Sunday morning Marrianna and I arrived at the church early. I enjoy sitting in the narthex listening to the choir's last minute practices, and watching the folk come in. We have an excellent choir and our organist, Tom Brown, is an award winning organist. It is lovely listening to them sing without actually seeing them.
As I listened, a thought came to mind. When a non-believer hears majestic music - not necessarily religious, but including other forms - how do they react. For me, I have a feeling of being in the presence of a life form that I don't understand but enjoy. Religious or secular, the majesty and beauty of some music sets an atmosphere of quiet wonder.
Much organ music is religious, or at least has the imprint of religion. Personally, I believe that some classical music written as religious music was only that by title. The composer wrote and then interpreted it in religious terms because in many cases the Roman Church was paying for it. If some music written today had been note for note written in the sixteenth or seventeenth century, and paid for by the church, it would be religious music. Today, it is simply classical.
I suspect that even a non-believer can be moved by music that has majesty and beauty, painting a picture with sound. Even if it is religious. I know that I can be moved in just that way when I hear beautiful secular music. I would not want to have beauty discarded because it is deemed religious, or because it is not.
I am much moved by music such as that which you describe, despite my being a nonbeliever. One of my most played CD sets is the Matthew Passion.
My explanation for this is that such music was specifically written to create a particular feeling of awe in the hearer. The dimensions and design of a cathedral were similarly designed, and still have the same effect. The two were also designed to complement each other and, thereby, amplify that effect.
The funding for such awe-inspiration was, as you say, provided by a church - and for the specific purpose of maintaining power over populations. That control, that temporal power, was the point.
Exactly the same characteristics can be found in martial music, or imperial music, or the music of modern dictatorships.
This isn't a condemnation of the music; simply an assertion that well written music of certain kinds is powerful (WONDERFULLY, beautifully, transcendentally powerful) and that such power can be used for good ends OR ill. As with any powerful effect, those seeking power will seek to coöpt it if they can.
The undoubted power of Wagner's operatic music was placed in the service of fascism. That doesn't (despite Wager's own fascistic leanings) make it fascist music; it simply makes it powerful music used for fascist ends.
John Milton was a great poet. He used his talents because he had to, as people always have to use their talents. The story he told was drawn from his culture: a religious one. In the early years of the last century, poets such as Siegfried Sasson or Wilfred Owen wrote stories drawn from the dominant event of their own generation's experience: the trenches of the first world war. Today, Milton might (who knows?) have written for or against the Iraq war ... either way, the power of his poetry would have been as great - and independent of the subject.
To come to the point ... I would say that "religious music" is a misnomer: it is simply music written in religious times or contexts. Sometimes, as in the cases by which you and I are moved now, it is great music - and, of course, unsuccessful music didn't survive across the centuries, so we don't hear it so we only get that which consistently moved people.
Posted by: Felix Grant | March 18, 2008 at 03:47 AM