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Theology and Music
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
Extract
Our topic is theology and music — the conjunction expressing the modest hope that some useful demarcations and interactions maybe identifiable here. We are in no position to attempt, even in outline, a theology of music. Theologies of lay claim to a non-theological field in its entirety; they attempt to annex it, to re-establish it on what are taken to be its authentic theological foundations. They tend to find their most congenial subject-matter outside the normal sphere of the theological disciplines. But no theological annexation of music is conceivable or desirable. The question is rather whether any theologically worthwhile relationship between the two disciplines can be established at all. To pose this problem in its strongest form, I shall have little to say here about the use of music within the Christian community and its worship, confining myself to the more-or-less ‘secularized’ music of the European classical tradition of the past three hundred years or so. And I shall omit all consideration of the broader topic of ‘theology and the arts’. It does not seem particularly helpful to assume that such diverse practices as music, sculpture and drama are best considered in parallel to one another.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1998
References
1 See for example Dillenberger, John, A Theology of Artistic Sensibilities: The Visual Arts and the Church, London: SCM Press, 1987Google Scholar.
2 For a recent study in this area, see Begbie, Jeremy, Voicing Creation's Praise: Towards a Theology of the Arts, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1991Google Scholar, which — unlike Dillenberger's book — has the merit of locating the arts within an emphatically trinitarian framework. Begbie is particularly concerned to refute the Kantian denial of the cognitive value of the art-work, claiming that art is ‘a valid, though distinctive, means of cognitive access to the world’ (p. 229). The Kantian view is said to result in an ‘alienation of art’ from its true being. I am not convinced that theology has any particular stake in an anti-Kantian aesthetic of this kind. From the perspective of music, the question of ‘cognitive access to the world’ seems entirely irrelevant to the performance of, say, a Beethoven piano sonata. From the standpoint of theology, the question is why, in the light of Christian faith's own ‘cognitive access to the world’, this supplementary or alternative route is needed.
3 Church Dogmatics III/3, ET Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1960, p. 298Google Scholar.
4 Church Dogmatics III/3, p. 472.
5 For a sharp and effective critique of the myth of the solitary, non-tradition bound artist, to which Barth tacitly appeals, see Woltersdorff, Nicholas, ‘The Work of Making a Work of Music’, in Alperson, P. (ed.), What is Music? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987, pp. 101–129Google Scholar.
6 Kierkegaard, S., Either/Or, trans. Svenson, D. F. and Svenson, L. M. (vol.1), Lowrie, W. (vol.2), Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1959, 1.13.Google Scholar
7 Either/Or, 1.16–42.
8 Ibid., 1.20.
9 Ibid., 1.25.
10 Ibid., 1.23.
11 Ibid., 1.36.
12 Ibid., 1.26.
13 Ibid., 1.41; cf. 1.29–30.
14 Ibid., 1.46.
15 Ibid., 1.49.
16 Kierkegaard uses the terms det Sandselige and Sandselighed, which the English translators render sometimes as ‘the sensuous’ and ‘sensuousness’ and sometimes as ‘the sensual’ and ‘sensuality’ (see their note, 1.447). The title of these reflections on Don Giovanni — ‘The Immediate Stages of the Erotic, or Musical Eroticism’ — suggests that ‘eros’ is a suitable equivalent for the somewhat dated English terms, ‘sensuousness’ and ‘sensuality’.
17 Ibid., 1.59–60.
18 Ibid., 1.63.
19 Ibid., 1.70.
20 Ibid., 1.71.
21 Ibid., 1.68.
22 Ibid., 1.84.
23 ‘Diaryof the Seducer’, Ibid., 1.297–440.
24 Ibid., 1.101.
25 Ibid., 1.100.
26 Ibid., 1.129.
27 Genesis (1554), ET 1847, repr. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1965, 1.218Google Scholar.
28 Either/Or., 2.182. In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (and writing under another pseudonym), Kierkegaard points out that, in Either/Or, A is ‘far superior to B as a dialectician’ (ET Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947, p.227)Google Scholar.
29 Either/Or, 1.119.
30 The psalms all appear to have been written for musical performance. Fifty-seven of them are described as a mizmôr, a ‘melody’, twenty-nine as a šîr, a ‘song’ (these figures include thirteen psalms in which both terms are used). A number of psalmstitles also refer to the musical instruments to be used (Pss.4, 5, 6, 54, 55, 61, 67, 76) and may include references to a particular tune (Pss.6, 8, 9, 12, 22, 45 [=69, 80], 46, 53, 56, 57 [=58, 59, 75], 60, 62 [=77], 81=84, 88). According to Weiser, A. (The Psalms, Old Testament Library, ET London: SCM Press, 1962, pp. 22–23)Google Scholar, the tunes are referred to by the opening words of the presumably secular songs from which they are drawn. References to musical instruments are common within the main body of the psalms (e.g. Pss.33.2, 57.8, 92.3, 149.3, 150.3–5). In the light of Ps. 137.2, one might conjecture that this psalm was intended to be sung unaccompanied. The importance of music within the temple worship is emphasized especially by the Chronicler (cf. 1 Chr.6.31–48, 15.16–28, 25.1–8; 2 Chr.5.11b–13 [an insertion between the two halves of 1 Kgs.8.10], 29.25–30, 34.12, 35.15).
31 The assumption that, unlike his other oratorios, Handel's Messiah lacks any dramatic action can only stem from inattention to the particular (mainly Old Testament) texts selected and to their total biblical context.
32 Something similar might be said of the consolatory power of Mozart's best music. Barth, Karl rightly speaks of this as ‘music which for the true Christian is not mere entertainment, enjoyment or edification but food and drink; music full of comfort and counsel for his needs’ (Church Dogmatics III/3, pp. 297–298)Google Scholar. Barth attributes this consolatory power to Mozart's ability to hear ‘the harmony of creation to which the shadow also belongs but in which the shadow is not darkness, deficiency is not defeat, sadness cannot become despair, trouble cannot degenerate into tragedy and infinite melancholy is not ultimately forced to claim ultimate sway’. Mozart ‘heard the negative only in and with the positive. Yet in their inequality he heard them both together, as, for example, in his G minor Symphony of 1788’ (p. 298). It is unfortunate that Barth's reverence for Mozart led him to disparage other composers. Dismissive remarks about the music of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms are cited in Busch's, E. biography (Karl Barth: his Lift from Letters and Autobiographical Texts, ET London: SCM Press, 1976, pp. 362–363, 401)Google Scholar; for anyone wth a serious knowledge of the music of these and other composers, a musical taste that confines itself to Mozart can hardly be taken seriously.
33 ‘May angels lead you into paradise; at your arrival may the martyrs receive you, and lead you into the holy city of Jerusalem. May the choir of angels receive you, and with Lazarus, once poor, may you have eternal rest. Grant them eternal rest, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.’
34 This assertion of the possibility of ‘parables’ of the kingdom of God outside the boundaries of the church is (heavily) indebted to Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics IV/3, ET Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1961, pp. 110–135Google Scholar.
35 Carlyle, Thomas, Heroes and Hero-Worship, London: World Classics 1907, p. 112Google Scholar.
36 Similarly unrestrained claims about the unlimited significance of music are made by Kūng, Hans, in his Mozart: Traces of Transcendence (ET London: SCM Press, 1992)Google Scholar. Mozart's music ‘may preserve us from meaninglessness and despair’ (p. 29). His music ‘embraces me, penetrates me, delights me from within, completely fulfils me. The statement comes to mind: “In it [sic] we live and move and have our being”’ (p. 32). ‘In this overwhelming, liberating experience of music, which brings such bliss, I can myself trace, feel and experience the presence of a deepest depth or a highest height… To describe such experience and revelation of transcendence religious language still needs the word God…’ (p. 34). Why bother with Jesus and the Christian gospel when we can be instantly transported into the presence of transcendence by the simple action of putting on a CD, in the comfort of our own home?
37 Sparshott, Francis, ‘Aesthetics of Music — Limits and Grounds’, in Alperson, P. (ed.), What is Music? (see note 5, above), pp. 33–98; p. 51Google Scholar.