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MUSIC MINISTRY    September 2015

9/6/2015

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Dear Friends in Christ,
September is upon us, and with it comes the return of our “program year.” The choir has returned from summer break. We are ready for a full season of music to the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul. Our 2015-16 Music Season promises to be an exciting one, building on favorite events of previous year while introducing some new things as well. The choir has already begun work on our special services for the year, and I know their hard work will pay off with some excellent music.

While reflecting on our progress last season and over the summer and planning our special music for the new season, I’ve begun to ponder the role of sacred music in our lives more deeply. The ancient Greeks believed music was a gift from the gods and a reflection and expression of our souls. Amazingly, they even saw the body as a musical instrument. When everything works properly, our thoughts become the song of our bodies, in a certain sense, at least from an ancient point of view. It is easy to downplay the importance of the spiritual side of things in a society always looking for the plain and simple truth—the bottom line. Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers, believed music had the power to alter the soul. For them, music could even affect a person’s character. The ancient Greeks went so far as to say that certain musical scales (modes) would have different effects on the listener to such a degree that only certain ones were appropriate on certain occasions. This philosophy informed the way early Christians thought of music’s power, and it has continued to influence the way musicians have thought about music through all of the eras of sacred and secular music.

The idea that music has power is not new to us, but perhaps we have never thought it so powerful or important as to fundamentally affect our character. As the saying goes, “you are what you eat,” so too, you are what you listen to. Beautiful, well written music has the power to uplift our souls and minds so that we may better focus on praise of God—our ultimate mission. This is true in our daily lives, as well. Music really does have power over our thoughts and feelings and should be practiced and listened to with care.
As we begin our new year of worship, special services, and concerts at the Cathedral, it is my prayer that our music will always be appropriate for the event that it accompanies. To that end, our musicians will work hard to practice and perfect their craft so that our pieces will sound their best. Like any other craft, music takes discipline, maturity, discernment, inspiration, and restraint to achieve its highest form. As we strive to accomplish these things, we ask your prayers and participation with us.

We would love to have you in the choir, but there are other ways in which you can participate in our ministry. Just by attending our services and concerts, you are helping us create our music. By singing the hymns with us, you are exponentially increasing the volume of our songs of praise. By listening actively to our anthems, solos, and instrumental pieces, you are joining yourselves with us in spirit by being open to the messages the music contains. The listener is more important than any other single aspect of a musician’s situation. Here at Christ Church, we are blessed with wonderful, thoughtful listeners, and your musicians are grateful for that. As things get busier in the rush toward the end of the calendar year, don’t forget to take a deep breath and be present with us in our songs and worship.

Finally, remember that music has great power in the world. It doesn’t have to be complex or of a particular genre to be good, but it should be healthy for the soul. As we begin the month of September and thus our new season, the musicians of your Cathedral are prayerfully preparing music intended to ennoble the spirit, refresh the soul, stimulate the mind, and promote well being.
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MUSIC MINISTRY      MAY 2015

5/8/2015

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Dear Friends in Christ,

Recently, I’ve had the occasion to drive up and down the beautiful stretch of I-65 between Mobile and Atmore that crosses the Five Rivers Delta. The natural beauty of the woodlands, wetlands, and the rivers gave me the feeling of being part of something larger. In a way, one might call it a sacramental experience, an outward sign of an inward and spiritual grace, and a visible experience of the invisible God. In the face of such natural grandeur, my mind turned to a poem titled, A Farewell, likening a river to eternity and reflecting on our own mortality.

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver;
No more by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.
Flow, softly flow by lawn and lea, A rivulet then a river;
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.

But here will sigh thine alder tree And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee, Forever and forever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee, A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.

Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Our sacred music is also like this river and this poem. When we sing our hymns and hear anthems and instrumental music by great composers and poets of old, we observe a river of art, beauty, and faith on which a thousand suns have streamed and will stream. We may not observe this flow of faith forever in the flesh, but, as Christians, we believe that after we die we may become a part of these traditions, this river.

When choosing music for the month of May, I’m keeping the spirit of this Easter season in front of me. During Easter, we celebrate the reality of our victory over death and our participation in eternity. We celebrate the Sacrament of Baptism, the Ascension of

Christ into heaven, and the fire of Pentecost. Our hymns and spiritual songs mark seasons of faith just as surely as the new flowers mark the spring. However, there is still room for new things and new traditions!

As the prelude on the Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 17, the Sunday after Ascension Day, I will play
Prière du Christ montant vers son Père (Prayer of Christ ascending toward his Father) by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992). This piece symbolizes Christ’s prayer for us before his ascension in a vivid way. The music literally rises from low to high. When some think of Messiaen’s music, they imagine dissonant tone clusters that offend the ears, but this music isn’t like that at all. While his music is on the more mystical and surrealistic side of art, Messiaen uses each note as a separate color and then blends these colors together to create new ones. Because of this approach, his music doesn’t function like a hymn tune or a work by Bach. Instead, Messiaen’s quiet music often has a static quality that symbolizes timelessness. Messiaen himself was synesthetic (meaning that when hearing sound he actually saw colors in his mind). A pupil of the French Romantic school of organ playing and composition, he inherited the traditions of such giants as Franck, Widor (of the famous toccata), and Vierne. Messiaen’s music flows from this sensibility even though it expands the musical language these composers used and defines the 20th century “sound”. Messiaen was a deeply spiritual person and served as the organist at La Trinitié church is Paris for over 60 years!

Like Messiaen, we strive during this continuing Easter season and through Pentecost to rejoice in the vibrant colors of our faith all around us. Even though our present form must come to an end one day, we can take courage in the words and music of those gone before us. They stand as a testament to the ebb and flow of our lives and our art. In Messiaen’s own words, “My faith is the grand drama of my life. I'm a believer, so I sing words of God to those who have no faith.”

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MUSIC MINISTRY          APRIL 2015

4/2/2015

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As we bask in the joy of Easter, our music continues to reflect the radiance of the resurrection. Just like the Christmas season, we celebrate Easter longer than the singular day! Hopefully, we will all be on the lookout for unexpected inspiration in church and in the world around us in the springtime of faith that the Easter season brings. Our Cathedral Celebration Sunday on April 26 will feature exciting music to accompany Confirmation and celebrate our identity as the Cathedral for the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast. Appropriately, we celebrate this occasion on what is known as “Good Shepherd Sunday.”  J. S. Bach’s Sheep May Safely Graze will be featured in this service, and the story behind this piece illustrates well how beauty may be found in unexpected places and that God really can work with just about anything!

While J. S. Bach (1685-1750) is a popular character in my weekly email articles, he is such a multi-faceted composer that writing about him never gets old. Sheep May Safely Graze is one part of a larger work, namely, Bach’s Cantata 208, “Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd” (“What pleases me is the lively hunt only”). Obviously, while there are religious overtones, this cantata is one of Bach’s relatively few “secular cantatas.” This piece was composed in 1713 to celebrate the birthday of Duke Christian of Weissenfels who loved to hunt (hence, the title). This cantata was commissioned as a gift from Bach’s Weimar employer, Duke Wilhelm Ernst. As an aside, while in Weimar, Bach served as organist and later concert master at the local court.

In this piece, Bach sets a text by Salomo Franck (1659-1725), a librettist at the Weimar court. Franck’s text basically depicts four mythological figures, Diana, Pan, Endymion, and Pales (the Roman goddess of shepherds and flocks who sings Sheep May Safely Graze) having a conversation about the pleasures of hunting and how wonderful Duke Christian is. The piece was originally performed with Bach as conductor at the birthday party of Duke Christian in his hunting lodge. Like so many musical pieces of the time that were designed to gratify a noble or monarch, the text is rather mediocre and lavish in its praise of the duke. The beauty here is in Bach’s musical writing and in the fact that one movement became one of his most famous pieces.

From the outset of the introduction, one imagines a lush pastoral setting complete with shepherd’s pipes in the distance (maybe even Pan’s pipes). The original intent in this piece (a break from the hunting themed movements) is to praise the duke as a good and Godly ruler like unto Christ, the Good Shepherd (a common metaphor harkening back to feudal times). However, it has come to mean so much more throughout the centuries. The original text has since been edited and the words regarding the duke removed. The accompaniment now reflects the joyous soul kept safe and loved by a loving shepherd, Jesus Christ, and the vocal line expresses a graceful comfort in this pastoral setting. Generally, the piece still celebrates much of what was originally intended, but focuses more directly on Christ.

While Bach almost surely couldn’t have imagined the wide usage and acclaim this little movement receives and might even be surprised that part of his “hunting cantata” is performed in churches all over the world, he would certainly be pleased. Who but God can tell what something will become or end up? While things may seem to wind down a bit after Easter Sunday, our music ministry still has some lovely musical surprises for your inspiration over these next weeks. Let’s look for the unexpected!

Peace in Christ,
Christopher W. Powell
Organist and Choir Master
cpowell@christchurchcathedralmobile.org
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    Christopher W. Powell
    Music Director and Organist

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