Contemporary Music and Spirituality

Robert Sholl, Sander Van Maas, Robert Sholl, Sander Van Maas

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317160656
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Music

The flourishing of religious or spiritually-inspired music in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries remains largely unexplored. The engagement and tensions between modernism and tradition, and institutionalized religion and spirituality are inherent issues for many composers who have sought to invoke spirituality and Otherness through contemporary music.

Contemporary Music and Spirituality provides a detailed exploration of the recent and current state of contemporary spiritual music in its religious, musical, cultural and conceptual-philosophical aspects. At the heart of the book are issues that consider the role of secularization, the claims of modernity concerning the status of art, and subjective responses such as faith and experience.

The contributors provide a new critical lens through which it is possible to see the music and thought of Cage, Ligeti, Messiaen, Stockhausen as spiritual music. The book surrounds these composers with studies of and by other composers directly associated with the idea of spiritual music (Harvey, Gubaidulina, MacMillan, Pärt, Pott, and Tavener), and others (Adams, Birtwistle, Ton de Leeuw, Ferneyhough, Ustvolskaya, and Vivier) who have created original engagements with the idea of spirituality.

Contemporary Music and Spirituality is essential reading for humanities scholars and students working in the areas of musicology, music theory, theology, religious studies, philosophy of culture, and the history of twentieth-century culture.

Part I
Passions

1 For whom the bells toll

Arvo Pärt’s Passio, metamodernism and the appealing promise of tintinnabulation

Andrew Shenton

Around 1976, the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt developed a new compositional process reminiscent in some ways of sounding bells; hence it’s appellation ‘tintinnabulation’. The technique is seemingly simple, comprising just two musical lines: one moves in largely stepwise motion, the other utilizes the notes of a principal triad. In this chapter, I explore how Pärt uses this new technique in Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem, his innovative setting of the St John Passion, completed in 1982. I note that far from being simple, tintinnabulation is a process that affords a large and subtle range of consonance and dissonance, and that Pärt has used the technique to extraordinary effect in a wide range of compositions, both sacred and secular. In the first section of the chapter, musical settings of the Passion are contextualized within a broad framework that examines the historical continuum since 1965, noting some of the theological interpretations expounded in different examples. In the second part, tintinnabulation in Pärt’s Passio is described, noting distinguishing features of the music and some of the compositional procedures Pärt employs. In the third part, I situate tintinnabulation in the narrative of metamodernism (a term that has become a viable substitute for the more clumsy ‘post-postmodernism’). My own framework is based on the definitions of this term by Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker, who situate metamodernism ‘epistemologically with (post) modernism, ontologically between (post) modernism, and historically beyond (post) modernism’.¹ Finally, I propose three ways in which the discourse for Pärt and his music should be reoriented in a way that coincides with notions of the metamodern, since it more accurately describes the essence of the man and his music.

I The passion genre since 1965

The narratives of the Passion are found in the four canonical gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, which give similar accounts of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus.² Musical settings of the passion provide an interesting case study for discussion of the prominent issues concerning contemporary music and spirituality because although it is a religious story it is also a fundamental human narrative. The passion is inherently dramatic and was often recounted by actors as a non-liturgical drama. In medieval times, the Passion Play was told on the streets and was an effective method of indoctrination in three areas: religious instruction (promoting moral and ethical behaviour according to an established dogma), evangelizing (spreading the word of the Gospel of Christ), and proselytizing (attempting to convert people to Christianity). All musical settings share these functions to a greater or lesser extent and have often moved the passion out of the liturgy and into the concert hall so that the story may be more widely disseminated. It is likely that in the context of growing secular pluralism, irrespective of the composer’s intentions, settings of the passion now do little more than evangelizing, being just one story among many (although the crucifixion story does engage with certain moral and ethical behaviours in a way that is instructive).

With the passion, as with the setting of any words to music, the principle question is: how does the music change or transform the text? The answer is basically twofold: first, art music provides increased (or at least modified) expressivity; and second, it frequently seeks to interpret the text. It is difficult to verbalize the additional depth of emotion or meaning achieved by adding music to any text, let alone a story which concerns cruelty and death, and which is directly related to religious beliefs. It is also hard to describe how a composer might seek to contribute to our understanding of this story by highlighting certain words or by ordering the events, or even by adding innovative elements to the traditional narrative. Nonetheless, the developmental history of musical settings of the passion is directly concerned with increased expressivity and is intimately linked with developments in musical style.³

In general, the passion was not a popular genre during the twentieth century; however, in the past fifty years it has re-emerged, with substantial changes in the ways it engages with both text and tradition.⁴ A landmark piece that did this to both popular and critical acclaim is Passio et Mors Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Lucam by Krzysztof Penderecki (b. 1933), which was premiered in 1966. Prior to the first performance, Penderecki told the press: ‘The Passion is the suffering and death of Christ, but it is also the suffering and death at Auschwitz, the tragic experience of mankind, in the middle of the twentieth century. In this sense, it should according to my intentions and feelings have a universal, humanistic character like Threnody’.⁵ Penderecki’s text is comprised of ten passages from Luke, three from John, excerpts from five Psalms and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. He also uses four non-biblical interpolations that include a Latin hymn and the Stabat mater sequence. Penderecki chose to set the text in Latin in preference to either his native Polish or to German because of its universal comprehensibility, at least among part of the Christian community. Scored for three choruses, boy choir and large orchestra, this setting is largely atonal, using extended techniques for the chorus including shouting, hissing and giggling. The score is typified by tone clusters in the orchestra and dense writing, but Penderecki has great command over his resources and balances the onslaught of the huge resources with passages for choir alone. One of the most effective of these comes towards the end of the work when the choir sing an excerpt from the Stabat Mater sequence, emphasizing the grief of the bereaved mother of Jesus.

Penderecki’s Passio is a powerful piece that continues to perplex and amaze. Its acclaim and longevity in the repertoire is closely allied to the composer’s connection of the events of Christ’s suffering and death with those of the holocaust. This empathetic humanist expression by Penderecki was an enterprising way to engage audiences, but it was not the only way. In the ensuing decade, the most notable passion settings are not pieces that traditionally fit into the category of ‘classical’ music. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar and Stephen Schwartz’s Godspell both utilize elements of the traditional passion accounts.⁶ Their popularity is due to the style of music and the non-liturgical formats in which they have been presented, but they raise several interesting points. First, it is curious that there is no direct descendent of the Passion Play, which died out in the Renaissance. Since the Church mandated no drama during Lent, composers have continued to set the passion story without any stage action, concentrating on presenting character and drama solely by musical means.⁷ Second, part of the work of the evangelists is to evangelize. The move from church to concert hall is certainly useful in broadening the audience for the passion story; however, for it to be truly engaging to contemporary audiences it should perhaps be presented in a vernacular, not only in language, but also in style. Third, there is constantly a struggle for the church to be relevant to contemporary audiences regardless of whether a passion presentation is performed liturgically or not. These ‘modern’ settings from the 1970s may seem dated now, but their orchestration using electric guitars and drum sets, their emphasis on rock-style vocals, and their presentation in dramatic form has paved the way for the multimedia, fusion settings by composers such as Tan Dun and Osvaldo Golijov.

In the next two decades there were several innovations to the passion format (described below) that reflect the rise of secular pluralism, however, the most significant musical contributions to the Christian text came in the ‘Passion 2000’ project.

Passion 2000

Although the passion is recited in millions of churches each year, performances of musical settings in liturgical context are rare because of concerns about the length of the service; a setting would likely be considerably longer than a chant performance, which would itself be longer than a spoken performance. In addition, there are logistical problems of accommodating a choir and orchestra, concerns over presenting something which might be perceived as a concert in a liturgical setting, concern over the music detracting from the words, and possibly even issues of relinquishing an event that some feel should involve ordained clergy. Consequently, in liturgy, dramatic readings are the norm and sang versions are used for variety or where music is highly regarded.

It is interesting therefore that the Internationale Bachakademie in Stuttgart conceived of a project to commission non-liturgical settings of each of the four main passion narrations. In 2000 four composers, Sofia Gubaidulina (b. 1931), Wolfgang Rihm (b. 1952), Tan Dun (b. 1957) and Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960), were each asked to write a piece in commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the death of Johann Sebastian Bach for what became known as the Passion 2000 project. They were each assigned an evangelist and encouraged to engage with the text in innovative ways.

The contributions by Gubaidulina, Dun and Golijov are all syncretic, combining different forms of beliefs and practices into new patterns of meaning. Gubaidulina’s contribution was the Johannes-Passion. In 2002 she followed this with the Johannes-Ostern (Easter according to John), commissioned by Hannover Rundfunk. Originally the Johannes-Passion was in Russian, however, she revised it in German and now the two works form a ‘diptych’ on the death and resurrection of Christ. The Johannes-Passion is scored for four soloists, two choirs, and large orchestra. The music is dark and dramatic and reflects her Russian heritage with prominent use of bells and orthodox chants.

In considering the text, Gubaidulina was determined that Christ’s resurrection would be part of the work so that it would not only look to his past but also his future. She therefore used both the Gospel according to John and the Revelation of John the Divine. One of the most significant events in her Johannes-Passion is the death of Christ, here described by Gubaidulina herself:

I sensed that the narration of Jesus’s earthly life path must in no case be allowed to end with a “solution of the dramatic conflict”; after such a dramatic process, there could only be one thing – a sign from the Day of Judgment. This meant an extreme dissonance, a kind of cry or scream. And following this final scream, only one thing was possible – silence. There is no continuation and there can be no continuation: “It is finished”.⁸

By referring not only to the resurrection, but also to the Day of Judgement, Gubaidulina asserts a Christian eschatology that is more complete through her additions than any single setting of the passion would be. This is important because until the mid-twentieth century it might be assumed that Western audiences would be familiar with the passion story, with how it continues and how it ends. In an era of increasing secularism this is no longer the case, so the composer is cast into the additional role of teacher.

The influence of Russian national and religious music on the Western classical tradition has been around for centuries; the influences of Asian music and Buddhism are much more recent. Tan Dun, a Buddhist, titled his Passion 2000 setting Water Passion After St Matthew and described it as ‘a musical metaphysics and drama on the story ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of music examples
• Notes on contributors
• Introduction: What is a contemporary spiritual music?
• PART I Passions
• PART II Composer studies
• PART III Perspectives and ‘prospectives’
• Bibliography
• Index