Faith in Music

[ardcarp]

Has there been a thread about this elsewhere? I heard this series for the first time (on Radio 4) this afternoon...Episode 3 with James MacMillan talking about Elgar and Gerontius. The star of the show for me (apart from Elgar of course) was Stephen Johnson.

[Serial_Apologist]

Has there been a thread about this elsewhere? I heard this series for the first time (on Radio 4) this afternoon...Episode 3 with James MacMillan talking about Elgar and Gerontius. The star of the show for me (apart from Elgar of course) was Stephen Johnson.

Yes:

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?22527-R4-Faith-in-Music

Thanks for reminding me this was on this afternoon.

[Cockney Sparrow]

This forum isn't what it was. DoG was mentioned over an hour ago - where are the detractors ? I'll have to listen again. As ever, I got interrupted when it was on. (How did I manage before the iPlayer/"Sounds"?)

[Serial_Apologist]

This forum isn't what it was. DoG was mentioned over an hour ago - where are the detractors ? I'll have to listen again. As ever, I got interrupted when it was on. (How did I manage before the iPlayer/"Sounds"?)

Based solely on the Elgar and Wagner programmes, the main problem for me will be the vested interest of the presenter being taken for granted.

[Frances_iom]

... the main problem for me will be the vested interest of the presenter being taken for granted.

actually given the title isn't this a key part of the program - as our absent friend if he appears will make clear it is an impossible work for some to take but as Ian Macmillan comes from a Catholic background his comments made excellent sense tho I too share a similar background and consider it a superb work. It was 95% about Gerontius - personally I'd have appreciated more as to why Elgar turned against his earlier faith - was it WW1, the death of his wife or ..

[DracoM]

Every prog a chapter from the Macmillan autobiography? Erm...the music? Surely that was not the seed for the prog, was it?

PS Stephen Johnson was brilliant on Elgar - no surprise there.

[BBMmk2]

It always surprises me, how composers, who are atheists, manage to write such beautiful music to a religious work? Berlioz, for example, in his Requiem and Childhood of Christ. Is it the words or there formative years, as they were growing up?

[gurnemanz]

A non-believer can also be affected by a believing composer's expression of belief. I am, often enough. Apart from sheer beauty of sound, I suppose it offers a connection with something greater and more important than our own little existence, which we all seek. The word "religion" comes from Latin "ligare" to join, or link. For me as an atheist the link is not to a supernatural deity and the religious language used is poetry or metaphor.

[Bryn]

A non-believer can also be affected by a believing composer's expression of belief. I am, often enough. Apart from sheer beauty of sound, I suppose it offers a connection with something greater and more important than our own little existence, which we all seek. The word "religion" comes from Latin "ligare" to join, or link. For me as an atheist the link is not to a supernatural deity and the religious language used is poetry or metaphor.

With you in general approach, though the etymology of "religion" is open to question. There are many and varied opinions on the matter, e.g. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087765...o_tab_contents

[gurnemanz]

With you in general approach, though the etymology of "religion" is open to question. There are many and varied opinions on the matter, e.g. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3087765...o_tab_contents

Thanks for link. I pulled my Chambers Dictionary of Etymology off the wall and it offered similar thoughts on derivation. My reference to "ligare" was probably based on an over-simplification, but that's the idea I have had in my head for many a decade. In this I find myself supported by Humpty Dumpty:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for link. I pulled my Chambers Dictionary of Etymology off the wall and it offered similar thoughts on derivation. My reference to "ligare" was probably based on an over-simplification, but that's the idea I have had in my head for many a decade. In this I find myself supported by Humpty Dumpty:

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.’

It's a shame Humpty Dumpty and Wittgenstein are not around to have a Brains Trust-styled telly debate!

[Serial_Apologist]

It always surprises me, how composers, who are atheists, manage to write such beautiful music to a religious work? Berlioz, for example, in his Requiem and Childhood of Christ. Is it the words or there formative years, as they were growing up?

I'm trying to think of any 20th or 21st century composers of belief who have written sacred music powerful enough to convince me in any way - one of the few being Lilli Boulanger. As one who led our very fine school chapel choir - by which stage I had already started questioning - finding out subsequently that many of the composers of the wonderful music I experienced such joy in singing turned out to be, at best, ambivalent in the area of belief, came as a huge relief: in Buddhism and Taoism, which which closest to me - and I rather suspect to many people in this country today who speak in general terms of "spirituality", were they to know more about Eastern philosophies - one is not required to postulate a god or underlying singularity in order to experience immanent sacredness (for want of a less poetic word) in nature and its interconnectedness, and sense that in and through music.

[Bryn]

I'm trying to think of any 20th or 21st century composers of belief who have written sacred music powerful enough to convince me in any way - one of the few being Lilli Boulanger. As one who led our very fine school chapel choir - by which stage I had already started questioning - finding out subsequently that many of the composers of the wonderful music I experienced such joy in singing turned out to be, at best, ambivalent in the area of belief, came as a huge relief: in Buddhism and Taoism, which which closest to me - and I rather suspect to many people in this country today who speak in general terms of "spirituality", were they to know more about Eastern philosophies - one is not required to postulate a god or underlying singularity in order to experience immanent sacredness (for want of a less poetic word) in nature and its interconnectedness, and sense that in and through music.

I have long seen 'spirituality' as an emergent property of material interaction, rather than immanent.

[ardcarp]

finding out subsequently that many of the composers of the wonderful music I experienced such joy in singing turned out to be, at best, ambivalent in the area of belief

RVW being possibly the best-known. Holst had great interest in the East, viz Choral Hymns from the Rig Veda.
Messiaen was presumably 'a true believer', n'est-ce pas?

I don't know anything for certain about Lilli Boulanger's faith, but being lucky enough to have sung in a performance of her 3 Psalms conducted by Nadia (yes, it was a log time ago!) I can believe she espoused it. She died tragically early, aged around 24 I think.

[french frank]

Thanks for link. I pulled my Chambers Dictionary of Etymology off the wall and it offered similar thoughts on derivation. My reference to "ligare" was probably based on an over-simplification, but that's the idea I have had in my head for many a decade. In this I find myself supported by Humpty Dumpty:

My suspicion is that there is a connection between several l*g roots (Latin lex and Scandinavian lag-) with the allied ideas of binding and laws (= to be obeyed). Jointly suggesting (to me) that an individual is not completely free to 'make of it what s/he will' but that there are certain starting points, broad but immutable, that are central, must be accepted. What those starting points are is … moot