Celestial Music?

by Mellers, Wilfrid

• ISBN13: 9780851158440
• ISBN10: 0851158447
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2002-06-01
• Publisher: Boydell Pr

Summary

Wilfrid Mellers, who occupies a special place among music critics, describes himself as a non-believer; but his preference for music that 'displays a sense of the numinous' (in his words) will strike a chord with many who listen to religious music nowadays, and who share his view that music that confronts first and last things is likely to offer more than music that evades them. The essays form five groups, which together offer a survey of religious music from around the first millennium to the beginning of the second, in the context of the difficult issues of what religious music is, and, for good measure, what is religion? The parts are: The Ages of Christian Faith; The Re-birth of a Re-birth: From Renaissance to High Baroque; From Enlightenment to Doubt; From 'the Death of God' to 'the Unanswered Question; and The Ancient Law and the Modern Mind. Musical discussion, with copious examples, is conducted throughout the book in a context that is also religious - and indeed philosophical, social, and political, with the open-endedness that such an approach demands in the presentation of ideas about music's most fundamental nature and purposes. COMPOSERS: Hildegard of Bingen; Perotin; Machaut; Dunstable, Dufay; William Corniyshes father and son; Tallis; Byrd; Monteverdi; Schutz; J.S. Bach; Couperin; Handel; Haydn; Mozart; Beethoven; Schubert; Bruckner; Berlioz, Faure; Verdi, Brahms; Elgar, Delius; Holst, Vaughan Williams, Howells; Britten; Janacek; Messiaen, Poulenc; Rachmaninov; Stravinsky; Part, Tavener, Gorecki, Macmillan, Finnissy; Copland.

Table of Contents

Foreword	ix
Prologue: What is religious music?	xi
Part I: The Ages of Christian Faith
The Meanings of Monody	3	(6)
Oneness in Hildegard of Bingen's Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum
The Meanings of Polyphony	9	(7)
Many-in-oneness in Perotin's Viderunt omnes and Sederunt principes
The Antique and the Novel in Ars Antiqua and Ars Nova	16	(7)
Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame and Le Lai de la Fontaine
From the `Gothic Desperation' to Harmonic Congruence	23	(6)
Dunstable's Veni Sancte Spiritus and Dufay's Ave Regina Celorum
Sacred and Profane in the music of the William Cornyshes, father and son	29	(7)
The father's Magnificat and the son's Adieu mes amours, Ah, Robin, and Woefully arrayed
The Tudors and the Church Re-formed	36	(6)
`False relation' in Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah
Byrd as Roman-Anglican, Elizabethan-Jacobean, Double Man	42	(9)
His Mass in five voices (1588) and his Psalm-Sonet, `Lullaby, my swete litel baby' (first version for solo voice and viols [1588], second version for a cappella voices [1607])
Part II: The Re-birth of a Re-birth: from Renaissance to High Baroque
The Opera-house as Church	51	(9)
Monteverdi's Vespers and Magnificat (1610), as a Fare-well and as an Annunciation of the Renaissance
Reformation and Opera in Church	60	(6)
Crucifixion and Redemption in Schutz's Passion according to St Matthew (c. 1665)
The Glory of God and a Man's Glory	66	(12)
J.S. Bach's High and Solemn Mass (1747)
A Rara Avis at the seat of Power	78	(6)
Francois Couperin at the Chapelle Royale of Versailles: his Quatre Versets d'un Motet (1703), his Motet de Ste Suzanne (c. 1705), and his Troisieme Lecon des Tenebres (between 1713 and 1717)
The Democratization of the High Baroque	84	(13)
God and the Common Man, from the youthful virtuosity of Handel's Dixit Dominus (1708), by way of the Old Testament morality of Saul (1739), to the democratic universality of Messiah (1742)
Part III: From Enlightenment to Doubt
Light in the Church's Darkness	97	(8)
From Haydn's early Roman Masses to the Creation (1798)
From Enlightenment to Vision	105	(8)
Mozart as ecclesiastical successor to Haydn and as precursor to Beethoven: his Litaniae de venerabili altaris sacramento (c. 1772) and his Requiem Mass (1791)
`God's Kingdom is in Ourselves'	113	(11)
The High Baroque and the Sonata Principle in Beethoven's Missa Solemnis (1819-22)
Nostalgia and the Dream of God	124	(8)
Liturgy and Romanticism in Schubert's Mass in A flat major (1822)
Faith and Doubt in Mass, Symphony, and Symphonic Mass	132	(11)
Bruckner's Mass in E minor (1866) and Mass in F minor (1867)
God and Classicism, Agnosticism and Romanticism	143	(13)
Berlioz's Grande Messe des Morts (1837) and Faure's Requiem (1887)
Two more Agnostic Requiems	156	(17)
Verdi's quasi-Roman Requiem of Life (1874) and Brahms's quasi-Lutheran Requiem of Death (1857-68)
Part IV: From `the Death of God' to `the Unanswered Question'
The Victorian Crisis of Faith	173	(13)
The Roman Church, Science, Cardinal Newman, and Elgar's Dream of Gerontius (1900): Delius's pagan Mass of Life (1904-5) and his pagan Requiem (1914-16)
Cosmic, Social, and Personal Mysticism and Apocalypse	186	(18)
Holst's Hymn of Jesus (1917), Vaughan Williams's Sancte Civitas (1925), and Howells's Hymnus Paradisi (1938)
Twilight of the Gods	204	(17)
Life, War, and Death in Western Civilization and in Britten's War Requiem (1961-2)
Part V: The Ancient Law and the Modern Mind
Earth Transcendent	221	(9)
Fertility rites and Christian liturgy in Janacek's Glagolitic Mass (1926)
Un saint sensuel and `Le Jongleur de Notre Dame'	230	(14)
Messiaen's Quatuor pour la fin du temps (1940), Cing Rechants (1948), and Chronochromie (1960): Poulenc's Gloria for soprano solo, chorus, and orchestra (1959)
The Ancient Law and the Romantic Spirit	244	(9)
Rachmaninov's Russian Orthodox Vespers or all-night vigil (1916)
The Ancient Law and the Modern Mind	253	(17)
Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex (1927), Symphony of Psalms (1930), and Requiem Canticles (1965-6)
God and Gospel	270	(19)
Arvo Part's Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi secundum Joannem (1982), John Tavener's Fall and Resurrection (2000), and works by Gorecki, Macmillan, and Finnissy
A Plain Man, a Private Woman, and First and Last Things	289	(18)
Aaron Copland's 12 Poems of Emily Dickinson for voice and piano (1950)
Epilogue	307	(4)
Index	311