Composition and Faith
Amongst a number of other things during the summer break I’ve been trying (and largely failing) to make my way through a couple of volumes of a now reasonably old series entitled Man (and here my mother frowns) & Music. For whatever reason the editors decided to create a series of books about music that actually discuss music as little as possible, concentrating upon the links between society and musical practice, an approach that succeeds in the case of one volume (on the ‘early Romantic period’) and not so well in that of the other (the Renaissance), which largely consists of lists of the members of various royal and papal chapel choirs. While stupefyingly dull, the Renaissance volume did at least get me thinking once again about an area that has irked me for some time – the seemingly inescapable tension between art music and faith.
As I listen to increasing volumes of contemporary music – and more serious contemporary music at that – I also seem to listen to less Christian music. This is largely because of the oppositional attitudes of art and religion on the functionality of music, and although this problem may be exacerbated by current trends, it is certainly not a new dilemma. Composers of Renaissance religious music faced two separate questions of functionality; firstly, the textural nature of their music and the technical implications thereof; secondly, the question of language. Debate over polyphony (in Rome) centred at the time over whether the use of melisma rendered texts incomprehensible, and while worship practices dictated that music be sung by the choir without the participation of the congregation (at least audibly), polyphonic singing would have required a high degree of technical skill were congregational singing to take place. The effect of polyphony on Roman congregations was essentially the same as that of Latin singing (and services in general) on churchgoers elsewhere in Europe – one of alienation from worship. These same qualities are no less present in the ears of contemporary listeners; The wondrous complexity of Renaissance masses and motets eliminates much of their religious import.
Much the same might be written about the religious music of composers today. Few composers with truly contemporary styles have devoted a great deal of their output to religious music. Minimalism (particularly the Eastern variant) has undoubtedly been kindest, with apparent simplicity enabling strong communication. It is unfortunate, then, that so little of this music is in English. Arvo Pärt’s music, while deeply involving, is ultimately frustrating in that it is set to Latin texts; it is possibly only his De Profundis that really overcomes the language barrier.
Also a nuisance in the creation of religious art music is the need for the music to act as reinforcement for the text, and yet this is somewhat contradictory to the nature of art, which demands the attention for itself. It seems impossible for such music to actually attempt to break new ground in any way, particularly if married to an ancient, if potentially extremely potent text. Creating a contemporary text for contemporary music, of course, creates a whole new series of problems. All in all, this leaves me rather befuddled. If contemporary music really can’t achieve this, what actually is the point? One other option, of course, is to write religious music sans text which, while possibly helpful from a compositional perspective, may leave the listener dry. Composers have used plenty of different ways to incorporate religious symbolism into instrumental music – the classic example being the use of plainsong melodies – but this does place enormous demands on an audience to recognise the subtext. A curved line in the sand.