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Bach hymnody See: 178 Chorale Harmonizations Of J.S. Bach: A Comparative Edition For Study
I guess it's no mystery why Protestant Christianity has forsaken its cultural roots, turned its back on the great artistic achievements of its early years and now revels in today's popular culture with a fervor worthy of a sybarite in a whorehouse. I'm sure many would argue that modern Christendom in general has turned its back on the best in its spiritual message too, only to revel in warmed over feel-good messages of a startlingly simple nature. But the artistic culture is the more palpable. Almost any cultivated person can tell the difference between the old hymnody and the new choruses
that get sung in Protestant churches.
This morning I awoke to compose a simple two-part quasi-non-folk song (hey: I'm folk
too). A lovely little melody with a simple, elegant counter-melody, but since the night before I was studying Bach's four-part chorales, I have to say I know that against which it pales.
I've been listening to Bach cantatas, recently, which contain some amazing harmonizations of old hymns. What is astounding about Bach's is that they are so beautiful, so obviously great. The four-part harmonizations are masterpieces in themselves. Their extended settings, in the cantatas, are brilliant, some of the best music ever composed by anyone anywhere.
And yet most people have not heard them.
Most people, after all, aren't Lutherans. And since these works were part of Lutheran liturgy . . .
But it doesn't follow that other denominations of Protestantism couldn't use these great works in church services. Most churches, of course, couldn't afford all the professional singers and instrumentalists for the full-blown cantatas. But they could use he hymns themselves, as harmonized by Bach. Congregations could sing the English translations of the old German hymns, and the organist or pianist could play Bach's incredibly good harmonizations.
It's possible. And yet there appears to be no clamor for this. It appears that the most complete English-language version of these hymns is not easily available. At least, it isn't listed on Amazon (I found the citation for it here):
The four-part chorales of J. S. Bach, with the German text of the hymns and English translations, edited with an historical introduction, notes and critical appendices by Charles Sanford Terry. London, New York, Oxford University Press [1964], xxv, close score (539 p.) facsims. (incl. music) port. 27 cm.First published 1929. Reprinted (with a new foreword) 1964.
Bach, who composed to the glory of God,
has his work now studied and reverenced mainly by musicians. Christians, who could carry on his legacy, ostensibly to the glory of God,
have little interest in doing so. When I was a kid, the church I attended sang some of the old hymns with gusto — masterworks such as Holy, Holy, Holy
— but generally preferred to sing later works as Power in the Blood,
a revival hymn with all the musical sophistication of She'll Be Comin' 'Round the Mountain When She Comes.
Nowadays the bulk of evangelical Christians don't even sing hymns. They sing little ditties with titles like Deep and Wide.
I'm sure this tendency to sing little ditties to God can be justified by reference to scriptures. That old Christian standby, of the lofty being confounded by the lowly, the wise by fools, the knowledgeable by the ignorant, the tasteful by the tasteless, will work handily here.
But it doesn't change the fact that most of what now gets sung in evangelical churches is tasteless, childish, and rather trashy. All of it, when not very old, tends to be very, very simple.
Still, simplicity can sometimes be amazingly effective. The old German hymns, before their Bachian harmonization, are often simple constructions (though many do change key midway, something a modern folk song
won't do). And hey: just this morning I composed something utterly simple.
And yet my two-part harmonization included a major seventh interval on the downbeat, and a minor key tonic to the second voice while the primary voice sung in the major throughout. All it needs to start a renaissance in Protestant artistry is a set of maudlin lyrics and we're ready to rock-n-roll.
Oops. No. Rock-n-roll is gutter euphemism for sexual intercourse, and you'd think that would be enough to keep Christians from too close a union with that popular tradition. But you'd be wrong. Still, is there any hope for a revival of artistry in Protestant Christianity?
I have a sister who composes folkish-like songs of a reverential nature. They are usually more complex than the little ditties now popular in churches. They are actual songs, and because their lyrics often follow the ancient structures of certain psalms, they show a quirky form not exhibited often in the Deep and Wide
oeuvre.
Her daughter is a talented musician who married another talented musician who now works in a church somewhat in the manner that Bach did. He composes original songs of a folkish, semi-popular nature. And they are far more harmonically complex than the standard Christian rock trash, or the bulk of ditty songs for church singing.
I wonder if they can possibly succeed in the marketplace.
But he does succeed in his church, so that may be enough.
As for me, my own compositions tend to be only a little more complex than my nephew's, if pandiatonicism, bitonality, and neomodalism count for complexity. But he's a trained musician, and my amateur efforts remain fairly uneven. Needless to say, they certainly never to reach up to the level of Bachwerke.
Predictably, I still have trouble understanding why today's churches wouldn't buy hymnals with all of Bach's chorales translated into English. I bet the words would be acceptable. If not better than the ditties now sung, theologically and morally. And the music: it would be easy to sing the main melody, and wondrous to learn the harmonies.
But hey: that's none of my business. I'm one of the ones confounded by the tasteless. I'm by no means doing the confounding.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 4, 2006 | permalink
Martinu viola See: Sonata for Viola and Piano by Martinu
The violist apologizes for the jumpy camera and poor sound quality . . .
. . . but I just like the music. Gotta love Bohuslav Martinu, the composer with one of the most distinctive sounds of the last century.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 5, 2006 | permalink
punctuation apostrophe See: names of punctuation marks
A girlfriend of mine once quipped, one night as we parted, that we wouldn't see each other again till we have faeces.
She was making a joke at the expense of one of my favorite novels.
It wasn't her only one, either. My classmates at the time (this was years and years ago), made fun of my carrying around a copy of Mervyn Peake's Titus Groan. They pronounced it TIT-us groan. Ha-ha. But my girl was smarter. She saw the sexual pun: Tightest Groin.
These ribaldries came to mind by way of almost random neuronal firing when I realized that I'd missed the premiere of the new TV show 'Til Death. I wanted to see it because . . . I was annoyed by the apostrophe. The logo for the show starts with the first inverted comma, not an apostrophe.
This is an illiteracy that I don't expect from writers in the Gutenberg dimension . . . though smart people throughout today's post-literate society no longer understand apostrophes, that is certain. The error is rampant. It exists because word processors have been programmed to treat a typed apostrophe following a space as the beginning of a quoted passage, per Britain's inverted comma
method of punctuation, rather than as an apostrophe.
I could blame this on Microsoft, but I've noted it in other word processing programs, too. Word is not the only word in modern typographical error.
But this doesn't excuse anyone. Since the words until and till both exist as synonyms in the language, the very use and existence of until's contraction is an illiteracy.
Critics generally despise the new show, so perhaps the illiteracy in the title can be taken as a natural sign of the show's artistic failure, too.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 17, 2006 | permalink
Everybody's so touchy. Thankfully, some are less touchy than others.
Gore Vidal can write what amounts to a satyr play of a novel making fun of Christianity, and Christians yawn. They won't squawk until a major studio makes a movie of it.
The Pope, on the other hand, quotes Palaeologos II, who charged that Muslims are given to violence for religious reasons, and little platoons of Muslims object, committing violence for religious reasons.
Voltaire once quipped that he had made but one prayer to God, to make his enemies ridiculous. "And He granted it." Well, it seems the Pope may have echoed Catholic-hatin' Voltaire's prayer, because none are more ridiculous than offended Muslims. What a bunch of benighted fools. And knaves.
It's not that the statement isn't argumentative, and a challenge to Muslims:
Show me what Mohammed brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
It's that people confident of their beliefs shouldn't be so offended by those who disagree. This is a sign of weakness, really.
I grew up knowing that many of the beliefs I had been taught offended others. Though I came to disown many of those beliefs, I got used to offending others, and to holding beliefs at variance with the general opinion.
Early on I saw that a free society was built on ignoring a whole lot of offenses. And I realized that everyone should learn to be less touchy.
Liberty should not be abridged in cases of offense. Liberty should not be abridged even in cases of harm, as such. Liberty should be abridged only in retaliation and defense against those who've abridged liberty first. Offense is subjective (so is, even, the concept of harm
).
Fanatic Muslims don't believe this. But then, neither do most Americans. It's no wonder that Americans have trouble defending themselves. They don't know where to draw the lines.
The funniest thing about the Palaeologos statement is not how its verification seemed echoed in the reactions of too-touchy Muslims, though. The funniest thing is that its defense of free conscience goes to the heart of Orthodox Roman Catholic Christianity, which came to repudiate free conscience, and came to believe that coercive powers should force people to convert. This was St. Augustine's late-in-career conversion, his conversion to coercion as a means to bolster up the faith, especially in his fight against Donatists. And this fell very easily into the hands of murderous Catholic hierarchy, and later to Protestants, too, for whom it took years and years of bloodshed and torture to realize that freedom is a better system than tyranny, even tyranny allegedly blessed by a worshipped deity. The man in the tall white hat may pretend that the institution that he heads has been righteously freedom-minded for the majority of its years, but he would be lying.
I don't pretend to let all opinions drip down my back, like water off a duck. I will argue vigorously against some; I will mock others. And I will even take some personally. I cannot help but feel some reservations against people who I believe badly. People who will not think. And I am especially wary of people who demonstrate values that are inherently illiberal, who believe that coercion is a fine way to regulate others' thoughts and feelings as well as a means to defend against their possible aggressions and usurpations. I prefer liberty. And this has consequences.
And a person who says he's going to kill me I will indeed treat as a dangerous threat, because his words are commitments to violence. But a person who merely says that their god will torture me for my mere incredulity? The appropriate reaction to such nonsense is not an attack. It is a scoff, a laugh.
And if they are offended at my derision, tough.
Further, a person may scorn those I admire, asserting that, say, Epicurus was an egomaniacal dogmatist, Aristotle a ponderous fool, and Herbert Spencer a fanatical ideologue. My response will be not to burn down his meeting hall or destroy his printing press. I might ask my scornful interlocutor for some reasoning or evidence for such strange opinions. Or I might just as well shrug him off as miseducated dogmatist and foolish ideologue of a most foul stripe. Either of my responses is better than today's trendy Muslim response, a characteristic reaction that solidifies, in more civilized Western eyes, our negative opinion of their stupid, vile religion.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 20, 2006 | permalink
The Witch of Coös
The
wreckage was so serene, so peaceful. It's removed now. But yesterday it lay at the edge of a clearing like the carcass of a defeated animal. But not even the bear around here are of such size. Long past, before the Clovis hunters moved through the area, perhaps there were land giants of this size. The tree stands above it, as if a mourner. Of course, the tree is likely itself to die soon. It had taken root in the stump of a long-dead tree, and its roots encircle the stump, sucking out what nourishment it can. But the stump is decaying. It cannot hold forever. It will crumble, and the mourner will fall upon the ground where the metal saurian rolled into place — unless a wind blows it backwards. I'm betting on the forward fall.
This land giant was brought down by gravity. Imbalance. A swing of the arm when it was too high? The operator isn't sure. It happened so fast. That he survived is almost surprising; such accidents are often quite bad. He got off with tendon trouble in his wrist, which I have, too. But I fell down a flight of steps over two months ago. The Destroyer of the Metal Saurian probably feels worse than I do, now. But he's far more fortunate, since he risked far, far more.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 25, 2006 | permalink
Rev. Mackerelin The Mackerel Plaza (1958), by Peter De Vries
What are the greatest works of ancient literature, pre-Iliad? My mind is drawing a blank. Off the top of my head, I can only think of three that I've enjoyed, and the last is pretty lame:
Gilgamesh and Jonah contain great title characters. The Gilgamesh accounts are slightly more impressive in having a fascinating secondary character, Enkidu, and a great wise man figure, Utnapishtim. But the Gilgamesh story has a completely different air about it than Jonah's story, in that the former does not have a comic dimension; the story is all adventure and tragedy; it's mythic through-and-through. Jonah is more a wry fable. Alas, I remember Sinuhe’s story — an interesting travelogue, certainly — but not his character at all.
I guess my clear preference is for Jonah. Other examples of Hebrew literature don’t strike me as anywhere nearly as literarily exceptional. Later works, such as Koheleth, fascinate not only for their beauty, but for their odd take on religion. It’s by no means an orthodox work, but it is so beautiful and so supportive of religion that orthodox Jews and Christians have usually included it as scripture.
But of course it is no more orthodox than Republican neocons are Christian. The difference is of kind as well as of emphasis. An orthodox believer believes in God (or so he thinks) because He exists and He is Good; Koheleth supported theistic belief and practice because, in this messy world of ours, it seems to pay.
But not much.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 30, 2006 | permalink
reallife. They are part of it.
I cook like I play the piano: mostly by improvisation. The best improvisations become the occasional score, or recipe.
Last night I shelled a batch of fava beans. My brother-in-law gave me a handful a few weeks ago, and somebody left some in a freebie bin at the local store the next day. I grabbed another handful. And last night, while watching TV, I shelled them.
I ended up with a half a bowl of beans. Now what? Improvisation, that's what.
First, I took about a third of a brick of butter and placed it in a small, cast iron frying pan. I added no small amount of hot curry spice. I shook the curry over the beans directly, too. I began heating the pan with the butter, and when it had melted (mostly), I added the beans. And lots of salt. And then some cayenne pepper.
I stir fried this for a while. It didn't look right, though, so I added two slices of onion, diced. Stir fried that for awhile.
The butter and curry had made a sort of paste. But these were beans, so I decided they needed extra heat. So: in goes about a cup of water. Maybe only three quarters of a cup. I put on a cover for a while.
Now I grew impatient. I wanted to eat the beans. But it was all too liquid at this point. So in goes a half or full cup of spinach cous cous. Instant cous cous. On goes the lid. Off goes the pan from the element. in less than five minutes? Done to my taste.
It wasn't bad at all. A fava bean cous cous curry dish. Very nice. Tasty. Fresh. Probably even nutritious.
T i m o W i r k m a n V i r k k a l a | September 30, 2006 | permalink
biological naturalism.Mental events and processes are as much part of our biological natural history as digestion, mitosis, meiosis, or enzyme secretion.
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