Musings on Classical Music 3
Ode to Joy: Great Choral Masterpieces
Sydney Philharmonic Choir
An album with the Sydney Opera House on the front has to be at least enjoyable, does it not? This album features the live recording of the Sydney Philharmonic Choir’s "Great Choral Masterpieces" concert. All the big ones are on here: Mozart, Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Monteverdi, Hayden, Beethoven, Verdi, and Mendelssohn.
A greatest hits of sacred music, if you will, is a peculiar phenomenon. This is the cream of the crop, and it took all my strength not to stand in my cubicle and sing "King of Kings, Lord of Lords" during Handel’s Messiah. But on the other hand this performance has ripped great choral music out of its context.
The narrative of sacred music is the Holy Scriptures, and like taking a verse out of context, these songs seem a bit out of context. Like Easter-and-Christmas only worshippers, these songs create a two-tiered nature to sacred music, focusing on one part of the story that is great musically but maybe not as important to the story the whole piece is trying to tell.
And that’s the trouble we find ourselves in with the Bible. Sometimes a verse really hits hard or sounds great as a zinger in a sermon or a theological showdown. But really we’re not telling the whole story.
We as Christians need to always be telling the whole story, the whole gospel, for that is Christ. When we rip Scripture out of context and distort it to fit our views and tastes, we are not sharing Christ but our ideologies. Ode to Joy sounds really cool right now coming through my laptop speakers, but without the context what am I being joyful about?
We need to be inside the story, from beginning to end. That’s when the sacred begins to make sense, and we know not only that we are joyful but why we are.
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Being trained in classical music, I’ve often been frustrated by these “collection” editions. How can you know the greatness of the fourth movement of Beethoven’s ninth without moving through the first 3 movements? (Incidentally, I’ve wondered this about buying songs one at a time through iTunes–don’t the musicians choose these songs to fit together? Aren’t we cheating them by buying only the song that’s been playing on the radio rather than opening ourselves up to the entire album?)
I was at a lecture recently when the guy made the comment (something to the effect of), all passages in Scripture are there to show us a commandment, principle, moral, model, or teaching (I think he listed a few more as well). I thought, what a small view of Scripture. This is not to say that Scripture (and passages within Scripture) doesn’t do the above, but it’s so much more. Isn’t that approach catering to my needs inevitably (even if it is a teaching I don’t like)? Doesn’t it make it all about me rather than the story of God’s kingdom (and then from that, my identity and how I fit in the kingdom)?
And aren’t Scriptures a ‘compilation album’ of sorts? Snatches of the greater story that is humanities experience of (and with) the One who Is – each story taken from its context to inform our continuing story. Our struggle to respond to Scriptural revelation, and to continue to tell the story as we read it in the Risen Christ, under the prompting of the Spirit, creates the context in which we can be joyful (I too, am guilty of singing Handel’s Messiah – and Mozart’s Requiem, for that matter – in and out of season). The greatest revelation is that we are inside the story – it continues to be written – and it is still God’s story, no matter how many variations we propose.
Heather, I have been enjoying your podcasts on God’s story and our life. I have been reading Robert Benson’s In Constant Prayer right now and he has been very though provoking on this point, in respect to prayer, but I think it is applicable to this situation as well. Benson encourages the reader to begin praying for God instead of for ourselves, as a type of priestly function. We are to pray because it glorifies God. Reading the Bible is not to edify ourselves, it is to give glory to God.
I think Evangelicals and Protestants, and I am guilty as much as the rest of us, have looked at spiritual disciplines like Boy Scout merit badges, to be perfected and collected, instead of as our priestly duty before God. We do not pray or read for our needs but for the needs of God’s kingdom, and if the two do not intertwine then we are the ones that need to change.
Jeff, you said: "The greatest revelation is that we are inside the story – it continues
to be written – and it is still God’s story, no matter how many
variations we propose."
An interesting thought. I do see your perspective on a compliation album as being different than the greatest hits. Psalm 23 is a greatest hit, but there are many narratives in God’s Story, and I like your concept. We always need to find our way back to God’s story, and depending on where we are in life there are different strands of God’s story we relate to and attach ourselves to—like a compilation album that is perfect for a summer drive or a snow day or…
Thanks for the comment.