Posted on 12/31/2016 11:36:11 AM PST by CharlesOConnell
Thanks, Professor Anthony Esolen, for the Real Music book. It's a milestone in a lifelong search for a way out of our cultural exile.
Here's Bach's 'soli Deo gloria' watermark.
But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:33
The issue is re-cast by Bach's fundamental approach: Our liturgical music's problem isn't limited by the idea 'the people won't understand great music', 'they have to hear what they listen to every day', 'the kids won't want to participate if it's "old" music'.
If the people could be got to realize that music is for God first, their own concerns will miraculously be satisfied.
Fr. Joseph Fessio remarked that 'young people are fascinated by the 'Chant' of the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos, they just can't get it at their local Catholic parish'.
Extracts about 'soli Deo gloria ' from an article on the Great Catholic Mass in B minor are below.
Here's a baritone solo 'Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam' http://cfl-sacramento.org/media/EtUnamSanctamCatholicamEtApostolicamEcclesiam.mp3
Learning about Bach's thought helps zoom out from the conflict over crayon-Catholic music.
Personal Experience: My mother born in 1910, learned to sing, up till radio came in 1923, because, if you didn't do home music, you didn't have any music at all; the Gramophone was just a curiosity.
Nowadays people honestly believe that music comes out of the phone.
Eric Blair/George Orwell's 1984 'machines that "compose" music' were accelerated into reality by the music marketing psychology of pop composer Neil Sadaka, who quit Julliard after 1 year to work in the Brill Building. Sedaka 'bought the three biggest hit singles of the time and listened to them repeatedly, studying the song structure, chord progressions, lyrics and harmonies—and he discovered that the hit songs of the day all shared the same basic musical anatomy. Armed with his newfound arsenal of musical knowledge, he set out to craft his next big hit song, and he promptly did exactly that.…'
Nowadays, the people's music that comes from their phones, is not programmed by 'robots', only because they have no bodies. They're really algorithms. Search music written robots algorithms.
Bach … worked throughout his career for what he called "a well-ordered church music to the glory of God."…[H]e often had to contend with … a rationalist rector of the Thomasschule in Leipzig who believed that church music exists primarily to edify the congregation…the rector of the Thomasschule, Johann August Ernesti, with whom he was quarreling at the time over the appointment of a prefect for the boys' choir of the Thomasschule (the Thomaschor). Bach believed that only musically capable students should sing in the Thomaschor; Ernesti thought that any boy should be able to sing who had an interest in doing so. At the heart of the conflict lay the differences between the orthodox and the Enlightenment views of the purpose of worship. Was the purpose of worship primarily to glorify God or to edify the people?
Marty Haugen. AAACCCCKKKK!
Only if they are allowed to be played in your church. Talk to the pastor. Complain and ask for more traditional hymns. Don't just sit in the pew and grumble! YOU are the Church!
We did Bach’s “Break Forth, O Beauteous Heavenly Light” during our Lessons and Carols before Midnight Mass. It was lovely!
Anthony Esolen is being disciplined by Providence College. He will probably be fired at the end of the school year for offending campus snow flakes. The OP’s sold him down the river for the sake of Campus PC.
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