{"id":26289,"date":"2016-12-21T06:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=26289"},"modified":"2016-12-20T19:29:31","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T00:29:31","slug":"theological-music-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/12\/theological-music-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Theological music for Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Ken Myers has written a wonderful post\u00a0on Christmas music, emphasizing particularly how it is sung by choirs and its connection to worship in the liturgy. \u00a0He includes a fascinating discussion of how music can be a contemplation of divine mysteries, as in the harmonies of this piece, \u201cMirabile mysterium\u201d to this text:<\/p>\n

\u201cA wondrous mystery is declared today, an innovation is made upon nature; God is made man; that which he was, he remains, and that which he was not, he takes on, suffering neither commixture nor division.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The composer is Jacob Handl (sometimes called \u201cGallus\u201d), not to be confused with George Friedrich Handel. \u00a0Read what Myers says about it after the jump.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>
<\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/p>\nFrom Ken Myers,\u00a0<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/archives\/article.php?id=29-06-011-c\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">The Wondrous Mystery in Song<\/a>, Touchstone:<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"premium-content\">\n<blockquote>The text for \u201cMirabile mysterium\u201d (\u201cWondrous mystery\u201d)\u2014the antiphon to the Benedictus at lauds on the Feast of the Circumcision\u2014is another opportunity for composers to consider how to depict marvelous abnormality: \u201cA wondrous mystery is declared today, an innovation is made upon nature; God is made man; that which he was, he remains, and that which he was not, he takes on, suffering neither commixture nor division.\u201d<\/p>\nA snappy lyric it\u2019s not. But in the hands of Jacob Handl (1550\u20131591), it is an occasion to demonstrate how music can provide an experiential knowledge of realities too deep for words. In his setting of \u201cMirabile mysterium,\u201d Handl uses unpredictable harmonic progressions to capture the sense that something disorienting\u2014or better, re<\/em>-orienting\u2014is happening in the Incarnation, and thus, in the world. At the end of the work, the Latin phrase \u201cnon commixtionem passus\u201d (\u201csuffering no commixture\u201d) is repeated over and over, underscoring this important Christological definition.<\/p>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.touchstonemag.com\/archives\/article.php?id=29-06-011-c\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">[Keep reading. . .]\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ken Myers has written a wonderful post\u00a0on Christmas music, emphasizing particularly how it is sung by choirs and its connection to worship in the liturgy. \u00a0He includes a fascinating discussion of how music can be a contemplation of divine mysteries, as in the harmonies of this piece, \u201cMirabile mysterium\u201d to this text: \u201cA wondrous mystery […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,11,21,32,47],"tags":[2650,467,4992],"class_list":["post-26289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christ","category-church","category-holidays","category-music","category-theology","tag-christianity-music","tag-christmas-music","tag-jacob-handl"],"yoast_head":"\n<title>Theological music for Christmas<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ken Myers has written a wonderful post\u00a0on Christmas music, emphasizing particularly how it is sung by choirs and its connection to worship in the liturgy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2016\/12\/theological-music-christmas\/\" \/>\n<meta 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