2.13.7. Lament

The Psalms of the Old Testament, which undergird Christian singing are full of laments, and the word "psalm" itself means a "song sung to the harp." The priestly class of Temple singers called Levites were likely deputed in part to sing laments ([66], p. 105), and the functions of the vocalizations related to laments all have resonant musical or proto-musical characteristics: to call or raise the voice, to cry, to groan or scream or moan, to shout and yell, and to cry for help ([67], pp. 16–18). However, for Israel, whose spirituality informs Christian spirituality, "life (meaning life in its fullness) . . . is virtually synonymous with praise" ([68], p. 6), laments move to praise ([68], pp. 2, 7, and throughout), and lament has the capacity to strike one dumb ([68], p. 177). This means the musical outcome of lament can be both wild and muted.

When one deals with spirituality and music, therefore, it is probably not surprising that lament is not front-and-center. It is there, to be sure, but always pressing with less than ordered proto-musical wails or just under the surface with quietly repressed sobs. It finds ordered liturgical communal and individual expression as a people lives through its horrors and gives shape and meaning to them in the light of God's grace which drives to praise.

#### 2.13.8. Music after the Second Vatican Council in the Twentieth Century

The Second Vatican Council affirmed the same ideals (chant and Palestrina) that Pius X affirmed, but it also, along with many Protestant bodies, affirmed a move toward enculturation—a move that included the vernacular instead of Latin and with vernacular popular musical styles. This set in motion a dispute within the Roman Catholic Church which has yet to be resolved [69] and which has been and still is being played out in parallel forms across Protestant churches.

At its best, this dispute has not been a dispute, but has yielded a wide musical feast of old and new (or what may seem both old and new) in which congregations and choirs sing a remarkably wide range of styles that grow out of a potently ecumenical and "catholic" spirituality. It stands before God, revels in the kaleidoscopic richness of the church's heritage, and lets Word and sacraments lead musically where they will. Congregations with this perspective often sing around Word, font, and table together in one single weekly Sunday gathering like the Eastern Orthodox Church. There are exceptions where congregations sponsor multiple services in different styles, but still live together in peace toward the world they are called to serve.

At its worst, this dispute has bitterly pitted congregations against themselves and against one another in "traditional" and "alternative" services. In Roman Catholic versions, Latin masses with Gregorian chant are lined up against vernacular ones in "popular" musical styles with arguments about the validity of hymns. In Protestant versions, "traditional" musical styles are set against "popular" ones with the curiosities that some "alternative" services are more "traditional" in their structures than "traditional" ones, and that none of the music called "contemporary" employs tone clusters, aleatory or twelve tone techniques, or similar contemporary characteristics. Warring spiritualities may be seen to drive this dispute, but they sometimes, in Morris's words, seem to have travelled to the dark side, abandoning spirituality altogether.

### *2.14. Spirituality and Musicians*

A note needs to be included about musicians themselves. Christopher Page points to the "spirituality and erudition a ninth century cantor might possess" (including hospitality in that context) ([9], pp. 352–53). Timothy Tikker has discussed organ playing as a spiritual discipline [70], and Luther Seminary MSM student Andrew Birling played "An Organist's Evensong," which was a profoundly congregational service while at the same time highlighting the organist's spirituality. The cover of Birling's program gave a visual cue. It printed the painting "Evensong" by the nineteenth century painter John Melhuish Strudwick, which pictures an organ, organist, and singers in the church making music at Evensong [71]. Some of the most profound spirituality has been exhibited by church musicians throughout the church's history in connection with their musical craft and its practice.

Its practice has included composition—much of it. As Swain says, "For centuries now the church has owned a repertory of masterworks that is by far the greatest of any institution, nation, people, or religion in the world" ([32], p. 6). That repertory includes the exquisite ethereal craft of Palestrina, the cantatas of J.S. Bach whom Robert Shaw said may be the "single greatest creative genius" of the Western world [72], the *B Minor Mass*, which Shaw suggested may be Bach's "greatest achievement" [72], the music of the catholic mystic Olivier Messiaen, and in some accounts what stands alongside or outside the Christian stream, such as Franz Schubert's *An die Musik*, which Bowden ranks "among the world's greatest prayers of thanksgiving" ([5], p. 272).

Masterworks are not the only compositional part of the church's repertory. The congregational piece has little-known or anonymous composers of remarkable miniatures that include black spirituals, shape-note tunes, chorale tunes, Genevan psalm tunes, nineteenth century Anglican ones, chant tunes, service music, and a host of similar pieces in multiple styles from multiple ethnicities.

#### **3. Conclusion: Another Paradox**

The nature of the repertoire is not a simple matter, however. Though Johannes Brahms knew as much or more about the Bible than most clergy, and though Ralph Vaughan Williams edited *The English Hymnal* (1906) and wrote fine hymn tunes, these two are among the church's composers who regarded themselves as agnostics or atheists. In his *German Requiem*, Brahms included a potent setting of "But yet the Lord's word endureth forevermore," and Vaughan Williams compellingly set "O taste and see how gracious the Lord is; blest is the man that trusteth in him." These are but two examples from many such pieces that the church loves and sings with faithful devotion in service music at worship and welcomes in oratorios. What are we to make of this? Is it possible for an authentic spirituality to be expressed in music by composers who presumably do not possess it?

Whether they possess it or not is a mystery. They may be put off by the church's hypocrisy, refuse therefore to express any spirituality publically, internally find it present, and express it in their music. That cannot be determined. It is a secret matter in the heart of the composer, conscious or unconscious. As far as the music itself is concerned, however, the question is irrelevant. The church decided long ago that Donatism is wrong and that the immorality, non-belief, heresy, or whatever of the clergy does not affect the truth of the Word they preach or the validity of the sacraments at which they preside. Similarly, spirituality or its absence in composers does not affect the validity of their

compositions. Whether they secretly in their composing are making a confessional statement is also irrelevant. That is, spirituality in the Christian vision transcends human cognitive capacities, and what human beings compose takes on a life of its own apart from the intentions of the person who composed it.

### **Conflicts of Interest**

The author declares no conflict of interest.

### **References and Notes**

