe 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.
Psalm 150 calls 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 AltarpieceIn 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 choirsSaint 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 musicMass 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 evening, 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
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.
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.
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
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 1871Christmas 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:
3.2: An introduction to architecture in Church History
(Revd Canon Professor) Patrick Comerford is Lecturer in Anglicanism, Liturgy and Church History, the Church of Ireland Theological Institute. This lecture on 7 March 2015 was part of the Church History Elective (TH 7864) with part-time MTh students.
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