Art, religion, culture

I read an interesting article today in the Times Online (London), addressing the interplay of art, religion and culture. Here are a few passages that stood out to me in particular:

“Artists responded to religious commissions with some of their finest works. And it was not just money that moved them. They worked in the service of a faith that could lift their talents above the level of mere illustration and offer a supreme test of skill.”

“Over the past decades the irreverent subversion of religion has been most discussed. . . artists have played transgressive games. But in so doing they pay homage, in a sense, to the power of religion. On the flipside of their blasphemies lies an acknowledgement of the potency of the symbols that they attack. They follow simple principles: the bigger the tree that they hack at, the more spectacular the crash as it falls.”

“Culture often takes the role of religion in our contemporary world. Galleries are modern-day temples, regularly attended by the people on their day of rest. Exhibitions are discussed with almost evangelical fervour. . . . As we wander through museums, we ponder the sort of questions that theology once asked: why is this here at all? What does it mean? How should we live in the face of our challenges? In an era in which religion is too often reduced to dogmatic squabbles, art reopens the mind and emotions to the wider questions of the world. As we push our prams through Tate Modern we are not so far removed from those medieval peasants who once stood gawping in cathedrals, learning their Bible stories from the stonemason’s works.”

Perhaps Pope Benedict XVI was thinking along these same lines to some extent when he invited hundreds of artists to the Vatican last fall for a ceremony in which he issued “a cordial, friendly and impassioned appeal” to transmit “authentic beauty that unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other.” You can read about the Vatican gathering in a New York Times article here, though the article is somewhat preoccupied with the event’s public relations value. For more of what the Pope said to his audience, click here.

“Be grateful, then, for the gifts you have received and be fully conscious of your great responsibility to communicate beauty, to communicate in and through beauty! Through your art, you yourselves are to be heralds and witnesses of hope for humanity! And do not be afraid to approach the first and last source of beauty, to enter into dialogue with believers, with those who, like yourselves, consider that they are pilgrims in this world and in history towards infinite Beauty! Faith takes nothing away from your genius or your art: on the contrary, it exalts them and nourishes them.” – Pope Benedict XVI

I beg to differ with the Times London article’s statement that theology used to lead us to contemplate the spiritual meaning of our lives. Theology most certainly can and still does do that, even with broad cultural effect, with or without great art to accompany it. On the other hand, I very much agree with the comment that “art reopens the mind and emotions to the wider questions of the world.”

April 6, 2010 | Filed Under Faith, Culture | 2 Comments 

James MacMillan interviews

James MacMillan I continue to take interest in composer James MacMillan’s comments on anti-religious bias in today’s culture. Last week the London Telegraph published a MacMillan interview (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturecritics/ivanhewett/5202098/James-MacMillan-interview.html) that echoed sentiments expressed by the composer in an interview last year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/3116598/Composer-James-MacMillan-warns-of-liberal-elites-ignorance-fuelled-hostility-to-religion.html) I recommend both articles. Especially interesting is the conversation carried out in the comments posted on the October ‘08 article (yes, I read all 91 of them!)

So glad to have James MacMillan on the scene with Soli Deo Gloria, both as an Advisory Director and a musical collaborator. We’re pursuing work with him now on a major new commission project, the details of which we hope to announce within the next few weeks. Incidentally, MacMillan’s Seven Last Words from the Cross is one of my favorite modern works. I think it gets at the “communicative core” of music - an idea the composer mentions in his latest interview.

April 27, 2009 | Filed Under Interviews, Faith, Culture | 1 Comment 

Food for thought

A delicious, home-cooked meal I enjoyed last month in Paris, compliments of Anita NelsonI’m reflecting today on some inspiring and (I believe) interrelated comments from Beethoven, Ruth Pitter, C. S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley, dealing with music, beauty and the human experience. Other than to point out how central these thoughts are in my own love of music, there’s not much I could hope to add in the way of interpretation — and really, I don’t think that’s needed anyway. So, I’ll just lay them out here and hope that readers of this blog will enjoy ruminating on them as well.

First, an experience relayed by British poet Ruth Pitter, in a BBC broadcast titled Hunting the Unicorn (more info here):

“I was sitting in front of a cottage door one day in spring long ago, a few bushes and flowers round me, bird gathering nesting material, trees of the forest at a little distance. A poor place, nothing glamorous about it. And suddenly, everything assumed a different aspect, its true aspect. For a moment it seemed to me that truth appeared in its overwhelming splendor. The secret was out, the explanation given, something that had seemed like total freedom, total power, total bliss – good with no bad as its opposite, an absolute that had no opposite. This thing, so unlike our feeble nature, had suddenly cut across one’s life and vanished. What is this thing? Is it, could it be, after all, a hint of something more real than this life? A message from reality, perhaps a particle of reality itself? If so, no wonder we hunt it so unceasingly, and never stop desiring it and pining for it.”

From Beethoven:

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and sensual life.”

From C. S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory:

“The things — the beauty, the memory of our own past — are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.”

Lastly, from English writer Aldous Huxley (Yes, I know, Huxley’s an odd figure to quote alongside C. S. Lewis in this way. Incidentally, the two writers died on the same day in 1963):

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music.”

January 22, 2009 | Filed Under Faith, Quotes | Leave a Comment 

Thoughts, words, music

Peter Bannister leads the EOP in rehearsal

Before composing the music of his oratorio Et iterum venturus est, Peter Bannister spent the better part of a year, or more, contemplating the work’s theological underpinnings. The text of the new work is made up entirely of scripture passages chosen and arranged by the composer, and set in Latin. An English translation of the text is available for download by clicking here.The composer’s thoughtful approach to structure and focus is evident. The seven movements of Et iterum venturus est are as follows:

1) Fall and Protoevangelion
2) Prophecy
3) Incarnation
4) Kenosis
5) Resurrection
6) Ascension
7) Parousia (Second Coming)

Peter Bannister leads a rehearsal of 'Et iterum venturus est'I’m impressed with the work’s cosmic embrace and piecing together of scriptural narratives addressing Christ’s comings into the world, beginning with the fall of man, traversing Messianic prophecy, including the gospel account of Christ’s life on earth and concluding with anticipation of his Second Coming. But really, it’s no surprise to me that Peter would approach this project with such profound spiritual vision. One of the great privileges I’ve enjoyed in my work with SDG is to get to know Peter and to see his gifts at work, including his brilliance in connecting the dots between music and faith. For example I encourage you to check out www.ThinkingFaith.org, the online journal of the British Jesuits, where just last week was posted an article by Peter addressing the religious views of composer Olivier Messiaen—a discussion prompted in part by Norman Lebrecht’s recent article, Why Messaien doesn’t raise my spirits.

December 9, 2008 Concert PosterI hope very much that Et iterum venturus est will be heard again soon! Ideas have already surfaced for performances at several venues/festivals in Europe, which we’ll seriously pursue. Meanwhile, nothing I could provide by way of verbal description could substitute for the experience of hearing the music itself, but thankfully the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris kindly granted permission for me to post video footage of the rehearsals, which at least provides a glimpse. I plan to post more of that soon…

December 16, 2008 | Filed Under Bannister: Et iterum venturus est, Olivier Messiaen, Faith | Leave a Comment 

Enigmatic Messiaen

There’s been a lot of talk about composer Olivier Messiaen this year, in SDG circles and elsewhere around the world, as 2008 marks the 100th anniversary of the late composer’s birth. And alright I’ll admit it, I have only a sparse and cursory knowledge of Messiaen’s music. It’s one of the many things on my unwritten list of things to do—to give my full attention to absorbing at least a few of Messiaen’s most popular works. Regardless, I already find myself drawn toward the model that Messiaen provides for Christian faith expressed in music that inventively commands attention from its audience, even from listeners who find its religious fervor off-putting (that would not be me).

One such listener is music critic Norman Lebrecht, who posted an article this week registering his complaint with the themes of music of Messiaen’s output, despite his respect for its craft. Here’s a bit of Lebrecht’s trouble:

There could be no doubt that Olivier Messiaen was a composer who spoke heart to heart, even if he left mine unmoved. Much as I appreciated his exquisite simulation of natural sounds, I refused to subscribe to his dogmatic certainties of religious faith and my place in the cosmos. Messiaen lodged in my critical faculty like a bone in the throat: a composer of great consequence whom I could neither ingest nor ignore.

.  .  . Blind faith belongs in church, not in the concert hall where those who doubt or deny are excluded. The artist’s job is to ask questions, not to affirm.

Lebrecht’s article is endearingly honest and I recommend it especially for anyone who tracks with the work of Soli Deo Gloria (click here for the full article). I’ve witnessed this sort of wrestling several times in the course of my work with SDG, most recently in remarks made by tenor Nicholas Phan. I think it’s part of sacred music’s value to prompt our thoughts toward the Divine, even if there appears to be no conversion or warming to faith at the end of the line. Lebrecht’s article brings to mind a recent NY Times feature that ends with the following anecdote:

My only encounter with Messiaen came during his visit to the New England Conservatory in Boston in 1986. I will never forget the enthralling performance he and Ms. Loriod gave of “Visions de l’Amen,” an audacious, wildly joyful and technically formidable work for two pianos. Taking questions from the audience, Messiaen was visibly moved when a young man asked, “Does a listener have to have had a spiritual experience to appreciate your music?” “Not at all,” Messiaen answered. But, he added, “it would be the highest compliment to me as a composer if you had a spiritual experience because of hearing my music.”

My pastor once commented that in our culture today it is “cool” to search for God, but not very cool to find him. Talk of a “spiritual experience” can seem suspect of that sort of spineless pluralism. Still, I’d like to believe that there are truths about God’s character and our “place in the cosmos”, as Mr. Lebrecht put it, that great music can get across to us in a disarming way, even if we are prone to resist. And I hope that that will be Norman Lebrecht’s experience in journing through Messiaen’s music the rest of this year—that he would find, as he wrote, “a key that unlocks the mystery of its attraction.”

September 11, 2008 | Filed Under Olivier Messiaen, Faith, SDG general | 1 Comment 

Fiddling while Rome burns?

Among my principal concerns for Soli Deo Gloria these days is the need to present our work in a way that better illumines its relevance to the world around us. To do this, we must articulate not simply what SDG does, i.e. our mission statement, but why that is important. One of the most familiar rally cries for SDG is the call to nurture the venerable but dwindling tradition of sacred music, to pick up a baton dropped long ago by the church and the royal houses of Europe. Of course there is validity to this, and I’ve made it a central point of conversation on many occasions. But I’ve begun to question this emphasis, given the context of our troubled world, and I’ve come to consider it only marginally compelling.

So, I recently challenged the directors of SDG to express in their own words the all-important ‘why’ behind our efforts. At the end of the day, I hope to arrive at a simple statement of vision that communicates the urgency of our work, something that captures our aim to “speak to the human condition”, as one friend put it, and to glorify God as our name espouses. Perhaps we’ll borrow a bit of framework from J. S. Bach’s statement that “The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.”

One of the first SDG board members to respond to this challenge was composer Peter Bannister, who sent the following magnificent reply. My thanks go out to Peter for allowing me to post this, as I consider it a worthy read for anyone who is serious about faith and the arts.

In a world of massive and glaring challenges facing us all, such as climate change, endemic violence, widespread poverty, disease and hopelessness, it is not self-evident that allocation of precious time and resources to the arts can be justified. Some might argue - not without reason - that we are fiddling while Rome burns. Knowing that one day we will be held accountable for the use of our talents on this earth, I regularly ask myself whether my decision to engage in artistic activity is a valid moral choice when I could be doing a whole host of things that are more obviously and immediately beneficial to humanity.

If I feel that it is important to offer something by way of a defense of contemporary art in general and music in particular, I can only do so with several important qualifications. I do have the impression that much modern art is indeed essentially futile if not downright destructive, whether it is tied to notions of ‘art for art’s sake’ or functions as mere entertainment pandering to market forces. It would seem clear that Christian engagement with the arts, if it is to be subject to an overriding call to discipleship, has to provide not only an alternative vision in terms of its subject-matter but also an alternative form of praxis. As with any other human endeavor, art surely has to be approached as an apostolate, pursued with the same passionate, self-emptying commitment and a desire for the beautiful, the good and the true as any other calling.

However, the unfortunate truth is that sincerity is not enough. In his searching ‘Reflections on Art and Love’ entitled Grace and Necessity, Archbishop Rowan Williams makes the telling point that ‘there is a difference between the choices that a person makes for the good of their soul and the choices made for the good of the work.’ He explains this by quoting the author Flannery O’Connor: ‘The Catholic novelist doesn’t have to be a saint; he doesn’t even have to be a Catholic; he does, unfortunately, have to be a novelist.’ Even when art is placed at the service of a Christian message, it is difficult not to feel uneasy if the artwork itself is ‘conformed to this world’s mode’, merely reflecting (without necessarily being aware of it) the shallowness of much of the cultural production associated with late capitalism.

My sense is that this is where SDG can have a real role to play in stressing that artistic quality is one of the most important witnesses of sacred music to the world at large. It is not merely an optional extra tacked on to worthy religious sentiments. The continuing capacity of the Judeo-Christian tradition to inspire living contemporary creation provides evidence of the present-day relevance of the Biblical message and testifies to the creative power of the Holy Spirit. In a world where faith is politely (or not so politely) dismissed as charmingly irrelevant at best and inimical to human happiness at worst, the vitality of sacred art is surely one of the ‘kingdom signs’ pointing to God’s future and counters the view prevalent in secular culture that great sacred art is a mere relic of a dethroned ‘Christendom’. Creation is not merely something that God ‘did’ - creating in disinterested love characterizes God’s very being and implies creatio continua, ongoing creation which should surely be mirrored by the Church universal as the Body of Christ. Art is one dimension of that creative expression. In the words of Rowan Williams, ‘human making seeks to echo, necessarily imperfectly, the character of God’s love as shown in making and becoming incarnate’. As God’s love is gratuitous, so art’s value can at times be similar to that ‘useless’ Beauty which Dostoevsky claimed would save the world. Like Mary Magdelene’s extravagantly useless anointing of Christ’s feet, artistic labor can be that gesture of worship which, according to the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain who inspired a generation of Christian artists in the inter-war years in France and elsewhere, unmasks the ‘fecundity of money and the finality of the useful’ for what they are - idols.

Many cultures since the dawn of civilization have openly or tacitly acknowledged the connection between the ’sacred’ and the primal physical and psychological impact of sound on the human body, mind and spirit. The Western classical tradition has no claim to exclusivity in this respect, even if for many of us it offers some of the most sublime examples of transcendent musical beauty. However, history has shown us that art can be harnessed for ill as well as for good. Music’s power to touch regions of the self too deep for words is a two-edged sword. The devastatingly effective appropriation of Wagner - or, perhaps still worse, Beethoven - by the Third Reich is a chilling warning against the naïve view that artistic greatness by itself renders the musical work immune to being co-opted by powers of monstrous evil. Indeed, the very notion of the ‘greatness’ of the artist (a child of Modernity in all its ambiguity) has more than a touch of hubris to it of which we should be wary.

These considerations would seem to indicate that while artistic quality is indispensable to the integrity of SDG’s endeavors, on its own it is not enough. Ours surely has to be a dual focus - we are aiming to promote sacred music from the past, present and future where a burning spiritual vision and artistic excellence work in harmony in a way that cannot but command the respect even of those who do not believe.

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July 9, 2008 | Filed Under Faith, SDG general, Culture | 2 Comments 

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