Understanding Religious Music: A Smorgasbord

Abstract

Understanding religious music is challenging. Indeed, the whole idea can seem perplexing and problematic. In this paper, a number of ways of understanding religious music are sketched. Seven main models are distinguished: the side-effect model, the ringtone model, the honey model, the addition model, the fitting beauty model, the organic unity model, and the similarity model. Some issues concerning Bach’s Sacred Cantatas are then considered in order to see how these approaches apply in one particularly controversial and puzzling example.

1. Religious Music

How should we understand religious music? A related question, perhaps a more general one, is: how should we understand what we might call ‘spirituality’ in music? One point of seeking such an understanding would be to explain what is going on in particular works, but we might also aspire to illuminate and perhaps contest the borders of religious or spiritual music.

Perhaps these questions can be asked too soon. We cannot assume that the idea of religious or spiritual music is unproblematic; it is not as if these ideas make obvious sense. We can imagine a skeptic casting doubt on the ideas of religious or spiritual music. Let us put ‘spirituality’ to one side, which is a rather unspecific notion, and appeal to something like a list in order to get a fix on ‘religion.’ Such a list should include monotheistic religions, polytheistic religions as well as non-theistic religions. A similar list approach can also be taken to ‘music.’ We can define music as sounds designed by human beings in order to possess a list of aesthetic features, such melody, harmony, rhythm or some conjunction or disjunction of these (Zangwill 2007). Such a list-like definition does not preclude other functions of music (Zangwill 2015), and it covers a wide plurality of cultures and eras. It might be objected that this list-like definition includes ringtones; but, in fact, this inclusiveness is probably a strength, not a weakness. It might also be objected that the definition excludes some avant-garde music, but there is no harm in deploying a category of ‘sound art’ for avant-garde music, which is closely related to, but not the same as, music (Hamilton 2007).

Given these two list-like definitions, we can ask the question: “Can there be religious music?” However, the question seems to have a simple answer: “Yes.” The only difficulty is to avoid overgeneralizing and missing the large variety of ways that music can be religious. There is religious music; it is a fact. How can it be doubted? It would be like questioning the existence of violins.

Of course, there can be religious music because there is religious music. However, this is not the issue, or at least the more interesting issue. There are religious texts set to music, and music intended for religious activities (such as Buddhist chanting or Hasidic dancing). There is a sense in which the texts or activities may fit the music, or vice versa (Zangwill 2020). The more interesting question is whether there is anything religious about the music when we take away the religious aspect of the accompanying texts or activities. That does not have an obvious answer. Bricks for example, may be used to make religious buildings; but there is nothing religious about bricks in themselves. Likewise, it might be said that music is just music, whatever else it is used for. The other purposes that music serves are external to it and do not, as it were, get into the notes or into the sounds that are designed to exhibit features like melody, harmony, rhythm, or some conjunction or disjunction of these.

There is something down to earth and common-sensical about the skeptical view. However, many resist this skepticism, wanting to find religiosity somehow within the sounds. The way to think about this, I believe, is to consider how music and religious texts or activities fit together. The nature of this ‘fit’ is somewhat perplexing.

It seems that there is typically a combinatory value in religious music. The value of the music and the value of the texts or activities do not exist separately, side by side, merely to be added together. Instead, it seems that they combine and multiply. How the different values combine in particular cases is both difficult to describe and variable. Nevertheless, religious music, in all its variety, needs to be understood in terms of this kind of multi-functionality: the music achieves many things besides achieving an ‘absolute’ sound pattern that exemplifies aesthetic features like melody, harmony or rhythm, or some conjunction or disjunction of these; and the other things that music does may be multiple and stand in specific relations to each other and to the music. In particular cases, we should be careful to be aware of the variety of ways that these combinations can obtain.

2. Some Unsatisfactory Models of Religious Music

After considering the variety of functional plurality, I will separate seven models: the side-effect model; the ringtone model; the honey model; the addition model; the fit model; the organic unity model; and the similarity model.

Music may have side effects. There are artifacts with a primary design goal, which have side-effects. For example, for many years the announcer over the public information system at Glasgow Railway Station was unintelligible to most non-Glaswegians, such as I. Yet, for years, I appreciated the beautiful singsong of her voice. Her main goal, however, was to convey information about trains, which she failed to do to almost all non-Glaswegians. However, there were wonderful and beautiful ‘musical’ side-effects of her main information-conveying goal. Likewise, my guess at the deep psychology of the World Soul is that it (he? she?) does not care much about the sounds produced. The primary goal of the World Soul is to keep the planets moving in a regular way, staving off stasis, on the one hand, and chaos, on the other. It is a delicate balancing act between no-motion and chaotic-motion. (It is not easy being the World Soul!) The crystal spheres may produce pleasing sounds as a result, but this is not the World Soul’s primary goal, just as the primary function of the human heart is not to make a rhythmic beating noise, and the purpose of the Glasgow station announcer was not to make pleasing sounds. That is a ‘musical’ side-effect in all these cases. None of these cases have what Eduard Hanslick would classify as ‘musical beauty,’ which must be an intentional human product (Hanslick 2018). (That is part of the reason that Hanslick writes ‘musical-beauty’ with a hyphen in the title of his book). These cases are not musical artifacts despite the sonic beauty they produce. By contrast, most religious music has aesthetic effects that are intended goals rather than side-effects. So, this idea will not help us to understand the majority of religious music.

Another model for understanding religious music would be that music serves to alert people to religious messages. Therefore, music is like a ringtone for religious messages. Consider telephone ringtones. Should ringtones count as ‘music’? This may appear to be an uninteresting question but there may be significant legal and financial consequences associated with classifying something as music or non-music. Whether ringtones aim to realize aesthetic features is a more tractable question. Still, one should not generalize too much about ringtones, of which there are many kinds. The primary aim of most ringtones, surely, is to alert people to incoming phone calls. In most cases, this is achieved partly by aesthetic means, given that properties such as melody, harmony, rhythm, or other musical features are employed. (For an interesting exception to this primary aim, see Padios 2014.) In that sense, it is not misleading to see ringtones as aiming at a kind of minimal musical beauty, even though that it is not their primary goal; instead, it is a means to the primary goal of alerting people to incoming phone calls. This is not so far from the way that some people think of religious music. The music is a kind of ringtone alerting people to incoming religious messages. The ultimate point of such religious music is enabling and encouraging a particular way of worshiping God, or reaching enlightenment, or whatever the religious goal is, by means of aesthetic features. However, the ringtone theory of religious music separates the musical means and the religious end. That would be a simple theory, but it is too simple to describe much religious music because there is little connection between the religious goals and the aesthetic qualities of the music. Instead, on the ringtone model, one thing is merely a means to another distinct thing. This may indeed be true of some religious music. Church bells may be like that. This is not true, however, of Bach’s Sacred Cantatas. In that case, the two are surely more interconnected or intertwined.

Closely related to the ringtone model is the ‘honey’ model of religious music according to which music is like honey that sugars a religious message. St. Basil seems to hold such a view (Basilian Fathers 2016). A spoonful of pleasant music helps the religious medicine go down. On this model, the music facilitates consumption of the text and should not distract us from the text. While this view is not the same as the ringtone model, the honey model has similar limitations. The honey is something distinct from the music, whereas music and religious content are more integrated than that, at least in many cases of religious music. In the honey model, the music is a mere means to a religious end, though not in the same manner as a ringtone. It rather serves to dramatize the content, akin to music in film (excluding film music like that of Ennio Morricone). Some religious music is of this sort, but much is not. Again, Bach’s Sacred Cantatas are not.

For a similar reason, an addition model is also of limited generality. Consider multi-functional things, such as sofa-beds: they are both sofas and beds. Mobile phones now serve a variety of functions, including being a phone, camera, music player, and more. (Mobile phones once were primarily telephones; remember that?) One thing can serve multiple purposes and have various functions. However, these functions coexist rather than interact. In his 1914 book Art, Clive Bell embraced a strict version of formalism according to which the aesthetic and representational functions of paintings sit side by side, having nothing to do with each other (Bell 1914). Almost everyone disagrees with Bell about most representational painting because many paintings have beauty as things with specific representational properties. A beautiful picture of a tree is not beautiful as an abstract pattern and a picture of a tree. Instead, these different functions combine to create an overall value or beauty that the painting possesses as a complex whole (Zangwill 2001). Likewise, an additional model of religious music is implausible for most interesting religious music. In such religious music, the musical beauty and the religious function do not simply coexist—they combine and interact. They are not merely added; they multiply.

3. Some More Satisfactory Models of Religious Music

More satisfactory views emerge from reflecting on the idea that music often fits something else. This fundamental idea is present in Plato’s Republic, where he writes, ‘And surely the mode and rhythm should follow the words’ (Plato 1997, 98D). Plato does not elaborate this concept of ‘fit’, however. Another example is Chi K’ang, who, in the third century China, theorized the military roles of music (K’ang 1983). Understanding this notion of ‘fit’ is an important task; indeed, my view is that it is a central question of aesthetics.

We have this kind of fit where a visual thing has a representational function: the two-dimensional pattern should fit what the thing represents so that it is beautiful as something with that representational function. For example, a picture might be beautiful as a representation of a tree. We also have this fit where music fits words, as Plato envisages. In religious music, the music typically has this kind of fit with its religious function. For example, there might be some religious text that the music sets, or some religious activity, such as Dervish ‘whirling,’ during a religious ceremony. Music may have a beauty that fits this religious function. This kind of view has rich potential for yielding understanding of a wide variety religious music. (Kant’s notion of ‘dependent beauty’ is a useful one for thinking about this kind of fit in complex works of art) (Kant 2000, section 16; see also Zangwill 2001.)

On the fitting beauty model, something is a beautiful expression of a nonaesthetic function. This is an asymmetrical relation. However, there is a different way of thinking of music and text in religious music: organic unity. On the fitting beauty model, one of the two functions is dominant. By contrast, on the organic unity model, both have equal standing and each fits the other. The idea is that aesthetic and non-aesthetic values are equal partners that fit together into a whole that is more than the sum of the parts. This allows for the fact that a part may be relatively unvaluable considered in itself. To illustrate, consider an example from moral philosophy: a criminal act is bad, and the punishment, considered in itself, is also bad. Together, however, they are better than each considered alone. Likewise, in some religious music, mediocre text combines with mediocre music to make excellent religious music. (The idea of organic unity is prominent in G. E. Moore 1903, though it is perhaps found in Brentano before that; see Chisholm 1986.)

Both the fitting beauty and organic unity models deny the addition model according to which musical and non-musical functions coexist without interacting. According to that view, the two are merely added together without combining to produce something valuable that is not there in the parts considered in themselves. Moreover, both fitting beauty and organic unity models are incompatible with the side effect, ringtone and honey models.

We have not yet encountered the similarity model, which can be best explained by contrast with the fit model. Here, both music and text have religious content and there is no fit of music to text, where that would be an appropriate relation between two quite different things. Instead, it turns out that music and text both have a similar content. Because the music itself supposedly has content, there is similarity, not fit. They share something. Many have been attracted to the idea that music without text can have a kind of meaning (Kramer 2010). Religious music is said to have its own meaning (Elliot Gardiner 2013). For such a view, there is a question about exactly how the specific musical ‘meaning’ fits the literary meaning of the text. I do not believe this option is available, however, because I doubt that music without text can have that kind of meaning (Scruton 1997, chp. 5). But even if it can, it would not be a plausible account of much religious music, for surely the art of sophisticated complex artworks, where text and music are combined, or where music and activity are combined, is the art of fitting one of these to the other, not just one matching one to the other. It is a relation of appropriateness, not similarity.

The side effect, ringtone, honey, addition, and similarity models are not plausible for most interesting cases of religious music. So, we need to deploy the notion of ‘fit’ even though it is true that what this ‘fit’ of music with religious text or activity consists in remains somewhat mysterious. What is this appropriateness of the combination of music with text or ritual activity? The organic unity view is equally mysterious: why and how do the two things combine so as to generate a greater value? Much religious music, on either view, combines music with religious text or activity such that the music is appropriate to, or fits, the religious text, or that the two fit each other to make a greater whole. The two views are related in that the fitting beauty model is a one-way fit of music to text or activity, whereas the organic unity model is a two-way mutual fit. Both of these views connect music and religion in an intimate way without obliterating the difference between them, as in the similarity model. Even though we do not ultimately understand how these models work, we nevertheless can have some confidence that much religious music is well classified and profitably theorized in one of these two ways.

4. Bach’s Sacred Cantatas

The foregoing has been rather abstract. So, in order to keep the discussion from being overly simple, and to resist over-generalization, let us focus on a particular interesting example of religious music. A striking, impressive, and even sublime, range of examples are many of J. S. Bach’s Sacred Cantatas. (I put aside the lighter Peasant’s and Coffee Cantatas.) Even these, as a group, are quite varied. Nevertheless, despite their differences, there is much that many of them share. This is just one kind of religious music, but it is not uncommon; and, so, we should, at the very least, have an account that captures such cases. In these Cantatas, as with so many other kinds of religious music, the problem is to understand how the different aspects of the music relate to each other. We can address this in this case without assuming that other examples are best interpreted in a similar way.

We will see that although the fitting beauty and organic unity models have considerable appeal in the case of Bach’s Sacred Cantatas, there are also problems with this interpretation and it will be instructive to negotiate these difficulties. Bach’s Sacred Cantatas—or the bulk of them, since even they differ quite a lot—are not only powerful but also puzzling or even paradoxical. No one has ever given a fully satisfactory account of how music and text fit together in Bach’s Sacred Cantatas.

There is a longstanding tradition in both Western and non-Western music aesthetics that interprets music as primarily intended for the enjoyment of the beauty of combination of tones. Eduard Hanslick is a paradigm example of this perspective in the 19th century in his influential work ‘Vom-Musikalisch-Schönen: Ein Beitrag zur Revision der Aesthetik der Tonkunst,’ published in 1854 (in English, “On the Musically Beautiful: A Contribution Towards the Revision of the Aesthetics of Music”; Hanslick 2018). One problem that Hanslick faces is to understand how such a view makes sense of the other things that music achieves, such as enabling dancing, shopping, fighting, or political propaganda. In the case of Bach’s Sacred Cantatas, the problem is to understand how the music fits the religious text. However, the additional problem and paradox in the case of Bach’s Sacred Cantatas is that the text is often very intense and even horrific. For example, “My sins sicken me like pus in my bones; help me Jesus Lamb of God, for I am sinking in deepest slime” (from Cantata 178). How can we find beauty in the fit of music to words like that? That is a particularly hard question.

The issue is not merely an ‘academic’ one—it also makes performance problematic. Many performances, in Richard Taruskin’s words, “prettify” Bach, losing the intense text in slick note-perfect performances, so that the overall result loses power. Other less note-perfect but more raw performances are more effective in bringing out this power (Taruskin 1991, 2005). These powerful performances are harrowing; they are not pleasant in any obvious sense, which puts performers in a dilemma.

Taruskin’s interesting view of Bach foregrounds the religious purposes of the music in a way that conflicts with musical beauty. That is why understanding fitting beauty in these cases is particularly challenging. As part of this campaign, Taruskin claims that Bach sometimes composes music deliberately so that it is almost impossible to play or sing so as to demonstrate the futility and frailty of the human body, just as the religious text simultaneously claims. However, we can ask: how deep does this go? Taruskin takes it very far, and if so, at least in Bach’s religious works, beauty is not at all Bach’s primary aim. By contrast, Hanslick, theorizes Bach’s religious music in terms of beauty while recognizing Bach’s premodern religious sensibility. (This is to be found in Hanslick’s critical works, not in his book) (Hanslick 1950).

Of course, we can perform Bach’s Sacred Cantatas as we please, to some extent. They can be ‘prettified’, but the risk is not just a superficial and anachronistic performance but also a superficial anachronistic audience experience, one that does not tap the power of many of the works. The Cantatas were originally designed for congregations of Pietist believers as part of church services, not plush concert halls, for reflection on one’s sins, not polite applause. Here, there are two issues running in parallel. One issue is about anachronistic and superficial ways of listening, while the other is about anachronistic and superficial ways of performing.

The issue over listening raises another important and potentially political issue concerning the availability of the Cantatas to non-Pietist, non-Christian, or non-religious listeners. Are there limits to appreciation—aesthetic appreciation—of the full gory glory of many of Bach’s Sacred Cantatas? We could ask: does the believer appreciate something unavailable to non-believers? Yes, obviously; but the question is do they appreciate more aesthetically? Are there beauties that only they perceive? Or perhaps, a religious Jew, Muslim, or Buddhist can appreciate it, but not a non-religious person.

There are psychological questions raised about the attitudes of mind involved in listening to religious music, particularly when music is combined with religious text. All sides should agree that we must appreciate music and religious text in combination. Not combining them would miss much of the composer’s art. It is true that some music is re-used for both religious and non-religious texts. Bach often did this, as Hanslick points out. But sometimes the fit of music and text is particularly snug.

We can ask: what are the mental states involved when listeners listen to and appreciate each element and the snug combination? This bears on the question: what can Christian sacred music have to say, or what can it be, to outsiders? Those we might call ‘restrictivists’ think that the Christian’s musical experiences are significantly different from the non-Christian’s musical experiences, and they are somehow more profound. Restrictivists claim that the text must be believed, and believing the text offers musical experiences unavailable to non-believers. Conversely, those we might call ‘anti-restrictivists’ say that imagining the text is as good as belief for the purpose of appreciating aesthetic qualities of the Bach’s Sacred Cantatas, including the beauty of the combination of music and text. Of course, it cannot be denied that there are some experiences that Cantatas offer only to Christian believers. These experiences depend on their belief in the truth of the text; and, so, this experience is inaccessible to non-believers. However, it is questionable whether Christian believers access extra aesthetic qualities (including beauties) of the music.

Large political questions are inevitably provoked. Can religious music be a common meeting point across cultural divides? Can it be a point of common experience and valuing despite differences of doctrine, politics, and much else? Or is religious music something that divides us? These are at least some of the questions provoked once we look more closely at this particularly interesting case of religious music.

5. Coda

In this paper, I have presented a smorgasbord of ways to understand religious music by considering the ways in which musical and religious functions combine. No combination, apart from the implausible similarity model is much of a threat to a theorist who believes that musical beauty is a central or dominant function of music. Such a view has considerable resources for making sense of the plethora of other functions of music (Zangwill 2015, 2020). In particular, the fitting beauty and organic unity models are plausible ways of understanding the combination of musical beauty with other functions in religious music. This is how musical beauty combines with the other things that music often does. Furthermore, things designed for musical beauty can and do often combine with other functions in a variety of ways. We need not seek a quite general monolithic theory of religious music. Different models will apply to different religious music. We are not short of resources for doing justice to the variety of religious musical phenomena.