Music for the Theology of Paul in Three Dimensions
Chapter 1: Introduction
In chapter 1 raised the issue of which letters were written by Paul write, and which may have been written by someone else but in his name, thus being pseudonymous letters. To illustrate a possible problem with such letters I have chosen Adele’s song from Act II Johann Strauss’s operetta Die Fledermaus (The Bat): are such letters meant to deceive or not? Adele, maid to Rosalinde, finds herself in a tricky situation at a party. She is only there because Dr Falke is playing an extremely elaborate practical joke on Rosalinde’s husband, Gabriel von Eisenstein. He has brought Eisenstein to a party under a false name (Herr Marquis) but has also written a pseudonymous letter in the name of Adele’s sister, Ida, inviting her to the party. Arriving at the party, wearing one of her mistress’s dresses, she is told to assume the name “Olga” and pretend to be an “artiste.” This song follows her surprise encounter with Eisenstein, who asks what his housemaid is doing at such an exclusive party.
I chose this particular performance when my book was published in 2022. A year later Patricia Janečková, here singing the part of Adele, died a year later at the age of 25. She is buried in Ondrejský Cemetry in Bratislava. May she rest in peace.
Chapter 2: From Pharisee to Apostle to the Gentiles
This movement from Mahler’s First Symphony is marked “Stürmisch bewegt” (“stormily moved”) and sums up much of Paul’s psychological makeup. Mahler shared some characteristics with Paul. Just as Paul’s mission was a consuming passion, so music was for Mahler. Like Paul he was also a difficult person to live with. And like Paul, he was Jewish, and converted to Christianity. But there the similarities stop. Paul was a zealous Jew; Mahler had little respect for Jewish religious practice and observance. Paul was converted by an irresistible spiritual experience; Mahler, although having a fondness for Catholic mysticism, seemed to have converted in order to gain the prestigious conducting position at the Vienna State Opera!
Chapter 3: Christ the End of the Law
To get a sense of what freedom in the Spirit may mean I have chosen “With the Holy Spirit, to the glory of God the Father, Amen” from the end of the Gloria of Bach’s Mass in B Minor. The Latin is: “cum Sancto Spiritu: in gloria Dei Patris. Amen.” The conductor Otto Klemperer, whose own great recording can sound at times more like Brahms or Elgar than Bach, considered this piece “the greatest and most unique music ever written.” Subjective though this judgement is I have no doubt that we are in this mass occupying the musical stratosphere.
Chapter 4: The need for reconciliation I
The music I have chosen represents two very different portrayals of the day of judgement. The first is from the requiem of the Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi who had little interest in organised religion (and in fact disliked the established Church like many other Italian nationalists) but claimed to be “a very doubtful believer” rather than “an outright atheist.” He clearly had an interest in theology and his representation of the day of wrath is terrifying; but at the same time it is great to listen to it!
Chapter 4: The need for reconciliation II
The second representation of the day of wrath is from the requiem by the French composer Gabriel Fauré. His portrayal of the day of wrath is mild; indeed “[h]e presents us with a Mass for the Dead without a real Last Judgement” (Orledge, Fauré, 112) and some performances offer even a tender interpretation (as does this one).
Chapter 5: The Justification of the ungodly, sola gratia, sola fide
The very final scene of Goethe’s Faust Part II presents us with famous sinners from the bible and they, together with Margareta and even Faust himself, come to be saved. Gustav Mahler set this to music in his eighth Symphony, often called a “Symphony of a Thousand” because it requires a vast orchestra and choir. Here you have the very close of the symphony. The meaning of the very final words are ambiguous and makes it especially interesting: “Eternal Womanhood, Draws us on high.” “Eternal womanhood” could refer to Margarita, or the Virgin Mary. I take it to mean “love personified.”
Chapter 6: The Sacrifice of Christ
Bach’s St John Passion was first performed on Good Friday 1724 in St Nicholas Church, Leipzig. In this work Bach gives a musical setting of the passion narrative of John’s Gospel 18:1-19:42. But in addition to the text of John, he adds “chorales” and choruses and arias, which comment on those events leading up to the crucifixion of Christ. I have chosen the opening chorus, which captures the seriousness of the Christian enterprise. “Lord, our Ruler, whose fame is glorious through all the world, show us through your Passion that you, the true Son of God, have been glorified for all time, even when you were humbled and brought very low.” Bach’s setting presents the grandeur and dignity of the person of Jesus Christ but also the pain he endured.
Chapter 7: Word of God, Faith, and Grace
The redemption of the whole created order is wonderfully portrayed in Wagner’s final stage work Parsifal. Kundry, a tormented woman, comes to faith and is baptised, and her death with Christ is expressed by the remarkable sound of muted cellos and basses. This is followed by the Good Friday music that expresses the consequent redemption of the whole creation.
Chapter 8: The Person of Christ
Mozart composed his Mass in C Minor as a thank offering for his marriage to Constanza, who sang the solo soprano part in the first performance in Salzburg (26 October 1783). The words are very simple but point to the profound truth that God became a human being: Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est (“And was incarnate of the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made a human being”). The phrases of this confession are repeated in “a sinuous dialogue with wind instruments” (Humphreys, “Sacred Music,” 312).
Chapter 9: Church and Israel I
West Side Story is the creation of a Jewish composer (Leonard Bernstein) and a Jewish librettist (Stephen Sondheim. The reason this musical is especially fitting for the subject of Church and Israel is that when it was first conceived it was set in the East part of Manhattan, New York City, and was to concern two gangs, one Jewish and one Catholic. As Sondheim and Bernstein worked further on the musical it was decided to move the action over to the West Side and certain changes were made. But one can still discern the Jewish - Catholic theme.
Chapter 9: Church and Israel II
This second clip is an extract from the rehearsal for an audio recording of West Side Story. The composer himself (Leonard Bernstein) is conducting and the main singers (Tony and Maria) are “operatic” singers (José Carreras and Kiri Te Kanawa) as opposed to the “musical” singers, who are playing other ;arts.
Chapter 10: Anthropology I
Handel’s Aria from his opera Ariodante presents remarkable pathos. Ariodante, although sung by a soprano, is actually a man. He believes himself to be betrayed by Ginevra. Happily this is not true and he finally marries her.
Chapter 10: Anthropology II
The second extract is the love duet at the end of Act I of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Here everything moves in the opposite direction to what we find in Ariodante. The vulnerable Japanese Butterfly, very much in love with the American Pinkerton, is later cruelly abandoned by him. In experiencing this duet one is transported into a world of the enchantment of romantic love. Sadly though, their love does not work out and Butterfly in her despair takes her own life.
Chapter 11: Eschatology I
In the last of his Four Last Songs, “At Sunset” (“Im Abendrot”), Richard Strauss (1864-1949) he sets words by Joseph von Eichendorf (1788-1857).
Here both in need and gladness
we wandered hand in hand;
Now let us pause at last
above the silent land.
Around us, the valleys bow
as the sun goes down.
Two sky-larks soar upwards
dreamily into the light air.
Draw close, and let them fly.
Soon it will be time for sleep.
Let us not lose our way
in this solitude.
O vast, tranquil peace!
So deep in the evening’s glow!
Now we are tired, how tired!
Can this perhaps be death?
Chapter 11: Eschatology II
The second piece is from the close of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. He completed the work in 1859 and it was first performed in 1865 under Hans von Bülow. Later Richard Strauss himself conducted the work with his wife, Pauline, singing the part of Isolde. Here the young lovers, Tristan and Isolde, die in their prime. The music is strangely optimistic as we hear Isolde reflect on the death of her lover, believing that he lives on in another realm, a realm she herself will shortly enter. Isolde begins her “transfiguration” with these words: “How gently and quietly / he [Tristan] smiles, / how fondly / he opens his eyes! / Do you not see, friends? / Do you not see? / How he shines / ever brighter, / soaring on high, / stars sparkling around him? …….” Just one of the remarkable aspects of this final scene is that the music tells you that death is nothing to fear.
Chapter 12: Critical Reflections
For this final chapter I have chosen a piece to stress the preciousness of the “word of God”: J.S. Bach’s Cantata 18. By “word of God” I mean the transcendent word that comes to us and is witnessed to in the bible! This is the word that issues from the mouth of God.