Words and music

In my Bible study last week we started on the book of John. Much of last week's discussion focused on the opening verses: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made..."

Elsewhere I've seen it pointed out that God created with words--he created by speaking. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light, and so on. So when John says that all things were created by God through the Word, that is exactly the way the creation story in Genesis tells it.

In the car this morning I heard a piece by one of the journalists about a family member, a niece I think, who had died of cancer in her early twenties. This is the sort of event that leaves most of us at a loss for words, and yet, this man spoke about her last days, and how she lived with her illness, and her spirit in a very sweet story that brought tears to my eyes, even though I don't know the man or his niece. This is the power of expression, to share, to move, to persuade. It is a creative act, to express ourselves.

I was in my car on the way to church, because our choir was singing in a memorial service. The service was for Rod Wilmoth, former pastor at the church who retired about five years ago, and who recently committed suicide. I never heard Rod speak myself, but my mother-in-law loved him and his sermons, and it was clear from those who shared during the service that Rod was a great storyteller and had a gift for expression.

My daughters were involved in speech in high school, and my oldest chose storytelling as her area. This was kind of a revelation to me--competitive storytelling. There was a known set of stories, a repertoire, and each participant had to become familiar with these stories. In a speech meet, you would essentially draw a story, and you told that story. So everyone already knew the story you told, it was up to you to tell it well.

Tonight I went to a lovely concert given by The Singers (there's an original name), an a cappella choral group. One of the works they performed was Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir. I was already familiar with this piece because I have a recording of it--it is very beautiful, and The Singers did a wonderful job singing it tonight. Although it is wonderful to be able to have a recording to listen to anytime, I can't really describe the difference between hearing a live performance of a piece and hearing a recorded version. Not to be too literal about it, in a live performance, you are aware that live people are producing the sound. Somehow that fullness, the body and breath, the aliveness, cannot be captured by microphones and recording media.

It cannot even really reproduce the sound you hear. The concert was in the Basilica of St. Mary, and enormous stone church with a huge vaulted ceiling, where a piercing final chord reverberates for a couple seconds before dying away. And music has the power to pierce straight into your heart in an unavoidable way. I am not a particulary emotional person in general, but music, or a story, can bore into me in a way I do not understand. The Martin mass started up tonight, and I had goosebumps all through the Kyrie. Music is sometimes shameless in the way it plays your heartstrings for a fool (as are storytellers), and the composer knows exactly what he or she is doing.

Although the music is beautiful on its own, I like to follow along with the words when I listen. Tonight I found I enjoyed this piece even more when I realized what the text was at certain moments. The third movement is a Credo, or creed. The words are similar to many creeds spoken in many church services, somewhat lengthy and boring recitations of the facts of the matter. It was sung in Latin, so fortunately we had a printed copy of the Latin as well as the translation, for easy following along. Martin beautifully sets the opening, which speaks of God and of Jesus, his only Son, the light of the world. There is the awe-filled mystery that Jesus came to Earth in human form, the incarnation. Then the tenor section suddenly comes in with a pain-filled "Crucifixus"--he was crucified. (Forgive my nerdiness, but I can't help but think of the crucio spell in Harry Potter, which is used to cause excruciating pain.) Then he suffered--the word impossibly quiet and long--and was buried. After a pregnant pause, the sopranos joyfully inform us next that he was resurrected and ascended into heaven.

It is a completely familiar text that many could recite on autopilot, here brought to life in such a way as to remind us of the magnitude of the words.

A little later in the program they did Morten Lauridsen's O Magnum Mysterium, another piece quite familiar to anyone with much exposure to choral music because this one is immensely popular. The text for the piece is quite short, it is essentially the fact that it was animals who witnessed the birth of Jesus Christ is a great mystery and a "wondrous sacrament." It also says "Blessed virgin, whose womb was deemed worthy to carry the Lord Jesus Christ." Somehow when you hear this in the Latin it evokes the humanness and messiness of birth for me, I suppose because in English we have the word "visceral." The Latin text is: "O beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Jesum Christum."

Do yourself a favor and go listen to it. Here is one link, performed by a group from the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. I can't vouch for how well they do the piece because I'm a layman when it comes to music, except to say that they are very much on pitch and they have lovely uniforms you're going to enjoy. And the recording isn't very good but you're not likely to do much better on youtube.