Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Singing about Mary

As some of you may have caught me admit in our first class, my ties to Christianity and Mary are actually more as a musician than as a believer or an academic. I know her best from having sung countless settings of the Ave Maria and Magnificat at church and at Anglican Choir Camp (yes, such a thing exists). While I could probably wax rhapsodic about each piece I've gotten to sing, I'll spare you an endless post and try to bring my musical musings into focus around a few specific pieces.

Our discussion of Mary as a new Eve, particularly the garden imagery that Ephrem uses to create a kind of rhyme between the two women, put me in mind of two songs. If, like me, you were ever a member in a girls' chorus during the Christmas season, you have probably sung or at least heard of Benjamin Britten's magnificent cantata A Ceremony of Carols for harp and 3-part treble choir. In my high school career, I had the exhausting but pleasurable task of singing this for three years of Christmases (one year with three different ensembles, to boot) so the songs are fairly engraved in my memory and my understanding of Mary, because the music serves so well to deepen the meaning set forth with the Middle English poetry that forms its libretto.

After a beautiful processional chant ('Hodie Christus Natus Est') and a boistrous 'Wolcom Yole,' the tone of the music shifts to a contemplative one in the third movement, 'There is No Rose'. The choir sings a contemplative text about the miracle of the Virgin--the rose with which we are now familiar--in whom is contained 'heaven and earth in little space' and 'one God in persons three' (interestingly, each syllable of 'per-sons three' is an inversion of the same chord--musical theology!). Each verse is punctuated by unified moments of Latin chant, and the harp part is simple and repetitive, suggesting a kind of advancing (to Bethlehem? to heaven?). The final, soaring moment of Latin is set to the 'transeamus' (let us cross over) that implies the miraculous threshold we mortals may cross through the Virgin.

The penultimate movement 'Deo Gracias' connects Mary more explicitly to Eve, but here the musical flavor is less reverent and more urgent, with a quick-moving harp part that suggests more of a run that a stately procession. The choir sings a breathless praise of both Mary and Eve's taking of the fruit, narrating how 'ne had the appil takè ben [...] ne hadde never our lady a-ben hevenè quene' with notes in small, low tessitura that eventually breaks out into bright leaps of larger intervals and harp glissandos in a canon of cries of 'deo gracias!' that eventually unite in a glorious final chord. To me, the musical transition from the verse telling of Adam and Eve's relation to mary into the 'chorus' of 'thanks be to God!' that takes the melody from low and rumbling to striking and alive implies a kind of duality, perhaps between earthly Eve and heavenly Mary, each necessary in her role, since mankind cannot be redeemed without sin. Had the apple not been taken, Mary would not be queen, after all.

This might be a good point to disclose that although I've been a chorister for years, I've never studied anything beyond basic theory and composition, so my conclusions are all based on a kind of armchair musicology and are probably not up to the standards of actual scholarship. That said, I'd like to dive in now with one last piece of music and posit that it, too, could be in praise of the Virgin.

Singing in different ensembles at the same time has the side effect of juxtaposing pieces of music that are seemingly unrelated, either in subject matter, musical tradition, or both, and for me, at least, this makes some of the ideas cross-pollinate (no pun intended, re: garden imagery) a little. While performing seasonal iterations of the Britten with my professional girls' chorus, I also sang an incredible beautiful piece by contemporary composer Eric Whitacre with my school chorus. The song is one of a cycle entitled 'Three Songs of Faith' and is a setting of an E. E. Cummings poem 'i will wade out' (here is a YouTube link, but if you have Spotify installed, this is a much better recording).

The poetry is beautiful, of course, sensual and almost sexy (I'm surprised it didn't raise more eyebrows being sung by 17-year-olds, really) but I think that when it became lyrics to a song, it also became like a new kind of Magnificat. So many of the elements make me think of Mary: it's sung in the first person, by she who 'leaps into the ripe air, alive with closed eyes' in faith and trust of the role that God has given her, 'to dash against the darkness' of sin. The 'fingers of smooth mastery' are God's, entering the 'sleeping curves' of Mary's body so that she, the stella maris, might 'with chasteness of sea-girls complete the mystery of [her] flesh.' The music itself suggests the kind of reaction I've always imagined in the tone of the text of the Magnificat: the 'A' section is frantic, unstable, but excited, too thrilled to sit still with three treble voices leaping up and down in canon. The 'B' section is grounded, a tighter harmony that evokes the earthliness of the verse-sections of 'Deo Gracias', suggesting the redemption and fulfillment to come. And then the piece recapitulates musically back to the ethereal and insistent joy of the present even as it sets forth new text: 'i will rise after a thousand years, lipping flowers.'

Hopefully I haven't gone too far from the topic at hand, but I was so glad to finally have a forum to air out all these thoughts about Mary that have been rolling around in my mind since I first began (literally) singing her praises. As a bonus, because I'm a music nerd and through the magic of the internet, I made a playlist of my a few of my favorite Mary songs (you will need Spotify to listen to it). I hope the music inspires some of you like it has me.

9 comments:

  1. Blair:
    Interesting expansion, providing a different angle to think about and consider, for example the Ephrem hymns or the Akathistos hymn for class on Wednesday (I especially like the item about the Trinity and the inversion of the same chord). These hymns are texts, but they were also performed and I think there are many potential insights that could come from examination of them as performed, musical pieces. You have given an evocative “reading” (hearing?) of the “Three Songs of Faith” cycle and the tone of the Magnificat: Mary’s initial thrill at being chosen by God (which reminds me of Ephrem’s line about the numbers of Law-abiding women who, knowing of the prophecies of Christ’s birth, waited and hoped that it might be them chosen as “the vessel of the Lord”), and the ways that the other two sections mirror and even supplement the Magnificat. Can you think of any specific insights into the hymns from Monday and for Wednesday that hearing (or better yet, performing) them would provide (i.e., beyond the theological and discursive aspects we discussed in class)?
    ~TA

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    1. Thank you. I did think about trying to expand into what the hymns of Ephrem would mean when paired with their melodies, but, like I said, I don't know much about musicology proper or music history (at least not of this era...I'll talk your ear off about Bach!), and I didn't feel like I could make the leap to guess. Does anyone with more music theory training want to take a stab at it? I'd definitely be interested to hear theories about what the hymns would have sounded like as sung pieces!

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  2. Something from Wednesday's reading that I may not have paid as much attention to without your post: "Women's workrooms, especially those were [sic: where?] yarns were spun and woven, were the favored sites for the fabrication of stories and aphorisms, often intoned to the rythm of the loom." (N. Constans on Proclus of Constantinople, Homily 1, pp. 134-135). Music does seem centrally important to, even perhaps generative of, liturgical (certainly), doctrinal, and/or rhetorical development.
    ~TA

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  3. Although I'm not terribly knowledgeable about music, I do enjoy listening to it. I also have devotion to Mary, so songs about Mary get extra points. I don't have Spotify, but I'd be interested in seeing a list of your favorites. Have you heard Biebl's "Ave Maria"? It's possibly the most beautiful song I've ever heard. Try here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_2K3cAZ7zU&ob=av2n

    But what I really want to comment on.

    I must admit that you caught me off guard in applying “I Will Wade Out” to Mary. It’s something that I would feel uncomfortable reading aloud in the presence of my parents, let alone in the presence of the Virgin Mary. However, reading your analysis and discovering that you obviously did not find it inappropriate. In fact, your innocent application of the poem/song to Mary made me feel quite embarrassed that I had jumped to the conclusion that it was describing something inherently illicit. I am reminded of a Christian doctrine (that may be the improper term) specifically pointed out by Pope John Paul II in the Theology of the Body (although certainly can be found elsewhere) that Satan cannot create something evil; he can only corrupt something that God made good. While it is true that drawing attention to “the curves of my body” can be (and certainly has been) done with the intent to objectify rather than honor, these “curves of my body” and “mystery of my flesh” were made by God, and they are good! They are so good that God chose the mysteries of Mary’s flesh to be the means by which He became man.

    LP

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    1. Thank you both for the links to these other beautiful songs.

      A quick sidenote: On the first day of class, I thought about Schubert's famous "Ave Maria." Several years ago I went to a wedding in a Lutheran church (with clergy of what my associates explicitly called a "Lutheran light" persuasion). A very beautiful version of "Ave Maria" was to be performed by an opera and theater singer, but the phrase "Ave Maria" had to be changed to "Father in Heaven" in order to be approved.
      ~TA

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    2. I LOVE Biebl's Ave Maria. Almost to the point of tears. I wasn't aware of that doctrine of the theology of the body, but I agree that it works very well with my thinking! That's why I think I like the idea of the song as a Marian hymn: because it celebrates the sensual nature of being the human part of God's essence, if that makes sense.

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  4. There is good reason, I think, that Mary is associated with so many songs: her Magnificat, Gabriel's Ave, Maria, the Song of Songs--to name only the most obvious ones! I am not sure it is possible to understand Mary without song, and yet, like you, I find it difficult to know how to talk about it. In medieval music theory, the mystery was often expressed in terms of the cosmic harmonies as recapitulated in the human body (see Boethius). Mary, as the one who contained the Creator of all, likewise contained all these harmonies. It is something of this mystery that the image heading our blog is meant to capture: Mary as the instrument through which the Word sounded in the world. But how to put these metaphors into words? A mystery, indeed!

    RLFB

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  6. Blair - I am SO happy you posted about singing the hymns! I felt like our discussion of Ephrem’s hymns was lacking because we did not go over the music. I agree with you that music adds another dimension of complexity - certain musical features may represent certain theological concepts.

    And RLFB, I absolutely agree with you when you say, “I am not sure it is possible to understand Mary without song.” For me, I would take it one step further. Based on my personal experiences with music, I don’t think that it would be possible for me to feel any sort of connection with the divine without music.

    Let me explain - a couple of year ago, I was going through a faith crisis. I did not understand how certain aspects of my religion could be true (and honestly, I still don’t). What led me to some sort of realization was when I was singing the Ave Maria (Schubert, of course) at my aunt and uncle’s wedding. On paper, music is just notes and words. You think you know what you will get when you hear it. But when you actually do hear it, when you hear someone producing ethereal harmonies in a beautiful setting like a wedding, how can you think that music is just notes on paper. It is so much more. It is uncontainable. It is mystery.

    I realized that I needed to have faith in the mystery of the divine, just as I have faith in the mystery of music.

    And I would like to end with a quote:
    "Religion is Divinity expressed inwardly; Art is Divinity expressed outwardly" - Rukmini Devi


    -CB

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