**Chiara Bertoglio**

**Abstract:** The doctrine of God's Triunity is at the core of Christian faith; this article presents a theological survey of how it has been understood in a musical way during the Christian era. The role of music as a participation in the liturgy of mutual love eternally experienced in the Trinity is first analyzed, with references to the Church Fathers and to modern/contemporary theologians. Later, the three main forms of congregational singing are taken into account (*i.e.*, monody, polyphony and harmony), pointing out how each has been seen in turn as a symbol of the Trinity's love.

Reprinted from *Religions*. Cite as: Bertoglio, C. A Perfect Chord: Trinity in Music, Music in the Trinity. *Religions* **2013**, *4*, 485–501.

#### **1. Introduction**

The French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992), who was an ornithologist as well as a theologian, used to say that his music aimed at transmitting *theological truths* (quoted in [1], p. 21)*.*  Thus, he linked together the contemplative aspect that can be art's best and greatest result with an aspect of reflection and higher comprehension (rational and aware) of the Christian mystery. In this article, we will be moving from this concept to ask some questions: Can music help us to "say" and to "understand" something of the ineffable and unattainable mystery of the Trinity? If yes, how? During the two thousand years of Christianity in music, how were the Trinitarian subjects treated by musicians?

In many cases, it will be necessary to refer to concepts which are typical of the theory of music, of music analysis and musicology. Indeed, throughout the History of Music, it was usual for composers to entrust their message to different interpretive levels: from the simple "emotional" level to the evocation of a "feeling", from the use of symbologies and onomatopoeias which everybody could understand, to the application of compositional strategies of a noteworthy complexity and refinement. It is self-evident, therefore, that a subject which is both as fundamental and demanding as that of the Trinity has required all of their artistic resources, often encouraging a very refined compositional style whose full appreciation is only possible to specialists. At the same time, many composers of the past had a belief, which is less and less frequently found nowadays, *i.e.*, that the value of their work was primarily in its generative intention and in its intrinsic correspondence with the mystery it aimed at expressing.

As a consequence, the fact that not all hearers could have understood the "how" and the "why" of certain compositional decisions (whose very existence would have passed unnoticed by many) was a result not only foreseen, but often wanted by the composers themselves. Within the framework of a Christian belief, a work can act as an instrument of Grace even if the hearer is not aware of how it operates. Therefore, Christian composers could (and can) believe that a salvific message encoded within the score can reach the hearers' soul even if they do not realize how and why it is encrypted. Bach's works are a paradigmatic example of this approach: although we cannot expound this subject sufficiently here, it should be mentioned that Bach realized an exceptional theological and mystical exegesis of the Trinitarian dogmas in many of his works, such as the *Klavierübung III* or the *B-minor Mass*—to name but two—as well as in several works which were not explicitly "sacred" (*cf.* also [2], p. 142ff.).

### **2. The Liturgy of Trinitarian Love**

In order to consider the connection of music with the Trinity, we must focus first on the role of liturgical music within the Trinity and between the Triune God and the Church (as well as humankind). Besides liturgical music, we should not omit consideration of sacred music, and eventually the non-sacred music in its most beautiful, highest and truest significance.

This subject was frequently treated by the Church Fathers, and has been later resumed, in recent years, by some great theologians. In the meantime, this subject was treated more often in practice by music and liturgy, and less frequently in theory and speculation.

For Clemens of Alexandria, man is the "musical instrument" of the Logos, who made him "harmonious" through the Holy Spirit: so that the divine harmony may resound in him, that he may receive and worship the Word, and that the Spirit may "blow" him, similar to a pipe, giving him life and making him an instrument of praise ([3], p. 326; [4], p. 91; *cf.* [5], p. 25). Being the divine image of the Logos, moreover, man participates in the Trinitarian communion when he becomes an instrument of the Logos' praise to the Father ([3], p. 326; [4], p. 643. The Trinitarian interpretation is supported by [6], p. 118, and [7], p. 114); for Clemens, the divine Word is "the only instrument of peace, the only Logos through whom we honor God" (in [8], vol. VIII, p. 443).

Augustine's viewpoint was different but complementing: "In that supreme triad is the source of all things, and the most perfect beauty, and wholly blissful delight" ([9], p. 215; *cf.* [10], pp. 124, 134). It is not surprising that a reflection on beauty and the Trinity was particularly interesting for the Bishop of Hippo, whose writings "testify upon a double concern: for beauty and for Trinitarian theology" ([10], p. 124). Being a form of creation, albeit a human one, for Augustine musical composition is somehow a participation in the Father's creative activity: "The Father is the origin of all being, and therefore the origin of all beautiful-being as well", as Tscholl summarizes it ([10], p. 125)1 . When music becomes liturgy, worship, prayer or contemplation, it becomes an act of thanksgiving, realized through the Son in the Spirit, as John Chrysostom seems to suggest in pages of exquisite beauty, where dance is a further element of praise within Trinitarian communion (*Hom. I,1, In illud. Vidi Dominum*: [8], vol. LVI, p. 98).

Chrysostom expounds further on the Trinitarian concept of human music as praise for God: "Music is a heavenly invention; if man is a musician, he is so for a revelation of the Holy Spirit." ([8], vol. LVI, p. 98). These are challenging words: "a revelation of the Holy Spirit" is a definition normally reserved for things other than music.

<sup>1</sup> Also the 15th-century philosopher John Ireland used the musical metaphor to symbolise God's creative activity and his relationship with creation; they were comparable, in his opinion, to those between a composer and his musical work (*cf.* [11], p. 66; *cf.* however [12], p. 233).

**43** 

In recent times, these subjects have been interestingly treated by Christian theologians. Ratzinger underlines the Trinitarian value of liturgical music. Since it has a verbal text, it is rooted within the Easter Mystery, and in the divine revelation given to us by Scripture: "There is a clear sovereignty of the word, which is a higher mode of preaching. […] To refer to the *Logos* means, therefore, to refer primarily to the word" ([13], pp. 44–45). In consequence, it participates both in the mystery of Christ's *kenosis* and in the Easter joy; moreover, it is a gift of the Spirit of Love in his action, in communion with the Logos ([13], p. 45).

Hart analyses what Bach's music reveals about his creative activity and process to make it a symbol of the divine creativity in a Trinitarian sense. Bach's music demonstrates the possibility of a diversity intrinsic to unity ([14], pp. 282–85), of a creation which implies acceptance (*cf.* [15], chapter 5), of the virtual boundlessness of thematic development ([16], p. 469) and of the simultaneous presence of radical openness with an equally radical consistency: although no first-time hearer can anticipate how a work by Bach will progress and develop, nonetheless it strikes us for the impression of cogency and consequentiality we feel (*cf.* [14], p. 277). According to Hart, awareness of these realities can lead us to a deeper "Trinitarian" understanding of Creation: its variety and diversity are the "logical" consequence of the inherence of diversity to divine Triunity. The Creation is not reducible to an abstract plan, but is rather a gift of love; finally, the seeming unlimitedness of Creation's possible development is a testimony of the infinity of the Trinitarian love.

Commenting upon Hart's statements, Begbie observes that they mirror a vision of the creature/Creator relationship as "a cosmos that reflects and shares in the life and love of a Triune God." ([17], p. 137). Furthermore, as Horne points out, it is precisely within a *Trinitarian* concept of creation that human creativity is not in competition with that of God, but rather a participation in communion with it ([18], p. 8ff). Through the Incarnation, the eternal dialogue of Father and Son is transferred into the world of created matter; artistic creation, being a creative response to the creating love, becomes necessary, even unavoidable, in the Spirit.

Also for Jenson, Trinitarian communion is "a song", within which man is "driven", and in which, by Grace, he is called to participate. It is not for a simple love for decoration that the Church promotes beauty in preaching and liturgy: "A congregation singing a hymn of praise to the Father is doubling the Son's praise, and the surge of rhythm and melody is the surge of the Spirit's glorification of the Father and the Son" ([19], p. 235)2 .

Indeed, liturgy is primarily to receive God in one's personal and communitarian life (*cf.* Rev. 3:20). In consequence, the dimension of relationship with God (and through this, with the ecclesial and human community), becomes almost a *cantus firmus* unifying the different modes of realization of liturgy itself. Regardless of the difference in Christian confessions, musical styles, historic periods or geographical collocations, it is always the Spirit who is the true *cantus firmus* of liturgical action, as he directly and constantly arouses the Church's praise ([4], p. 109).

<sup>2</sup> This concept is also present in Hildegard von Bingen. She expounds on the subject, particularly as it concerns the human participation in the Trinity's liturgy of love. For her, music is a primary gift of God, essentially connected with the life-giving Spirit. Through sin, mankind loses the possibility of "tuning itself" with the cosmic praise of the "spirits" (*cf.* [20], lines 99–101, 68–69, 71–75, 84–94).

Liturgy is therefore rooted in, built upon, and caused by God's love, the reciprocal love of Father and Son. The presence of this *cantus*, thus, is not only an element of union among the different forms of liturgy and prayer, but also a vehicle through which liturgy itself is inserted within the Trinity's dynamic of reciprocal love and praise.

#### **3. The Harmony of Creation, the Harmony of the Creator**

In Greek theory and philosophy, since music is an expression of order and harmony, it is analogous with the harmony of nature, and is sympathetic with it. For Christians, the harmony of creation mirrors the Creator (*cf.* Wisdom 19:18), whose Triune nature is the perfect expression of harmony and the model of all created harmony. In the wake of Pythagorean physics and philosophy, in the ancient world an interval's degree of consonance was in proportion to the simplicity of their frequency ratio (thus the octave, 2:1, and the fifth, 3:2, were extremely consonant, whereas the third and the sixth were not).

From the one side, Augustine points out that rhythm and measure (which are the fruits of the Logos' divine wisdom) are fundamental for music ([10], p. 53; [21], p. 45). From the other, concordance and harmony, both in music and in creation, are icons of the perfect concord realized in Trinitarian life ([22], p. 235; [23], p. 9). Summarizing the history of liturgical music, Ratzinger underlines the deep communion between Logos and Spirit: "The mathematics of the universe […] has a deeper foundation: the mind of the Creator. It comes from the *Logos*, in whom, so to speak, the archetypes of the world's order are contained. The *Logos*, through the Spirit, fashions the material world according to these archetypes. […] The *Logos* Himself is the great artist, in whom all works of art [and] the beauty of the universe have their origin" [24]. This concept has something in common with Balthasar's, for whom music allows us to draw on the logic of creation, or, better, to the Logos through Whom the universe exists ([25], p. 47).

Returning to the time when these concepts were defined, in the Middle Ages a special mention is reserved for John Scotus Eriugena, who proposed an analogy between the harmony of the cosmos and musical harmony, with a reference to what has been often interpreted as polyphony (in [26], vol. 122, pp. 637–38; cf. [27]). It can be said that the idea according to which musical harmony (in the broadest sense) mirrors the harmony of the cosmos is a consequence of what we are discussing here: *i.e.*, that the Trinitarian harmony/polyphony is the model of all musical harmony/polyphony; and that music, in turn, may symbolize it much less inadequately than other languages.

Monodic Christian singing thus becomes a powerful experiential icon and a vehicle of communion with Trinitarian life; it unifies and creates, both in image and in act, a concord, which is apparent in sounds but is generated in souls. This is the viewpoint of Hildegard von Bingen, for whom the creation's accomplishment is the resonance of the harmony of human praise in God. Creation thus finds its authentic and deep meaning when there is harmony between humankind and cosmos, whereas man finds his sense (*i.e.*, that of a creature similar to God) through the harmony between his own praise and that of the angels. Music touches the listener, awakening his nostalgia for the heavenly fatherland. Listening to a "symphony" (a "concord" music) generates a resonance in men, since "anima hominis symphonia in se habet et symphonizans est" ([28], p. 13, 202 *etc*.) and "symphonalis est anima" ([20], line 141; *cf.* [29]).

For Hildegard, the re-establishment of the "symphony" is a gift of Grace as well as the result of human efforts: the musical "sym-phony" is, at the same time, an image as well as an operating reality of the soul's concord. In the life of her monastic community, she states, this "symphony" of the voices is a "process": voices "tuning" with each other and with the angels praise, hears "tuning" with each other in the reciprocal communion, and in communion with creation and with God (*cf.* [29], pp. 4–5; *cf.* [20], lines 126–28). This concept was also held by the 13th-century poet Pierre de Peckham: for him there was an analogy between the "concord" vibration of three harp strings and the Trinity (*cf.* [30], p. 53).

#### **4. God: The Lord of Time**

In the 14th century, the extraordinary development of written polyphonic sacred music begins, producing works of immense contrapuntal complexity, composed at first in the Flanders and Burgundy, and later throughout Europe3 . Here, the connections between music theory and theology emerge both at the level of polyphony *in se* and that concerning its technical requirements: in order to coordinate the evolution of melodic lines whose degree of complexity and reciprocal liberty was ever increasing, it became necessary to notate, codify and organize the musical tempo, through the introduction of the notions of *color* and *talea*.

The rhythmic theory of the late Middle Ages had been elaborated by the School of Notre Dame through the creation of rhythmical "modes", inspired by the melodic modes, which were based on different subdivisions of one (or two) ternary tempo units (*cf.* [31], p. 56. As concerns mode III, however, *cf.* [32], pp. 319–20). Notwithstanding this, according to Walter de Odington, a monk from Evesham by Worcester, the first *organa* (sacred two-part works) frequently adopted binary rhythms; however, he believed that the later establishment of a system of ternary subdivisions was indebted to the idea of three being the perfect number, in homage to the Trinity (quoted in [33], vol. 1, p. 235; *cf.* [34], p. 96). Historical research has shown that, contrary to Odington's belief, the first *organa* were unmeasured, and that their rhythmical organization was determined by the prosodic and metrical structure of the sung text). Reference to the Trinity in ternary rhythmic subdivisions is particularly clear in Johannes de Anagnia's treatise on the mensuration system ([35], especially pp. 16–24 and

<sup>3</sup> A few very short terminological and aesthetical clarifications. By "polyphony" we mean the simultaneous production of two or more melodic lines, the "voices", with their own independent consistency, which combine with one another according to contrapuntal laws. "Imitation" is the quotation of a voice's motif or musical phrase by another, with a temporal gap. When the quotation is literal, with all intervals identical to the original and by complete sections, we have a "canon". Many polyphonic works are on *cantus firmus*. This is a melody, often taken from the Gregorian repertoire, which is performed, in long notes, by one of the voice, and to which all the others relate. It is, so to say, the foundation of the contrapuntal building. The polyphony's "dimension" is prevailingly "horizontal", in reference to the graphic/notational conventions, precisely since the aesthetic evaluation of a contrapuntal work takes into account, *in primis*, both the lines' beauty and their interplay on the "long distance"; on the other hand, harmony is rather "vertical" and proceeds by instants. Polyphonic processes allow the coexistence of intervals which can sometimes be very dissonant, but which are not felt as disagreeable since the relative independence of the parts is perceived as a "guarantee" of their eventual ending on consonant intervals: it is a symbolic game of anticipation, similar to the narrative schemes of comedy or whodunit criminal novels.

39). It was Philippe de Vitry who later codified and generalized a rhythmic system which favored the "perfect" ternary subdivisions to that of the binary: perfect or imperfect *modes*, depending on the kind of *longa*; perfect or imperfect *tempi*, following the division of the *brevis*; "major" (perfect) and "minor" *prolationes* depending on the *semibrevis*' subdivision.

As summarised by Reese, within the process of the theoretical codification of musical rhythm, the nature of rhythm nature began to be understood as ternary, closely linked to the concept of perfection ([36], pp. 302–03). The thirteenth-century theorist Franco of Cologne (doc. 1250–1280), whose *Ars Cantus Mensurabilis* (*cf.* [33], vol. 1, pp. 117ff.) enjoyed an immense success during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, established that the *longa perfecta* was the principal tempo unit; this view contrasted with that of Johannes de Garlandia, for whom the *longa perfecta* was a composite unit, made of a *longa imperfecta* and a *brevis*. Since then, as Busse Berger maintains, "the ternary division of the perfect long, which he associated with the Holy Trinity, was to become the basic mensuration unit in French music theory" ([37], p. 632). The ternary subdivision thus becomes a "theologized" tempo (Rainoldi), in consequence of the reference to the Trinity ([4], p. 268). Similarly, Blankenburg states that the proportions of *color* and *talea* in the isorhythmic motets of the Ars Nova were conceived as the microcosmic image of the macrocosmic order established by God ([38], col. 1973; *cf.* Johannes de Muris, in [39], pp. 67 and 71).

The ternary nature of music is thus molded upon the Trinitarian model: although a similar concept was not always expressed in similar words, as Leaver points out ([40], p. 98), the common interpretation of the Patristic texts on this subject was in conformity with the synthesis made by Johannes de Muris.
