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Last night, we attended a performance by a string quintet (occasionally joined by a French horn) at the Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg. \u00a0The palace, which stands with its gardens on the shore of the Salzach River north of the medieval city walls, was built about 1606 by Prince-Archbishop Wolf Dietrich Raitenau as a pleasure palace for him and his mistress, Salome Alt. \u00a0Not only did he live in the humble manner appropriate to a man of the cloth, but he was amazingly fertile for a priest who had taken a vow of celibacy: \u00a0According to last night\u2019s program, she bore him either fifteen children (English text) or seventeen (German text).<\/p>\n
The night began with a piece by Joseph Haydn, and then the rest was Mozart \u2014 culminating in his \u201cEine kleine Nachtmusik.\u201d \u00a0The quintet was very good, and they received a deservedly enthusiastic ovation, which they answered with a horn-accompanied rendition of Ennio Morricone\u2019s haunting theme from The Mission<\/em>. \u00a0(I liked their version better than this one<\/a> , which was conducted by Morricone himself.)<\/p>\n With that concert in mind, and still in the spirit of Mozartstadt Salzburg, I think that I\u2019ll post my last entry for now on the question of whether, as the late Christopher Hitchens claimed, religion poisons classical music. \u00a0The three previous entries may be reviewed here<\/a> and here<\/a> and here<\/a>:<\/p>\n The English composer Sir Edward Elgar (d. 1934) \u201cchose to set to music virtually the whole of the New Testament<\/em>.\u201d[1]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cFew artists in all of history have spent so many years of their life using their gift to enhance the Scriptures, particularly with his huge compositions entitled, The Apostles<\/em> and The Kingdom<\/em>.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 He wrote a song entitled Chariots of the Lord<\/em> and oratorios entitled Lux Christi<\/em> (\u201cLight of Christ\u201d) and Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf<\/em>, about the epochal conversion of the King of Norway to Christianity, as well as a choral work, The Dream of Gerontius<\/em>, about the experience of a Christian traveling from this world to the next life.\u00a0 The great Polish pianist (and eventual Polish prime minister) Ignaz Paderewski was once asked \u201cWho is Elgar and where did he study?\u00a0 Was he at any conservatory?\u201d\u00a0 Paderewski said that he was not.\u00a0 \u201cBut who was his teacher?\u201d came the next question.\u00a0 \u201cLe Bon Dieu,\u201d replied the pianist.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n His principal biographer says that the \u201cchurch-going self\u201d of the radical American composer Charles Ives (d. 1954) was \u201cconservative to the point of fundamentalism.\u00a0 He was almost in a state of \u2018Give me that old-time religion, it\u2019s good enough for me.\u2019\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0 (He even composed a piece called The Revival Service<\/em>, and another, General William Booth Enters into Heaven<\/em>, about the founder of the Salvation Army.)\u00a0 \u201cMost of the forward movements of life in general and of pioneers in most of the great activities,\u201d Ives himself remarked as if responding prophetically to Christopher Hitchens, \u201chave been the work of essentially religious-minded men.\u201d[5]<\/a>\u00a0 He happily anticipated a life beyond death, saying that he wanted to \u201csee and talk to my father.\u201d[6]<\/a>\u00a0 More than fifty different Christian hymn tunes are quoted in his compositions, and he set several of the biblical psalms to music.<\/p>\n The great modern British composer Ralph Vaughan Williams (d. 1958) was also a deeply religious man.\u00a0 One participant in a choir that he led later recalled the tears running down Vaughan Williams\u2019s cheeks as he conducted the portions of Bach\u2019s St. Matthew Passion<\/em> that recount Peter\u2019s denial and Christ\u2019s crucifixion.[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Vaughan Williams became editor of the English Hymnbook<\/em> in 1904, and edited Songs of Praise<\/em> in 1925.\u00a0 His opera The Pilgrim\u2019s Progress<\/em> (based on the famous Christian allegorical tale by John Bunyan), the Christmas cantata Hodie<\/em> (\u201cThis Day\u201d), and the orchestral suite Job\u2014A Masque for Dancing<\/em> have been collectively dubbed his \u201caffirmations of belief\u201d by one his biographers.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 But they don\u2019t stand alone.\u00a0 He set texts from the English Christian poet George Herbert to music as Five Mystical Songs<\/em>, composed a Te Deum<\/em> for the installation of a new archbishop of Canterbury, wrote a Mass in G Minor<\/em>, created a motet entitled The Souls of the Righteous<\/em>, and wrote many smaller choral works such as O Taste and See<\/em>, Dona Nobis Pacem <\/em>(\u201cGrant Us Peace\u201d), and O Clap Your Hands<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe more one separates oneself from the canons of the Christian church,\u201d said Igor Stravinsky (d. 1971), \u201cthe further one distances oneself from the truth.\u201d[9]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cMusic comes to reveal itself as a form of communion with our fellow man\u2014and with the Supreme Being.\u201d[10]<\/a>\u00a0 Among his works are Three Sacred Choruses<\/em>, written for the Orthodox liturgy, and a Catholic mass, as well as a Symphony of Psalms<\/em>, The Flood<\/em>, The Tower of Babel<\/em>, Abraham and Isaac<\/em>, Requiem Canticles<\/em>, Sermon<\/em>, Prayer<\/em>, Canticum Sacrum<\/em>, Credo<\/em>, an Ave Maria<\/em>, and a Pater Noster<\/em> (\u201cOur Father\u201d).<\/p>\n Olivier Messiaen (d. 1992) \u201cwas one of the most outspoken Christian composers of all time.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0 \u201cWhat impressions do you want to communicate to your listeners?\u201d his biographer Claude Samuel once asked him.\u00a0 Messiaen replied that \u201cThe first idea that I wished to express\u2014and the most important, because it stands above them all\u2014is the existence of the truths of the Catholic faith.\u201d[12]<\/a>\u00a0 His compositions for secular concert halls were just as religiously significant to him as anything he wrote directly for the church.\u00a0 \u201cI wished to accomplish a liturgical act\u2014that is to say, to transfer a kind of divine office, a kind of communal praise to the concert hall.\u201d[13]<\/a>\u00a0 His Couleurs de la Cite celeste<\/em> (\u201cColors of the Celestial City\u201d) is a meditation on the biblical book of Revelation, as is The Quartet for the End of Time<\/em>, which he composed and premiered in a Nazi prison camp in 1941.\u00a0 His fervent Christian faith is also manifest in his Trois Petites Liturgies de la Presense Divine<\/em>, his organ work La Nativite de Seigneur<\/em> (\u201cThe Nativity of the Lord\u201d), an orchestral piece entitled Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum<\/em>, and a piece for organ called Meditations on the Mystery of the Sacred Trinity<\/em>.<\/p>\n [I didn\u2019t actually finish this little examination of Mr. Hitchens\u2019s dramatic claim that religion poisons everything, but if I ever do so I will be certain to mention Sir John Tavener (1944-2013), a convert to Orthodox Christianity who is known for his extensive output of choral religious works. \u00a0And I will certainly discuss Arvo P\u00e4rt (1935- ), an Estonian who has been called \u201cthe world\u2019s greatest living composer and who, like Tavener, is a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. \u00a0Wikipedia says of him that \u201cUnlike many of his fellow Estonian composers, P\u00e4rt never found inspiration in the country\u2019s epic poem, Kalevipoeg<\/i>, even in his early works. P\u00e4rt said, \u2018My Kalevipoeg<\/i> is Jesus Christ.'\u201d Even the slightest glance at Arvo P\u00e4rt\u2019s musical oeuvre<\/em><\/a> will suggest the prominence of religious themes in his compositions. \u00a0And I will probably include John Coltrane (1926-1967), whose A Love Supreme<\/em> would be enough, alone and by itself, to qualify him for my list. \u00a0And here\u2019s a personal favorite: \u00a0I love the oratorio The Redeemer<\/em>, by our late friend Robert Cundick (1926-2016). \u00a0Consider, for example, this part of that oratorio: \u00a0\u201cHe is the Root and the Offspring of David.\u201d<\/a> \u00a0The very first Interpreter Foundation venture into filmmaking was a half-hour piece entitled Robert Cundick: A Sacred Service of Music<\/em><\/a>.]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n [1]<\/a> Percy M. Young, Elgar, O. M., A Study of a Musician <\/em>(London: Collins St. James Place, 1955), 319.<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> Kavanaugh, Spiritual Lives of the Great Composers<\/em>, 162.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Ibid., 165<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Ibid., 183.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> Ibid., 182-3.<\/p>\n [6]<\/a> Ibid., 183.<\/p>\n [7]<\/a> Ibid., 172.<\/p>\n [8]<\/a> Ibid., 174.<\/p>\n [9]<\/a> Ibid., 189.<\/p>\n [10]<\/a> Ibid., 191-29.<\/p>\n [11]<\/a> Ibid., 196.<\/p>\n\n
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